March2013 New year, new trimester, old symptoms but the finishing post is in sight!

[Oodsigma]

And confuddled has passed it!

So will this one be our last before we move to post natal?

And who is next?

Thanks sarah & jojo for the thread title. :)

Plonko - I've ordered the kit from LL that has one of each type, so I can try them all out. Also getting some disposables in so I can take my time mastering reusables rather than getting stressed and having masses of washing to do with a newborn at the same time. I was a bit grossed out by the idea of washable liners (I don't want to put poo in my washing machine! I don't want to have to scrape it off into the loo either!) but am assured paper liners are also available. But yes, it's mostly a wait-and-see situation at the moment.

No problems eating here, more of a problem stopping. On the plus side, I do like losing weight, and the more I eat now the more I'll have to lose in a couple of months! And I've finally got back to doing the cooking, after having about five months off it. Beef stew tonight, nom.

gosh we move quickly on here don't we!

Mandasand I'm really pleased they have managed to 'find' your notes - I really hope that you get the birthing experience that you want! I had a similar(ish) scenario whereby by discharge notes from my last pregnancy in 2009 were lost by the hospital and so my consultant said that I would have to have cs again as they couldn't be sure that a virginal birth would be safe. This was fine by me as I really want a cs anyway but then my notes were found and the consultant decided that I should not have a cs. AGGGGGH! So I insisted (in a very mardy and some may consider immature way!) and now I have a planned csection date which is explained in my medical notes as maternal request against consultant!!! whatevs!!

This was all thrown into chaos this Wednesday when I went into early signs of labour and ended up in a delivery suite at the hospital closest to my worK!! Basically I was having moderate contratctions and so they gave me something to stall labour and steroid injections to help babies lungs! All a bit scary at the time but now baby is still in belly and I'm at home I oddly feel a bit disapointed that he's not here!

Friday was supposed to be my last day at work and I am really gutted that I missed it - it feels like I have left lots of things unfinished (including leaving a spare pair of tights in one of my drawers, a stash of hula hoops in another and bottles of gaviscon in many different places!) ahh well!

I had lots of medical students in with me with my sons birth. I have to agree with backward I didn't care who was in there or for what purpose by the time I got going!!

Apologies for the HUGE post! I hope everyone is having a lovely lovely Sunday - without being smug (but being very smug) Sunday's without the idea of work thr next day are very enjoyable!!

My Dad brought my baby book and other stuff that they had kept for me yesterday. The baby book includes my birth weight and length. I was 8lb something and 53 inches long. 53 inches! Bloody hell. I must have looked like I'd been run over by a steam roller. MrM wasn't particularly big baby because he is an identical twin. So it will be interesting to see if Socs takes after Mum or Dad on this one. If Socs does take after me, I really really hope long and thin rather than long and fat or labour will be looking seriously painful. eep!

I think this threads going to move even faster as more people finish work! Hi Gummi and Kirsty!

Early labour sounds very stressful, glad hear you're back home now. It happened with my mate and her daughter, steroid injections from 32 weeks. I think she held on until 37 weeks, and now has a very lively 4 year old .

Stormy I think you've taken the sensible approach unlike me I don't know how dp feels about cloth nappies, our argument was never settled. We do have about 140 disposables in the house so it's not all on top of us at once but I'm reluctant to buy more right now. He seems to think cloth nappies are less hygienic, despite telling him about paper liners and nappy sanitizer. He's a funny bugger though, gets the water to scalding temps to wash his hands and flushes public toilets with his foot...

Oh dear lord I've ended up watching speed 2. Thank god the snows melting, I think I've developed cabin fever!

Tramp is that inches or cm? your poor mother if you were 4 and a half foot long!

Inches I believe. I don't think they went in for cm in 76, but I could be wrong.

I'm wrong, must be cm. so 53cm. Inches would be much bigger wouldn't it. Stupid pregna brain.

tramp, it'll be cm. dd was 56cm (and nearly 10lbs..) so with this one being of the male variety, I'm hoping its not much bigger. Argh!

That's what you get for saying you're pregnant not braindead, Tramp. Although I'm greatly tickled by the thought of a four and a half foot long newborn!

Hi all I've been reading thread for months, thought id introduce myself .
i will be 40 years old at end of april this year
I'm 34 weeks pregnant with 1st child, 1st pregnancy, due 4th of March , We are .delighted.
I'm utterly exhausted and wondering how i will manage the coming weeks .

Welcome christilass, I'm 5th March so it's a race to the finish!

I'm completely exhausted today, think I may have gone up & down the stepladder once too many times yesterday so left dad to it after first few strips today. Wallpapering finished though! Just shame the house needs cleaning & tidying now!

I've had half a bottle of gaviscon now & still heartburn so I'm trying to ignore it & snuggling on the sofa with PuppyMonster. Long day at work tomorrow so need to conserve energy.

