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...)

Hooray - I see my itchy belly as a sign of impending bump then! I've been liberally lathering on the Bio Oil ever since about 12 weeks. From reading up, it seems that stretch marks are pretty much unpreventable. Some get them and some don't without any logical explanation. The Bio Oil at least makes me feel better that i'm trying to fight them though!

Cot has just arrived. This is suddenly turning into some scary shit!

Woah - cot alert! How exciting

What sort is it?

We've just bought a basic cot from Mamas & Papas. Most seem to be massive cot beds meant to last until baby is about 6 but we already have DSD's toddler bed in the loft so we've just gone for a smaller basic cot.

Like everything baby related, it's a minefield once you start looking!

Had a scan and have a new EDD - aug 25!! :) so a bit further along than I thought I was.

hazle I'd shop in your gender neutral shop too! Tired of all the tractor or butterfly themes and nothing in between and not in pink

Great news Zombies. I'm glad little Zombie is cooking nicely It's such a relief after the first scan.

I'm back! Wow the weather is grey and miserable here and one week of holidays is not enough. But I do have a nice tan. And a suitcase full of baby clothes, might have overdone it slightly, but it's all so cheap in the US and I can probably ebay the stuff later for a good price as well.

But you have to wonder what those manufacturers are thinking. I mean it's a baby, the main concern should be comfort, right? So why are all the babygros covered in massive appliques, bows, scratchy embroideries, lace and frills? Babies, I would guess, spend most of the time on their backs - I would not want to have a huge butterfly or frills under my butt. Surely it's possible to do cute clothes without all this?

Work will be interesting tomorrow, as I'm sure the jet lag will kick in.

Congratulations zombie!

I feel for you Hazle on the jet lag. I'm tired just thinking about it.

Very jealous of your tan though. I went to a Wedding last week wearing an outfit that didn't really need tights but had to wear some due to the shame of how white my legs are.

Well we started today off owning a cot and nothing else. One 4th birthday party, one Christening and one visit to DH's family later we now have 2 lovely hand knitted wool blankets, 4 big carrier bags full of baby girls clothes, a traditional nursing rocking chair like this one and a cheque to pay for our pram. What a great day! And there's not much pink either

Awesome day Rache! Your friends and family rock :)

Congrats Zombies too, I'll never get over seeing Baby Bear first time on the scan, such a great feeling isn't it? I was also brought forward on my dates (despite physical impossibility) and while it annoyed me at first in case they try to push me to induce ahead of 'my' dates, quite like having a whole week less to wait now :)

Welcome home Hazle. Good luck with the jet lag, least you have some cute clothes to day dream about :)

That's so nice, Rach! I don't think we'll be so lucky - most people with babies either borrowed everything themselves and need to give it back, or are planning another one immediately.

Have my scan tomorrow and I'm quite worried. Clearly imagining the scenario where the sonographer frowns, stares at the screen, says that she needs to go get the doc, they both stare and then say that "I'm sorry but there's something wrong.."
And everybody keeps dismissing it that oh, don't be silly, don't worry, surely everything will be fine. I know statistically chances are quite good that everything is indeed fine. But there are also many pregnancies where things are not fine, and there's no reason why I cannot be one of those. So I don't think I'm being unreasonable to worry.

Hazle the clothes are just from one of the two people who have said they will give us all of their baby's old ones, so if the same amount turns up from the second person we will have way too much!

I don't think you're unreasonable to worry about the scan. I think it's only natural. As you say though, the odds are stacked well in your favour so chances of finding a problem are very slim. It's nice to get it out of the way and get your sanity back though.

Oh rache how lovely of everyone

I too won't be getting anything - my friends all either had kids years ago, or are trying now. And my loaded brother and sister in law gave all their gorgeous baby stuff away

In Copenhagen and it's freezing!

Hope the jet lag isn't too bad hazle and welcome home. My scan is on Friday and am also incredibly worried - only natural I suppose. Literally can't wait to get it over with now....

Sending positive thoughts to impending scannees... Judging by how terrified I was before 12 week scan, I suspect I will be the same in a couple of weeks.

One of my RL friends had an unsettling second 20-week scan last week, caused by a sonographer saying something that sounded scary, only for the doctor to say afterwards they weren't too worried by it - but of course the seed is sewn. They will now have a third scan this week to double check (previous one was rescan because he was sitting awkwardly and they couldn't do all measurements).

