March 2013 VIII: feeling kicks, comparing knits and halfway there

[theTramp]

Old thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/antenatal_clubs/1588951-March-2013-VII-Our-little-pumpkins-are-getting-fatter?msgid=35174657#thread

myjob I had 9 years between dd2 & dd3!

Yay to sundae! Great news!

myjob I hope your cold goes soon. It's so miserable being under the weather at the best of times, nevermind when pregnant.

I had a bizarre dream last night... I gave birth to an 8lb 4oz boy who had 6 teeth and could walk and I was really upset that I'd missed the completely dependent newborn stage. I also had a pain free natural birth (when in reality I'll be having an elective section...) and was told when on the ward by the midwife (who was the woman who owned our house before us and is definitely NOT a midwife..!?) that I could go home now. All very very strange.

Myjob - there's 4.5 years between me and my baby bro. Not that he's much of a baby these days (see Superman on FB).

Flowery - beans on toast is indeed very nutritious and honest to goodness my favourite fast food. However I did giggle, sorry. You have had it 4 days in the row now and are suffernig from trapped wind... anyone? Anyone? Just me then. (giggles childishly).

I think all you coke drinkers are mad. Vile stuff. But I appear to be in minority group of people on the planet in not liking coke. Tonic water however, now you're talking.

Dame - chuckle. I knew what you meant! I'm not good with fajitas and things. I'm not capable of coping with spices, unless it is so mild that you genuinely wouldn't be able to taste that it was in there. So tend to avoid anything that should have spice in it, even though I could make a non spice version. I appreciate that this makes no sense at all.

So Socs heart was merrilly thumping away at MW check today. My heart also fine apparently (well blood pressure) and everything that they check for in your urine sample also all a-ok, so PHEW! Hospital admin fck up again, seems GTT test, which has apparently been booked for 4 Jan, hasn't been (sigh). So that needs to be sorted. And she was very supportive of pregnancy massage. She thinks NHS should provide them, vital for Mums to be in her view. So I feel a wee bit less guilty now about the fact that I am having them. I have no need to be guilty of course and it is cheaper than a couple of good bottles of wine at the pub, but for some reason it feels more indulgent than it does necessary. Make sense? Just me? OK then.

I am now off for potato waffles, melted cheese and baked beans AND IT IS ALL YOUSE LOTS FAULT! :)

Tramp I have my gtt on the 2nd of Jan, Iam going to make sure I have a good book with me

Myjobis This is my 4th and my baby turned 6 yesterday, so I'll have a 6 and half year gap (crap seems longer written down) dd1 to ds was 2.6 and ds was 3.2 when dd2 came along. Although I am relishing the idea of having this wee baby all to myself all day as before I would have always had to lift a sleeping baby twice a day to do school runs, one of mine was always at nursery then a proper school pick up.

Possom I have those weird pregancy dreams, normally closer to the time, I did have 1 a while back that I will blame Zoey on I hadn't seen the baby and I was livid, nobody would tell me what it was and I didn't get to see it until it was 2 weeks old and I thought it wouldn't know I was its mum! When I did see the baby it had all these teeth and bit me. I think I had dream just after we discussed Zoeys SILs

Sheldonella don't look and live in ignorant bliss that you have escaped them.

Sundae why 95%, Yey for good scan, Is it just hospital policy that they won't say for definite?

Apparently there is always a chance with girls that they are boys, unless you see a willy it is never 100% according to this sonographer! TBH they don't spend ages looking, but she said she was pretty certain.

Sundae fab news about your scan, especially after all your worries. 95% sounds pretty certain?! although we were told 99% & I still don't believe it!

Yummy food ideas on here. I love cheese with everything. Whilst the builders are here I have been buying the Innocent Veg pots which you can microwave.They are a tasty lunch and contain 3 of your 5 a day so nutritionally good too.

Sheldon well done for being so organised with nurseries. The ones around here have crazy waiting lists so you are being very sensible. It's like that with schools here too and you have to register at birth or miss out! I think you should be given a handbook when pregnant of things you need to do as soon as your baby is born! Far more useful than the stuff they tell you at NCT classes!

Hope everyone else is Ok. I have had a quiet day movement wise too which is always a little worrying. Going to do some poking now to see if that wakes her up!

I have a rescan next week but my hospital won't say but I'm going to have a really good look again (even though I AM team yellow)

Tramp can't stop laughing at myself now, amazed I didn't see the connection. Had been havin gbeans and cheese on toast for breakfast some days and lunch other days. Gave it a miss today! Might make spag bol with veg mince instead of lentils later...

We need to get DS name down for nursery for when he starts getting the free vouchers. Oh heck.