Hope you're all having a good Sunday x

Stormy - oy watch it!

Hi all, hope everyones weekends have been good and hello to the new people. Im sorry if my views re students and staff language has upset anyone - it certainly wasn't my intention and was purely my personal view. Regarding students, my point was simply that I know I need as few people in the room as possible during my labour and having students in there simply isn't conducive to that. I teach myself so I know the value in learning however I know I cannot comprise on my or my LOs comfort and safety at the point when we are most vulnerable and I do not feel that is an unreasonable stance to take.

As many of you now my DD1 was stillborn at the beginning of last year and I suffered from some really poor treatment from poorly trained members of staff who were ill equipped to deal with the situation (although some of them were lovely). However once you have had numerous midwives telling you "it's ok sweetheart, everything will be fine love - you will have more babies darling" multiple times while you are holding your dead baby, its very hard not to lose faith. How any medical professional can think that it is ok to say such things at such a time is completely beyond me - I was absolutely shocked at the time that any human being, let alone a midwife who is supposed to be trained, could think this was comforting or acceptable. Of course it will never be ok that my child died and having more children will never be a comfort. So as you can imagine this colours my view of my dealing with the same staff in this pregnancy and when I give birth this time. Appreciate I'm coming from a different perspective than most but unfortunately this is my reality.

Hope everyone is enjoying these last few weeks of pregnancy despite the discomforts!

Rainbow I am sorry your past experience has coloured your views quite so much. You have obviously shared as much as you are comfortable with, I hope you got answers from the hospital about why and how things happened and the necessary people have been dealt with. I think part of the issue with caring for people is that for some people words of comfort and platitude is what they want and need and some people are too angry and sad and grief-stricken to hear anything. I am sure PALS would appreciate your input about this and what you feel should have been said to you if you haven't already done this. The way people learn is by feedback, though I understand it is probably very difficult to do in the circumstances.

I hope you have the experience and the outcome you desire. The advice I am trying to take on board is that plans are great, but planning for change is better. I am trying to educate myself about all the different things that may happen so I am prepared for what may NEED to happen as opposed to what I WANT to happen. The more relaxed I can be the better I think. But again we are all entitled to our personal views and many of us may have previous experiences that colour how we feel about things too.

sundae thanks for the kind thoughts - we had the opportunity to give feedback in a stillbirth questionnaire. I must add that the day my daughter was born was still the most amazing day of my life and in fact incredibly happy and positive experience, partly down to the efforts of one or two really lovely members of staff. Neither my husband or I shed a single tear that day and we just relished every single second we got to spent with our daughter, saying goodbye to her properly. However unfortunately its the negative things that linger in your mind and the current hormones certainly don't help!

Hormones really don't help at all. It would be so nice to remove them and our past experiences and pre-conceptions and all be able to go into the later stages of pregnancy and birth with clear minds, sadly mother-nature has other ideas.

My friend from our NCT group first time around just had her second baby at 39 weeks, 8 pounds and 9 ounces, gave birth at 10am ths morning and already home, 1.5 hours of labour, no stitches! Lucky girl... I am jealous though, ready for this to be over but know the babies need to say in a bit longer!

Rainbow I can't even imagine what you went through, you must be a very strong person to get through that and then stay strong through this pregnancy too. I really hope you have a smooth labour this time and a wonderful experience, and I wish a healthy baby for you at the end.

My acid has settled for a few days now - nice bit of respite. I spent the morning scrubbing mould off the ceiling and walls, it's getting really bad now can't put any furniture against the outside walls because it grows behind it, renders our spare room pretty much useless! It's infuriating paying rent for it really.

Bubba is doing some weird movement that makes my whole belly stretch sideways and back, funny little thing

Finally slept through with both odd pillows without chucking them on the floor last night, think they help at last.

If anyone's got chocolate tooth I can highly recommend new Dairy Milk Oreos...

The birth plan template I wrote I think is really helpful. A plan isn't about saying this is and this isn't happening, it should be about making sure they know the important things. Birth isn't a medical procedure, it shouldn't be about doing as you're told.

The thing with students is not so much about whether they're qualified to do what they do but whether they get in your way. You need to be allowed to retreat and feel safe, if there's a lot of talking going on around you, lights on and you're just not feeling safe then it can impact on the birth. If you don't feel that the person doing something to you feels confident in themselves that will have an effect. Ina May talks about a dad who needed a wee but didn't want to leave mum, he was so tense that she picked up on it and if effected the birth.

