Graduated elderberries

[janey1234]

Hello all..,
Let's clog up a brand spanking new club over here

(By hello all, I guess I mean hello hazle. Hopefully the others will join us soon...)

I'm back! Everything is ok and they THINK it's a girl :-)

Yay yay purple! Massive congrats
And another pink one too - amazing

Thanks Janey, they said they couldn't be 100% about the girl bit but were pretty sure but apparently it can be difficult to tell and they very occasionally get it wrong and say girl then it Turns out to be a boy. I'm just so relieved that everything looks ok. They were really nice actually the lady talked me through everything she was looking at then let a student have a go at the end.

Great news Purple and welcome to team pink!

I don't think they ever commit to 100% - both our private scan and yesterday's NHS one both said girl with 95% confidence even though both of them zoomed in to the groin area to show the 'hamburger,' as the private scan lady so eloquently described it!

What are the chances of us all getting a full house of girls? Or does anyone have a preference for a boy?

Is anyone considering/know anyone who has stored the umbilical cord?

It seems to be around £1600 for 25 years storage and the baby's Stem Cells it contains can currently be used to treat around 85 diseases. Stem Cell treatment seems to be one of the rapidly developing areas of medical science so who knows how many conditions it can be used to treat in the future.

In the unfortunate event that DD gets one of the conditions treatable with Stem Cell technology I wonder will we kick ourselves for not doing this?

Or is it a total waste of £1600 for what is only a tiny possibility of ever needing it?

I just can't decide.

We are comfortable financially but not to the extent that £1600 could not be used, perhaps better, elsewhere. But also if we do decide to do this we can afford it.

I was originally looking into donating our cord to the NHS blood bank or to a charity who use it to treat other sick children (but only certain hospitals do this and is not currently an option at ours), but I came across this and kind of wish I hadn't now!

Fab news Purple and another for Team Pink!

I think I'm firmly in Team Green - we won't be finding out til The Day, although I did have a proper wobble last week and suddenly started pining to know!

But, even though I still think I have a Pink kicking away inside me (currently taking issue with waistband on my non-mat trousers, which I find thoroughly amusing and enchanting), OH thinks it's a Blue.

Started to worry (me? surely not ) that I was fixating on it being a girl and how I would handle if it wasn't. but much more chilled again now and back to being utterly thrilled with a healthy Baby Bear, whatever colour Baby Gap insists it will be dressed in

Not thought about cord banking Rache but in all honesty, that would be cost prohibitive to us, so not something we'll probably look into. I think it would be good to do it if you can, although it does remind me slightly of Gattaca where everyone has their DNA controlled. I fully believe that this practice will be 'normal' and very widespread in 20 years time though, so can understand wanting to take advantage and be ahead of the game.

At the end of the day, it is a heck of a safety net, albeit quite an expensive one.

I envy your willpower in not finding out the sex Brave. I wish I could have waited.

Even though I know ours is a girl I seem to be choosing quite gender-neutral soft furnishings for her nursery so I do wonder what the point in finding out actually was? She may well inevitably choose a load of pink/Disney Princess/Hello Kitty stuff when she's old enough to have an opinion on it, but while I am doing the choosing I am avoiding pink overload.

Tbh Rache I think you're doing well to find gender neutral furnishings - we had a quick trip to Mothercare the other weekend and were slightly horrified that the choices were cars or Peppa Pig with very little inbetween!

The most astonishing find so far though was in Gap. In the boys section there was a cream babygro with a winnie the pooh type pic and 'I love my daddy'. In the girls section there was an identical one, but said 'I love my mummy'. Was very weird. As if only girls can love mummy and boys daddy. I guess there wouldn't be much point having gender neutral sections in shops like that but was still a bit by which were allocated where!

I sometimes think it would be nice to know, so I could say 'ooh she/he's kicking' rather than 'it's kicking', like I'm referring to a small alien or rodent. But then I think it will be nice to have something extra to look forward to on the day. If we had young other kids, we might have found out in order to encourage early acceptance, but right now there is no need to take away that surprise.