Just back from my mega 3 hour appointment at the hospital. Heard both heartbeats with the midwife, which was tops. My thyroid has dipped down into underactivity again so am now on low dose meds for that. Consultant 1 slightly concerned am drinking 2 pints of water overnight so test for that, plus the usual full raft of bloods. Annoyingly, the hospital where I had my surgery 15 years ago has not responded to Consultant 2's letter (sent two months ago!!!) about what exactly went wrong during the termination, necessitating full emergency surgery 12 hours later, so I still don't know if I'll definitely need CS or not. Consultant said not to worry as they will chase them and they don't really need to know till 30 weeks. Back in 4 weeks for growth scan and to see how thyroid is behaving. Before that have cervix scan on Thursday, yippee. Oh, and in other news, hospital midwife gave me my Mat 1B form so now I just have to figure out what to do with it. Also I've put on 5.5kg in the last 6 weeks (at which point I was roughly what I was at start of pregnancy) - that doesn't seem too bad for twins? Seem to be carrying it all in the bump, anyway, so it must be fine! That hospital is starting to feel like my second home!

Possom v. funny re stretch mark that never was!

Tramp with you on the Coke thing!

Sundae hurray!

Eig the FB group is definitely secret! PM me your details and I can add you if someone hasn't already! (Sorry, just catching up with news from Sunday!)

Anyone else interested in the FB group? (Sorry if I've missed anyone/any requests!)

Well done on the house purchase Tea!

Ood hope DH finds a way to make up his hours. I guess you could do without the stress with baby on the way. Good luck!

Turkish sounds like that psych food specialist appt was really good. I think the main thing is to be forewarned of everything that might go a bit wonky, and then you and DH know how to deal with it. I'm worried about PND (have history of depression) but DH and I have watched a few programmes / news reports about it recently and so he's aware of it and I'm pretty damn good at asking for help if I think I need it. I just hope that PND is the kind of depression where you are able to see wood for trees sufficiently to realise you need help. FX it will be okay for you. Sounds like you have good support system around you.

Will definitely have a bath in a bit! The kicks are coming thick and fast now (after the worries of last week!) and all over the place - top bottom left and right! Busy little things!

Em, me too with the hormones! Little old lady dropped her shopping pad in a shop the other day. DH and I paused to see if she would be okay, but she didn't seem to be, so he went over, said 'Excuse me, let me get that for you' in the most gentlemanly way and I could not stop crying - ridiculous!! He thought it was sooo funny! You've had some great suggestions re quick teas. I've got a few 20-minute teas stored up. Will post separately.

Still so happy for you Stealth. Hope you've managed to sleep off the worry (I always sleep well when have been worried then got good news).

Zoey your boss is a knob!

Sounds like you've had good advice re breast bump, Lexi. I wouldn't get one off eBay but SiL and friend have offered me theirs and I'd be okay with that. But it's a personal thing so whatever feels right for you is totally okay! If BF works out then I think I'll def need a pump so that I can leave a feed to DH and actually get some sleep! I read the best thing with twins is to make them feed at same time, even if one's asleep, else you will never be able to rest!

JoJo how did the room move etc work out? I saw an owl cushion in Cargo the other day and thought of you! Am wearing my polka dot number today and feeling fine :-)

Hope cold doesn't stay around too long myjob!

Tramp your cakes sound amazing ?sigh! Hilarious re forgetting you made it - made me chuckle!

Emus have a coffee or chocolate 20 mins before scan and baby will be v.v. energetic (in my experience anyway - I felt a bit sorry for the wee souls as they were all over the shop at last scan!) From Vegas to Barcelona - nice! Glad you got the baby scan for reassurance. I had exactly same thing last week and the hospital were ace about it.

20-minute quickie tea ideas (all vegetarian, sorry, but this makes them cheap and extra quick!):

1) cheesy mushroom omelette with beans
Easy peasy. Gently fry onion, mushrooms, garlic. Add egg and milk mixture. Before it sets put in some greens (e.g. broccoli cut up into little trees, or green beans). Season with black pepper. Add tons of cheese on top, stick under grill, and get the beans on!

2) butternut squash soup
Gently fry onion. Cube squash, two carrots and four spuds and stick in a big pot with a few pints of veg stock. At this point add garlic, grated fresh ginger, and some chilli flakes. Cook up, on high, for 20 mins. Blast with one of those stick blenders. Add 1/3 a block of coconut. Ideally season with lemon juice and coriander (though we usually don't have any in!)