When I gave birth this time I had one MW sat by my side, slight angle so she could see what was going on and after she pulled the emergency button (the he stopped decelling so everyone left) there was one MW stood back at the end of the bed. I also had the neonatal team in the room preparing their equipment but they kept out of the way, kept their voices down etc. Even with the gestation keeping things right for the birth was the priority for them all - that hospital could teach many others a lot!

dgift - anusol is good for piles. If you can manage it, gently push the piles back inside and have a look for tips to minimise them, diet and toilet technique(!) They're not going to be a problem giving birth, if you don't have them at the time, they're likely to come back with the pushing but as you're not pushing from your bottom, they're not going to affect the birth. If you are worried speak to your doctor or midwife, it's a common pregnancy complaint so they're not going to be shocked.

Welcome christilas
Rainbow so sorry you went through that and can see how being spoken to like that was hurtful. I hope this isn't bringing back too many painful memories.

With regards to students I had numerous bleeds at the end of my pregnancy with DS I felt fine about students as I felt they had to learn but in a distressing situation I agreed to students observing during an internal and their was 8 of them with flashlights looking down my fanjo then the doctor didn't speak to me but addressed the students and left! I was more distressed after this and will not be allowing this to happen again. Although my main complaint was the doctor but it wasn't nice when you are scared.
However I did have a student midwife at the birth who was great didn't make me feel uncomfortable and let me use her hip to press my feet against when pushing she then cleaned me up and we had a nice chat. I would be happy for a student to be available in that circumstance.
I think it is your choice students won't be allowed to do anything they aren't qualified to do but it's your pregnancy, body, baby and experience.
Hormones are rife at the moment I broke down in tears because a few people said my bump was really small and I started worrying baby isn't growing properly my bump isn't small it's 75 percentile but DS was 98 percentile so they may be comparing the 2 but I was totally unreasonable crying and feeling guilty- doesn't help this pregnancy has had complications but still
Sorry to hear Lanna has left but if she is getting upset then best to stay away for a while best of luck to her in her pregnancy.
Bubba 2 is due 17th but prob have ELCS a bit earlier my birthday is the 14 th so might be nice to have baby before my birthday as long as she is safe.
Having had a few scares just want her cooking nicely for a while. DS was 9lb2oz at 39 weeks so predicting 7lb8oz for a girl at around 38 weeks but we will see

Page marking and waving hello! Christilass we share a due date, my first DC too. :-)
Changing the subject from the more contentious issues here's a question: what nibbles and sustenance do people recommend for labour and beyond? I'm thinking dried apricots, isotonic drinks for labour and something a bit more hearty for after.... Advice and suggestions very welcome.

Welcome newbies and sorry to see you go Lenny!
This thread is full of talks and we will always agree to disagree but it's not RL and sometimes you just have to say ok!!!!
Well being snowed in has not been fun but it has given me the chance of making a list of all the bits I need!!! Which is alot as only last week bought 1 pack bodysuits and I pack of vests!!!!!!! Awaiting for pumpkin patch to deliver some other bits on sale!! As Iove a bargain!
My ds 3 today! -has scarlet fever and so sleep for the first few days was sllim to none and him being clingy didn't help!!!
Now filled with antibiotic he has improved but still has to take meds!!!!
Thankfully no real harm to me would of been if I was ready for labour!
My birth plan - don't panic it will be over quickly!!!! Not bothered about all the other stuff it will take care of itself!!!!
I also have run-away-veins which ain't good when mw needs to draw blood!!!!! Real pain in all ways!!!! Especially when they try a vein and it doesn't give up anything so they have to try again!!!!

I think I'll go for dried fruit/nuts too - great for energy. Isotonic drinks are a bit of a false economy, just sugar, basically the same as bog standard lucozade they don't really hydrate any better.

Maybe Dioralyte for hydration would be better? That has salts and things in. But balanced properly. Bananas for potassium and some cheeky chocolate and sweets to suck on if the sickness comes...

I vote for dried fruits and nuts too and a bit of chocolate for that soothing effect if I get shaky! Mind you last time I was horribly thirsty throughout my labour so really didn't feel like eating much.

Good afternoon ladies, and to all names i've not seen before :)

I like your idea Count: "My birth plan - don't panic it will be over quickly!!!!" Made me laugh. I've crossed my fingers for a quick labour.

In regards to snacks and bits whilst in labour, i've heard jellybeans are really good, because the sugar gets into your system quicker than energy drinks, it's what the Doctor recommended to me when i suffered with low blood sugar at the beginning of my pregnancy. But Lucozade is also a little must for me. I miss it much. I like pumpkin seeds as well, could do a mixed fruit and nut mix, then the Cadbury Fruit & Nut as well for a chocolate fix nom nom.

My NCT classes have all been pushed back a week, so should still get the full 3 sessions and then a meet up session after births, but still having to cancel my bump shoot because the half day lesson has become a full day. Very gutted. Every little treat we try and arrange gets cancelled or something goes tits up!

Suffering with a sharp, stabbing like pain in my lower right side, every time i try and lean on it or sleep on it, i get a shooting pain. Am keeping an eye on it. Was going to mention it to Midwife but appointment was cancelled and redone for beginning of February! Phaa.