morning everyone - seems we have our thread back!
firstly, thank you so much for all your lovely words and support... too many of you lovely ladies to list. You are honestly the best and such a source of comfort xxx He is seeing the specialist at 3pm today so we will see what they say. I have a feeling they will need to run some tests before they can tell anything of substance. And I hope they won't hospitalise him today... He keeps calling me all the time as he is so worried and so down and needs someone to chat. tarlia he has a team of specialists looking after him (spread across three different hospitals) so had to wait for his gastro expert at St Thomas's to be free (only two days though so he was definitely prioritised, it's usually weeks...) And, by sheer coincidence, I have DS class mums' drinks tonight so will see if I can line up some alternative childcare for emergencies. Some mums seem very nice, I just don't really know them yet. legally we are relatively new to the street (moved here only last November) and both worked full time until now so our friends tend to live far away and most of them have 2-3 children already so I wouldn't feel comfortable calling them at 2-3am if needed. orange thanks so much for this link to emergency childcare - it may come in very helpful indeed... thanks again everyone! xxx
kiwi congrats on your little girl! Lovely name
bronze good luck! looks like you may be one of those 5% women giving birth on their due date?
and good luck to everyone else who is SC, SFW and SWIL! I'm still cooking here at 38+2 (or 38 by my own dates) so far from panicking yet. I had an OK induction story too. I was very disappointed I couldn't have my water birth but otherwise it was honestly ok, apart from terribly painful as my contractions were full on from the start and you don't get many breaks in between them when induced. Otherwise, I was able to move around and, like legally, was upright, kneeling or leaning against my bed for most of my labour. All the midwives commented afterwards that this is what made my labour much faster and helped me avoid any interventions (so make a note!!) They made me lie down towards the end as they lost baby's heartbeat and wanted me to change positions to hear it better. I hated it but it went OK eventually So, not ideal and not what I wanted, but not a bad story at all.
pink thanks for letting me know about your meeting with child psychologist yesterday - a lot of it makes sense and it's so good to know their behaviour is normal and to be expected. Sometimes it can be so hard to "separate the child from the behaviour" as they say... hope your little boy calms down once the baby arrives and he can see he hasn't lost you and your love. My DS is now very close to DP and can't get enough of him - a proper bromance... I love seeing it, it's adorable, and know it's because he thinks "I have the baby now" so he is temporarily shifting all his affections elsewhere
chickie your sister sounds so lovely! you are so lucky but you are probably an amazing sister yourself so entirely deserve it 
smiten a bit 
at your mw not explaining... how insensitive
and imp and caz LOL - thanks for making me laugh today! caz I agree - they make quite good pregnancy balls don't they? MrsH don't you let yours get away with it tonight... we want to hear all the details tomorrow morning - 7 times 
really sorry if I'm forgetting someone and sorry for this essay!!