First-timers due December - new thread!

[mopsytop]

Had to start a new thread, as our old one got too big to post anymore.
yay figgy - your scan sounds great! A wee boy - now you only have to think about boy names. Woohoo.

Kri5ty... Haha... I guess jemima is better than Vjayjay :)

oimissus I know what u mean, at the bank all my collegues are male and it always been being one of the boys. However, I went to this amazing inter bank seminar (sounds wanky I know) about politics at work and glass ceilings etc. The main theme was that women have different strengths and males have different weaknesses and that playing one of the boys isn't as advantageous as it seems because it means we are not playing to our strengths. Besides, after the baby I can't be one of the boys coz i can't have late night drinks etc so I might as well work on playing a new game plan that gets me ahead. Who wants to be one of the boys when you know you can be better

Apologies for repeating this from the other thread, but...
The owners accepted the offer!!!

I stuck to my guns, and the price without budging, and after a few phonecalls, thay have said Yes!!
Now I've got to start with solicitors and banks, and valuations, and... They'd better be good, amenable and QUICK!

Hurrah hurrah hurrah! Springfield will soon be mine!
Very giddy and excited about the new house, - please please let this all go smoothly!!!! and please please let me move house and not go into labour on the same day!!!

OI that is fantastic, fantastic news! Very pleased for you!!
Moving is mental but fun, hope everything gets moving really quickly for you and you get a super quick exchange and completion. How nice to have a long term project going on (aside from creating and maintaining a beautiful human being) :)
I have just found out that work continue to pay people on a sales plan at 100% attainment for 6 months (whether or not your revenue actually exceeds budget) - I might cry with joy, it makes the next year so much more manageable.
Good news all round.
Question on hypnobirthing, esp for Honey if she is around anywhere or anyone else thats giving it a go. I have pretty much resigned myself to having an epidural at some stage and will be using hypnobirthing to get through 1st stage of labour in a mellow manner. Do you think this is a contradiction and won't work as I am giving my poor brain conflicting messages ie. "Everything will be lovely and floaty until I can get my paws on the hard stuff". I just wish I could get myself more invested in it somehow....

jo I'm hoping for a birth pool at hospital, and am trying the relaxation techniques/pain management techniques from the Natal Hypnotherapy CD. I am hoping that the pool will be enough of a pain relief to dissuade me from wanting an epidural. But I'm not going to give myself any rules or pre-conceived notions - I don't want to feel disappointed in myself should I go for an epidural, or if things don't go to plan and a CS is needed. I don't think that I'll be able to get very far with the hypnosis, I'm too cynical maybe, I don't know, but I can't quite shut down my brain to truly go with it. I'm playing it every night as I go to bed, hoping that it'll start to become second nature and the message gets through before the birth. We'll see.
Why have you resigned yourself to an epidural? I can see what you mean about conflicting messages. And I don't have the answer.
I'm the opposite, I'm not expecting to have an epidural. I don't want to be on my back. ...but will keep my options open. Gas and air, please!

jomouse I am giving hypnobirthing a go too. I do think you may be giving yourself mixed messages. Why not instead think "I am going to work with my body and do everything i can to have a happy, relaxed and calm birth." Stop thinking about whether or not u will need pain relief or not because u don't need to decide now and u have no idea what is gonna end up happening.

I am going to try my best to stay relaxed, focussed, calm and keep doing the sleep and slow breathing and visualisations with DH help during the first stage. Then I am gonna go with the flow... If it is calm and natural fantastic and if not then so be it.

To get more invested I would suggest watching some utube videos of hypnobirths. Seeing really is believing. Second try listening and repeating the affirmations multiple times daily...I.e. Fake it till you make it.

Lastly don't forget... The most important things is not how you do it but as long as u and the baby are healthy at the end of it :)

Yayyy oi its gorgeous too!! Well done sticking to your guns, they were (or estate agents were) blatantly trying to play you for more money!

I'm glad Jemima has made you all smile!!