Most people will not have anything to worry about at the 20-week scan, but for those that do, you have to believe that you, your OH and your LO will have the best possible care going forward.

I'm not being very reassuring here, but the only thing you can control about the situation is how you feel. Being nervous is totally understandable - but imagine the relief and excitement afterwards at being told all looking good.

Fingers crossed all round!

AFM - we're not finding out gender in advance, but I still have a friend who's promised me a shedload of newborn and 0-6 stuff for girls. If it comes out blue flavoured, we'll simply pay the favour onwards to the next person who needs it - that's the deal

Personally, I bought both blue and pink clothes (as there aren't really any other colours available ) and will totally dress the baby in both, no matter what gender it turns out to be. I didn't get any really girly glittery princess-tutu things and nothing bad will happen if a boy has a babygro with pink stitching or girl is wearing something with blue stripes.

Already looking forward to the conversations:

• so, how old is he?
• she.
• oh, but she's dressed in blue!?!
• yes, so am I, still not a man..

Lol Hazle I'm hoping to find other colours, too - so far, the few clothes I've looked at (not quite bought it into the next level yet lol) have been either white, cream, Winnie The Pooh (still gender innocuous) or covered in tractors, princesses or other such nonsense.

Plain colours would be fine, but I know OH would put his foot down if a boy had to wear something princessy or a girl wore tractors. Let the team green mission continue!

Thank you!
hazle that conversation is hilarious!!

I have suddenly started with quite a bad pain all down the right side of my semi-bump today. At the scan they said this is where the baby was lying, with her head to the right of my belly button. Has anybody else had similar? It's not exactly agony but uncomfortable. And bubs has been completely still all chuffin' day, the little bugger, making me worry it had all gone wrong - it was after 4pm when she started battering my bladder today!

Can't offer any useful advice, but probably nothing to worry about, just stretching or something.

I had something similar from the sounds of it Rach but mine was down both sides and in the same places on my back, dr google said it's because your bump is moving out/forward so the sides of your bump hurt and it pulls your back hence the lower back pain I've been suffering. My side pain came right before my massive growth spurt so maybe you're going to grow a lot in the next couple of weeks?
In other news I seem to be suffering from the start of pelvic girdle pain, it's agony, I can hardly walk. A girl I work with is pregnant with her 2nd child and has had this with both pregnancies and when I told her what pain I've got diagnosed me and gleefully told me 'give it a couple of weeks and you won't be able to walk at all'. Great. no idea what I will do if this is the case as my OH is absolutely bloody useless and I do pretty much everything, feel a bit stressed and my washing machine has properly given up the ghost this weekend...with all my clothes stuck in it, with my limited clothing options I'll be going to work in pyjamas by Wednesday and they can't get an engineer out to it until Thursday.
Sigh, where's a glass of wine when you need one hey?

Oh no Purple, if i'm following in your side pain footsteps I could be heading towards pelvic girdle pain as well, albeit a few weeks behind you. I hope your friend is wrong and you don't end up bed-bound with only Loose Women for company. At least you won't need clean clothes if you can't leave the house... this pregnancy malarkey really is a bit shit sometimes isn't it? I also hope my pain being all on one side doesn't mean I will have a growth spurt only on the right and end up with an Elephant Man style wonky bump.

I have sorted through the baby clothes I have been given and there are so many I don't even think triplets could use them all. And there are more coming! starting to regret saying yes to all of them.

Did anyone else see Channel 4 News's report tonight on the publication of a study into FASD? I think the full report is published in the next few days but the bloke they had on said, as expected, that the extent of the damage caused by alcohol is proportionate to the quantity consumed, but he also said that current NHS advice that 1-2 units a few times a week is ok is misleading and likely to be wrong. He said that, based on this new report's findings, he thinks the NHS to change it's stance to say that drinking any alcohol at all during pregnancy, even at low quantities, can not be guaranteed not to harm a baby's development.

I am glad I chose not to drink anything apart from the weekend before BFP when I accidentally got wasted. Oops.

You won't believe this. So I'm supposed to have the scan right now, but there is a power cut. No they don't know when it will be fixed, told us to wait half an hour to see. I don't want to reschedule, already 22 weeks as it is. Typical.

Noooo! Any news yet Hazle? And good luck!
As if you need the additional stress of a power cut

Fingers crossed for you...

Power is back! Just some people in front of me now.

Good luck Hazle, I hope all is well and baby hasn't got their legs crossed