Plus, I like a good guessing game as much as anyone else - least I'll be able to join in all the daft old wives' tales and guesses!

It is quite difficult to find nice stuff which isn't stereotypically aimed at specific gender but so far I have ordered this blackout blind and matching curtains.

I've also ordered these wall stickers and this cot bedding bale so it looks like our unintentional theme is trees and woodland animals.

The bedding is a bit girly but I think the others are quite neutral. We currently have a boring empty room with magnolia walls and a beige carpet so I can't wait to cute it up a bit!

I need to find some nice cute pictures or canvases now....

Hi girls
Have been a bit absent as I think I caught a bug and gave been feeling pretty shite! But I'm on the mend now.
My mum told me I was a breech baby and so was she... So I'm thinking I might end up with one. Will speak to mw as I would def have cs if breech.
Rach will you have another scan to see if she turned? When? Have you thought about birth options if she is indeed breech?

Hi Lol, good to see you're on the mend .

I haven't spoken to my Midwife about the possibility of breech yet, but the bits of research I have done suggest that it is not seen as a problem until breech is confirmed at 34 weeks and then they talk to you about the options.

Apparently around 1/3 babies are in a breech position at 20 weeks which decreases to 3% at term so I have kinda buried my head in the sand and am just hoping that baby turns in the next 13 weeks!

If she doesn't turn I really don't know what we'll do - I don't fancy someone manually turning the baby (and the associated risks), but I don't really want a CS either unless it is absolutely necessary.

At the end of the day I suppose we will take advice on what is safest and best for the baby if and when the time comes.

I absolutely can't stand all this gendered stuff - it's a shirt or a pair of socks, why do the shops insist deciding for me if it is suitable for a boy or a girl? If I think it will look good on my DC, I'll buy it. (in Scandinavia most baby shops for example don't have boy socks or girl socks sections, just socks).

Especially stupid when (as I've read on MN) you can't for example buy any proper shoes for girls, as they are all only tiny, glittery and totally unsuitable for any kinds of activities - and have to buy something from boys' section anyway. So I've picked up some baby stuff here - in variety of colours and the baby will be wearing them, no matter what gender it is. (I'm still finding out though).

I'm not a fan of the gendered stuff either, I was never that into pink myself as a child so I don't see it as inevitable. Probably best not to go too mad on the pink anyway as someone today was telling me that they were told girl at their scan then had a boy and it was a big shock! Maybe Bear is right and it's best to wait, no confusion that way! (Though I would never be patient enough)

Has anyone seen the pictures of Kate in a bikini which everyone is making a fuss about today?

I know my bump is small but hell I had a bump bigger than hers before I even got pregnant!

Oh shush skinny, you're one to talk! I haven't seen them and I don't want to, not when I'm already worrying about how disgusting I look!

So did some more shopping - sun is really strong here, even though I was sitting in shade, I'm still quite pink, so had to leave the beach after a couple of hours - and same complaint, there are almost no neutral baby clothes. I don't have any issues with dressing a boy in pink or anything, but all girl clothes absolutely must be full of frills and glitter and boy clothes must be camouflage and tractors, with some stupid "little monster" slogans. Even was cloths and muslins are gendered! Sigh. I'm tempted to open a gender-neutral baby shop..

As for Kate's bump - the only consolation is that she should be a few weeks behind me, and I've really gone massive in the last week only, so there's still hope..

So jealous of the sun being strong there! Apparently your skin is much more sensitive to sunlight when you're pregnant, so that might help explain the pinkness...

Agree re pink/blue stuff. Although I was a very pink little girl, despite my parents pushing gender neutral stuff - I wonder if it made me worse?! Choosing between two beigey wallpapers for the nursery, so will have three off white walls and one patterned white and beige wallpaper. All very calming - or that's the plan anyway!

A colleague had her baby last night, am so pleased for her. Poor little lad was diagnosed with a serious heart defect at the 20 week scan, so he's got to have heart surgery within the first 7 days of his life. However, he was a whopping 10lbs 8oz (wowzers, poor her!) so sounds like he's good and strong for the operation. Am so pleased for her, I think a teeny baby would make everything even more worrying....