I'm having an early epidural when I go to hospital, but I plan on trying to use relaxation techniques and tens machine whilst I'm at home in the early stages x

Woohoo! Nice one Oi - how exciting!

I've calmed down now must have been the breathing exercises at antenatal that did it. Thanks ladies.

Congrats on the house offer going through must be a weight off!!

I might have found a yoga class for the last few weeks and it's a stones throw from the house can't believe I've never found it before.

On the epidural thing I had been 100% convinced I was having 1 the minute I got thru the hospital doors but started to waiver recently as don't ideally want to be flat on my back legs akimbo. I might just push on with gas and air as long as I can so i can remain mobile and hopefully it won't be as bad as I'm expecting.

I am taking a very wait-and-see attitude to the birth and drugs. I would like to get by on gas and air and birthing pool but as I have no idea what labour will be like will just wait and see how I get on. I don't particularly want to be stuck lying down and would like to be mobile, so will definitely try and hold off on an epidural for as long as possible though. I don't want to make any firm plans or have fixed ideas because I don't want to then feel bad if it doesn't go to plan. My birth plan is going to be stay as mobile as I possibly can, use the birthing pool if I can also, take as few drugs as I can, but basically just get the baby out by whatever means I need on the day.

Wow you've all been busy- did anyone get any work done today?! I take it people have spangly i-phone do-dahs that let them post whilst on the move? I can't post at work which is sooo annoying, as I don't have one of said do-dahs and posting on sites is not exactly sackable, but in my line of work both forbidden and potentially misconduct. Totally that I can't join in.

Anyhoo, I make that three innies, two outies (loved the comment about the little nose sticking out, that made me laugh HLC) and a flattie...so far.

kri5ty I can just imagine baby emerging and its first sight being your glorious mohican, best entrance ever!

figgy, massive sympathy for the work stuff, I do know how you feel, and really hope tomorrow is better. There is sod all anyone can do, but I know the horror when you're a very methodical person and someone else screws up and it bounces back on you: it's just the worst, and you can't scream 'but it's THEIR fault', much as you want to.
And for you and lala, the rellies issue sounds like a minefield. You're both very brave- I've gone the other way and banned everyone for a fortnight (mainly because the parents would only be able to visit at vast expense, difficulty, and the hiring of a carer) so this just makes it easier all round, if not popular.

Will try to bob back later and catch up more!

jomouse sorry I wasn't around to answer yesterday, had a stressful evening :( but I think you've been given some very good advice. I would reiterate lala's point about watching hypnobirths...this REALLY helped me to visualise the type of birth that I could have. And you can have too, these women aren't anything special, they're just like you & me so why shouldn't we have calm, relaxed births? I found this birth story really inspirational Nancy's Birth Diary

As for giving yourself conflicting messages I would say yes, you are. Sorry. But it's unnecessary too; I am 100% convinced that I will have a low intervention home hypnobirth. I'm fully aware of all the reasons that this is possible but I am not bloody-minded about it. I am open to a change of plans if it becomes necessary & because it's part of my plan to be open to change there will be no blame or disappointment. I have researched all the pain relief drugs available & I know which ones I would & would not accept. I don't think if you're using hypnobirthing it's a good idea to be thinking I will have an epidural when the pain gets too bad you have to have confidence in your body & this seems to undermine it to me. You should be thinking I am open to an epidural if it becomes necessary but my body is perfectly capable of birthing without one

Btw, are you practising every day? From my research the only secret to making hypnosis in labour work for you is lots & lots of practice...even if that's just listening to the cd when you go to bed.

Thanks all for your sage advice.
I definately need to have a word with myself (and my rebellious, over-analytic brain) as it doesn't make sense to have given up before I have started or as lala said before we even know what our bodies and brains are capable of.

Honey - link is super useful. how amazing would that be? Sorry to hear about family news, I'm not surprised you're upset and angry :(
Practicing (cd) dailys well as seeing a hynobirthing/reflexologist weekly. I think belief in myself and my body is going to be key to making a success of this.