 (Other easy soup ideas: celery and potato; lentils and root veg)

3) Tomato pasta sauce
Gently fry onion and lots garlic. Add in tins of chopped toms, dash of dried herbs, black pepper, few chilli flakes, bit of veg stock, a 2 teaspoons or so of green pesto. Stick in whatever veggies you might have left over - a grated courgette is good, for example, or some broccoli, or (very lovely) some pre-roasted squash. Get pasta on and serve with cheese on top.

 (Other pasta ideas: gently fry leeks, those massive mushrooms sliced, and garlic and serve with pasta, black pepper and goat's cheese...yum!)

4) Spinach dhal
Gently fry onion and lots garlic. Add half a pack of red lentils, a sprinkling of dark green lentils if you've got and tons of veg stock. Grate in some fresh ginger (I use this a lot, but it goes off quick so I stick it in the freezer) and a few cubes of frozen spinach. Boil furiously (keep topping up with water to make sure it doesn't burn on the bottom!) and get some basmati rice on.

Oh my word I've just had the most awkward encounter with a shop assistant!! She's the first person to remark on my pregnancy and I think she was trying to ask me how much longer I had left to go, but because no one has ever mentioned it before I genuinely thought she was talking about my degree (which now I think about it - how would she know I'm a student?!) I gave the most awkward answers and then, as I realised she was talking about baby, I started tripping over my own words.. She must have thought I was a real looney!! Haha!

manda the chap is coming to view this afternoon so hopefully he will want it and i'll move into the room next door by Friday. He is desperate for a place to live and has needed somewhere for the last two weeks!!
Then will move in with my mama from December which does unfortunately mean two weeks commuting to Uni and back but 30miles isn't terribly bad and I'll have no lectures before 10am so that should take the edge off!!

All these recipes are making me feel like I have a toddler's attitude to vegetables! Courgette, celery, spinach: yuck! Most of our evening meals involve meat, potatoes and vegetables. The man has peas and sweetcorn, because he's even fussier than me. I favour broccoli, green beans, cauliflower, cabbage, that sort of thing. The meat changes from day to day, but whatever it is, we both have gravy and I have an excessive quantity of mint sauce. I've been through a whole jar of the stuff since getting home from my sister's two and a half weeks ago, so I think it qualifies as a weird pregnancy craving, as until now I'd never in my life seen anyone finish a jar of mint sauce before it went off.

Tonight we're on cheesy bacon: home made cheese sauce, bacon onion and garlic, served on pasta for him, and broccoli and green beans for me. Cheese sauce is a hell of a faff though, best avoided if it's easy meals one's after.

Ooh Manda thanks! Those meal ideas look excellent, can't wait to try them! I feel like I should post some meal ideas up as a thank you, but I'm not sure i'll inflict them on you all! It could be called 100 things to do with a Quorn frankfurter...

I had very mild PND with ds, i'm sure there are others on here who have had more experience with it. I think mine was caused by the fact that at the time we were also going through a very stressful time financially/with dh job and everything seemed very insecure. I found there were periods of time when I felt very low and tearful and sort of obsessive over certain issues, but over time the low periods became shorter, less frequent and milder, by the time ds was about 8 months old I recognised them for what they were. It certainly wasn't bad enough to put me off having another baby. I found going back to work was a big help too.

Ah yes, Stormy, my veggie recipes are not perhaps the most enticing-sounding for a carnivore BUT my DH is a carnivore and (professes, at least!) to love my cooking! Even has veggie when we go out sometimes (never used to eat veggie before me!) though I do try to insist he has a steak and ale pie or whatever to make up for it!

We have roast dinner on a Sunday when we have time and it's like meat version but with many more veggies instead (roast beetroot, spuds, carrots, parsnips + mash and peas) and, like you, lashings of onion gravy. I love it. Last night we had the leftovers cooked up as bubble and squeak. With mash. But no meat LOL re mint sauce fetish!

With kids I'm pretty much decided that I won't be cooking meat at home, so we'll continue to eat veggie but eat out 1-2 times per week when we'll encourage them to try a wider (i.e. meat/fish) menu. (My reasons for being veggie are not because I think everyone shd be veggie, more to do with meat industry, global food cultures and crises etc.) DH will eat meat out and so they will have his example to follow. But we think that the really important thing is not to make a big deal out of the distinction between vegetarian / carnivore. Food will just be food. I was reading a food-related thread the other day and realise that our plan may be naive in the face of kids being picky, but we'll see how we go!

JoJo that's great re room - FX it works out! Two weeks for the long commute isn't too bad, as you say. Hilarious re your shop assistant encounter!

Sorry to hear about your PND Em but it sounds like you managed it really well. I'm really open to the fact it might happen to me. I am not usually very good with change and am starting to appreciate what a very big universe shift lies ahead. Just hoping for an easy and not a bumpy ride - FX for us all!