Hazle I have always found the Caribbean sun burns me much more than anywhere else and it's happened too many times to be just a coincidence, although I don't see how it's possible. Not quite Caribbean but I was in Miami once and made the mistake of popping 2 minutes to the shop without sun cream on which resulted in massive blisters on both shoulders. I then looked quite stupid in South Beach's super-cool nightclubs.

And I will be shopping in your gender-neutral baby shop.

I have accepted offers from my SIL and a work colleague to have all their old girls baby clothes so I suspect a couple of bags full of pink and frilly will be heading our way sometime soon. Still, at least they're free.

DH has mentioned us taking DSD to Disneyland Florida in the October Half Term. DD will be around 4 months. People are telling me it's madness with a little baby. It's not definite yet so I can still say no but I feel like I am up for the challenge as I am a holiday junkie. Will we be mad to go with a baby?

Have you seen over on the old thread? We may have a new graduate.

Rache I know - am ridiculously excited about it!!

I think we're planning a holiday around then too, although will probably just go short haul to my folks house in the south of france. To be honest it's hard to imagine whether it will be possible or not as I just can't imagine what it will be like to actually have a baby...! I think I'd just want to make sure that they'd had all their jabs first (I think they're all done by 3 months?).

To be honest, I think, if you really want to go, do it. You'll get through somehow. Yes it might be tiring and stressful, but I kind of think the first holiday will be regardless, and long haul might be harder when they're older and can walk around and get bored - at least at four months all they really do is eat and sleep?!

Ah, is that the naive first time mum speaking?!

To be quite honest Janey, I am in the holiday = yes, Disneyland = no camp.

DH has been saying he wants to take her ever since she was a toddler and now she's 7 he's worried she's getting too old to properly enjoy the magic of it all so I don't think I can put it off for much longer and there's fat chance of her Mum taking her.

My reasoning is the same as yours in that long haul with an immobile baby has got to be better than with a toddler who wants to run up and down the aisles. I am also probably completely naive!

I'd say the same - holiday yes, Disney meh. I don't think you would be going on many rides with a 4-month old and it's probably not that interesting just to sit around.
Travelling, depending on the baby, should be fine at 4 months, you already know what to do with her, should be over the initial shock. I think my niece was first flying when she was about 3 months, with just one parent, and it was fine.

I think Disney is something I am just going to have to put up with. DSD doesn't even seem overly arsed about going, it's DH thinking he has somehow failed as a parent if he doesn't take her. We will probably go with another couple and their 8 year old so at least we will both have babysitters to go on the rides.

Ooh I'd shop in your gender neutral shop Hazle! Can you stock some stuff that doesn't have stupid slogans like 'I love Mummy' or 'Daddy's princess' because there's an awful lot of those on the shops too. Each to their own and all that but personally I find them twee and faintly nauseating. I just don't think clothes need to say anything but I appear to be in the minority!

I've had a massive growth spurt, it's like being a kid again in that people keep saying to me 'my word, haven't you grown!' I keep waiting for them to ask me what I'm doing at school

I'm honestly huge, fat all over, even my pants are too tight, I'm a giant weeble, there are two girls in the office who are about 6 weeks ahead of me and I swear I look more pregnant than them. I'm going to pop, I'm all itchy so it feels like I'm going to she'd my skin like a snake or my skin is going to split and come off. It's not glamorous this pregnancy lark is it!

There will definitely be no slogan babygrows in this house!

Does an itchy belly mean it's growing? Mine has started itching over the last few days so hopefully the bump is on its way

I hope my pants still fit though

Plus one for the gender neutral shop!

And my belly was a bit itchy yesterday... Also seem to be in a growth spurt, really think I'll have to fess up today at work as I caught someone looking at my belly yesterday which freaked me out.

This combined with close colleague saying ' oh yeah, I did notice (how fat you look today) I'll bring in those clothes for you tomo'... Yikes. Not in kansas anymore!

If belly is itchy, get on the anti stretch mark stuff pronto... Means skins feeling dry as it's stretching I think.

Thank god it's Friday!