What a great video! Shouldn't be watching it at work - but it is inspirational. had to work really hard at holding back the tears! Thanks. Shall show it to DH when he comes home. :)

jomouse sounds like you're doing everything you should be; I have absolute faith in you not needing an epidural but if you want one then you know you can so you don't need to think about it any more. I was cynical but hopeful when I started with all this hypno stuff. To be honest I thought it might have been a big con but after watching a ton of births & reading loads of positive birth stories (Ina May's books are really great for this) I know that it's not unattainable you just have to work hard to get what you want.

There was this thread on mumsnet regarding "whether you should tell someone who is pregnant the truth about labour" and there were some serious horror stories on there. But then - there were a few people who said that they didn't know what the big deal was coz the baby just "slipped out"

So I think the moral of the story is - who knows... keep an open mind... be flexible and remember the goal of this all is not to have a perfect birth just a perfect lil baby :)

Northern... I just spend my day at work on mumsnet... better on a big screen than on a lil phone... How professional of me

So how's it going Oi, is everything still progressing well with the house? We had some horrors buying ours- can you imagine the estate agents actually calling up and cancelling our mortgage application with the bank so that someone else could buy the house we'd fixed on - but when it's all agreed it's so good. Hope you don't knacker yourself out though, I totally underestimated how exhausting moving would be.

HLC- very pleased your scan was good news and you get your homebirth. I've had my ELCS agreed to as well, so I'm delighted I'll be getting the birth that I want. So I now know that he'll be born on the 12th, early arrival excepting (and it is NOT allowed to snow that week- we get some of the worst in England and live up a hill).

I just hope that everyone has a decent experience, and as lala says ends up with a happy baby at the end of it! There was another thread about women feeling like they'd 'failed' at giving birth (my friend's sis was the same) and I really feel sorry for women in that position.

How's it going with relatives coming to stay issue ladies?

And tbh lala, I would if I could too!

I sorted out a solicitor this morning, so it can all start. I called the bank to apply for the mortgage - quite annoying really - we went a few mths ago, and took all paperwork, spent an hour or so there, told no problem. And now we have to do it all again,only this time more info required.
Am going to spend the evening looking for decor ideas for the noo house.

It is bloody irritating at the moment- whereas five years ago they were throwing cash at any Tom, Dick or Harry, banks now want something carved in triplicate from God to say that you're credit worthy (unlike them...). My colleague at work has been going through the same thing, despite her and her partner's sizeable joint income, relatively secure jobs in a good sector, etc.

But the decor bit is the best! Any plans for magnificent nurseries like others in our group?

Exactly! And I'm using my bank!! I've been with them since 7 yrs. They know my savings/income/bonus history!
Nursery- I went for the dark oak ocean furniture from M&P - with this house in mind. going to do Walls neutral cream, I think. So the theme will be all the dressing... Not sure what yet.

We've got pirates and jungles on this thread, both a bit fab how about you!

(7 yrs old that is!)

That furniture is gorgeous Oi! I wish I could afford stuff like that, but I chose to go back and do a PhD and leave my well-paid job so I can't complain! I will be buying the cheapest cot in the shop :) It will look fab in that beautiful house! I think cream walls is a great idea, then you can add pictures etc. but easily update when your baby gets older without having to redecorate in a major way. You can get sticker things that are easily removable I know - my friend has them in her babies room - it's a great idea for easily removable decoration.

Well spoke to mother she said they can sleep anywhere so a bed in the conservatory will be fine for them!!! Eventually said they could stay somewhere else so HAve asked for quotes for nearby guesthouses.

Start pregnancy yoga tomorrow anyone else doing classes?

figgy good news about your parents eventually cracking on!
And yes mopsy Gingerbaby has been massively indulged on the furniture front. Very silly really. (But it is beautiful, and will look amazing in the house!) I have never spent that much on furniture for myself. It'll be the nicest room in the house for the first couple of years, I think. - I did get 35% off the price though, and free delivery - which is still silly, but not as silly as it could have been.