Gosh a lot of news am never going to remember everyone!
Sundae fab news on team pink! I must admit to initially hoping for a little girl with dc4 as I have 3 boys. My mum passed away 12 years ago and when she was ill knitted me a little pink cardigan so if I ever have a little girl she could have a hug from granny. So it will have to wait in the cupboard! Still after the last week am soooo happy that I may have a healthy little boy!
Do we have any stats on boys vs girls vs team yellow??
Hilarious on the beans whoever that was!!
Empathy on food issues - I was nearly sick on the tube this morning and still want refined carbs. In fact I have just snuck out of work to the local crepe shop to satisfy a craving.
I will only have 5yrs 5 months between my 4 so no help on big age gaps!!
Sorry to hear about PND concerns and horrible registrars.
You'd think I got more sleep last night after my good news but ds1 woke me at 5 as his teddies had fallen out of bed, then had a tantrum when I tried to pick them up - he just wanted me to shine the torch at them so he could get them. Hd then got up again at 6 for a wee and decided to sing outside ds3 bedroom and wake him up!!!! Oh well!!! We do still have to wait another 2 weeks for full chromosomal test results (for lots of other things) so not totally in the clear yet but such a big relief!!!
Sorry for not name checking am on my phone!!

Manda hope I didn't sound too negative, I wanted to let you know there is light at the end of the tunnel. I was lucky, it was mild I still managed to maintain a normal life, see my friends etc I don't think your plans re diet are naive at all. I love eating out with ds, even from a young age because he was able to pick off everyone's plates and try loads of new foods out. He is a dream in restaurants now and a really good eater. My friend who has twins also found they will spur each other on to eat - so if one twin eats something, the other wants it too!

Jojo sorry, giggling at your shop assistant encounter, that is exactly the kind of thing I would do too!

Stealth that is so sweet re the cardigan your mother knitted for a little girl. (Almost feeling teary actually) Maybe for a granddaughter if you don't ever have one yourself. Also, sorry but i'm smiling a bit at your ds1, only because that reminds me of something my own ds would do. Funny little people! Yum to crepes...

Strealth that is such a lovely story about the cardigan. The singing v loudly to wake siblings is something my boys would do!

I will have 6.5 years between my boys do no advice on larger gap. I think it must be nice to have the school days with just your baby though! Although maybe more of a shock going back to broken nights and nappies? (Although all of mine seem to take it in turns to wake up for various spurious reasons so do you ever get proper sleep again?!)

Manda you might be lucky with non-picky eaters. My first two were/are fussy but ds3 will eat anything, olives, feta, lentils, pulses etc.. Always eats his veggies before anything else & asks for more. He's a total revelation after two fussy ones!

JoJo hope the chap takes the room.

Better go & collect ds1 from school. Currently sheltering in the car from the rain but need to make a dash for it. Hope the other scan goes well this afternoon

Oh fussy eaters.. well as I am a fussy eater (vegetarian because I don't like the taste of meat & fish, apart from tuna which has to be well done or I remember its flesh and feel pukey) and MrM will eat pretty much anything. I think we're kind of guaranteed a fussy eater really. I'll cook meat, well some meat, happilly enough, so not too worried about that and like you Manda, view is food is food - will do my darndest not to pass on my weird food issues: like eggs being slimey and so on. One can but try!

Roast dinner for me means vegetarian pie, or a nut roast or something. Just vegetables - ohhh no no no no. And roast beetroot - ick. Devils toenails so it is! :)

JoJo - oh dear.

By the way, typo above made me laugh. I believe that the breast bump should have been breast pump. I had a moment where I was wondering if a comment was being made on size or some form of large mole.. :)

I'm veggie adn DH isn't. I do ALL cooking (grr) adn cook meat for DH probably 75% of meals. DS eats meat as a) I didn't want him to be denied the choice later on in life and worried that if he never had meet initialy he might strugle with it later if he chose to eat it, plus b) no chance DH would have stood for a veggie child.

DS probably had far more of the veg than meet option initialy and as he gets older is eating more meet (now 2 1/4). If we have a meet/veg option potatoe adn veg type meel he generally has meet but if we have somehting like pasta sauce, caserol, rissotto or a more saucey type dish I tend to give him veggie. He won't have cold meet though. no idea why but ham, cold cooked chicken etc., anything meat like you might have on a sandwhich he won't touch. Loves fish, but since DH isn't bothered either way and I don't feel confident cooking we don't have it much. He ate a lot of home made salmon and pea fish cakes in the weening days though.

Hi just crashing the thread due 17th March 2nd baby can't wait and hoping to get to know fellow march mummies x x