February 2014. The cake mix is in the mug, the microwave is on, it's slowly rising and we'll be pinging in three more months!

[Shropshiremummy2B]

Sadly my cake mix is rising too much and resulting in a serious muffin top.

If you pm me your email sunflowered i'll share my skydrive stuff with you that has some on (along with loads of random hypnobirth stuff too)x

sunflowered not really!! There are still huge holes in the floor, wall, roof... The thing is the landlord is friends with the builders so we keep asking him to try to speed them up a bit but I don't think he really wants to. When we talk to them about when things will be done it's always either "by the end of this week" (whatever week it has been, not this week we're currently in) or "actually, the job's a lot bigger than we thought..."

Oh dear.

At first thought the idea of a home birth is so appealing. My own bed! But we too live in a semi with thin walls and our bedroom is on the other side of the wall to next doors. We hear them getting ready for bed every night, do they would hear every yell. They have probably already overheard the conception, seems a bit mean to make them suffer the birth as well!

Plus, what do I do with DD? No way I want her to witness that! I'm not doing hypnobirthing, just asking for pethidine and hoping for the best :-)

missk and lovestobake I am having another homebirth - had one with ds too. In my old house my neighbour used to complain I was noisy but apparently she never heard me in labour (and she pissed me off so much I wanted to be as noisy as possible!). I now live in between retired people so hoping they are a bit deaf! I cannot possibly be louder than ds stomping and slamming doors
DS will either go to cm, or be asleep, or my parents might be here by then.

When I had ds, the mw's set up resuscitation equipment in the room next door and I could have had pethidine as well as gas and air (Pethidine varies between trusts though for home births). I had 3 mw's with me throughout and they would have gone in the ambulance with me had I needed or requested transfer (there was talk of transfer due to high blood pressure but mw gave me some g&a and it was all fine). They had injections for the placental delivery, the injection for baby (K?) and one for in case of haemorrhaging so they can do everything an MLU can do (I can't remember all the things but they went through with me at 37 weeks what they could do at home and what would require transfer to CLU).

We are also having house disasters - had to bring forward renovating the bathroom, triple the work and triple the cost. Grr bah humbug. Oh and plumber has confirmed there is a leak somewhere between the stopcock and the back of our house

Re: movement - me and a friend ended up going in for monitoring at 28/29 weeks last time due to lack of movement. MW said baby still had plenty of room to move around and hide, and it was quite common at this time (but should always be checked anyway). She actually had to chase ds round with the doppler and i didn't feel a thing!

Mammoth post over

Petty that is reassuring re movement. Little wriggler is not living up to her name this evening and I hate it! She seems to be lying transverse and gave me one good jab in response to my prodding but now still again.
Hopefully she'll wake me up tonight having a disco just like yesterday!

Also, I think I said it before, but your home birth set up sounds amazing!

Am in awe of you home birthers, I can't get past thinking about the mess, is my house clean enough (3 cats who ate mainly indoor) and that my only loo is upstairs. I'm thinking birthing centre which is in same building as labour ward.

Saw a trail for BBC Call the Midwife earlier - yay! Also think obem is back in the new yr but not sure if that's a good thing or bad so close to February...

Is everyone still taking vitamins every day? I'm hopeless at remembering, must be averaging 3 days out of 7 at the moment.

That should say 3 cats who are mainly indoor

It is reassuring to hear about everyone else's movement. Bean seems to swing between parties (she likes 4am in particular) and absolute silence where I start to worry she's gone missing. Gah.

Petty your home home birth does sound wonderful. Think I'm going for hospital tho, although it is only 5 mins from my house. Don't think there is an MLU Else would have considered that as nice half way option. The hospital has only one pool tho, think I'll be gloves off and fighting for it. Definitely like the idea of a water birth

Oh and for vitamins I manage most days. Not today tho. I think we should be taking vit d for sure (esp as it's winter now) and tht folic acid and maybe iron aren't bad? But it's not important in the way that it was in the long gone days of T1 so wouldn't worry too much if you haven't. Healthy diet is always best! .

I'm still taking a multivit every day - in Scotland they are as militant (wrong word perhaps!) about Vit D as they are about folic acid and I figured I might as well take the multivit just in case there's anything else I'm missing out on.

Still no movement this evening, starting to feel a bit stressed and silly about feeling stressed all at the same time now.

if you take omega 3, most have vit d in them as well :)

poppy sorry just caught up with the thread, since I have cramp in my leg and can't sleep. Yes I did have OC with both of my previous pregnancies and expected to get it again this time. But for me so far so good, no sign of itching.

My advice would be go to the doctors first thing in the morning and they should refer you straight to hospital to have bloods done. That horrendous itching is a sure sign of OC but can also be other things too. OC can be dangerous to baby though if left untreated so definitely get it checked sooner rather Han later. Here's hoping its all ok and the itching leaves you.

Thanks somany I ended up going to the docs last night because I got a couple of blisters on my hand and alarmed myself by googling itching and blisters in pregnancy. He is old school and was a bit clueless but rang various people for futher advice and eventually came to the conclusion to refer me for bloods. I don't want to be a drama queen, but I also think they may as well check it out and glad I went, Hope you got back to sleep.

Vitamins - if you don't need iron then you can get healthy start (vitamin C, D and folic acid) for less than £1 for about 2 months supply. I'm using up those atm and taking iron tablets that the midwife gave me on top.

champagne it will go quickly but so will the months and years after that so try not to wish it away too fast. You will actually miss being pregnant when you aren't. ( I'm also completely wishing it away and actually wish i could just skip Christmas completely - pot /kettle )!

Jazzcat I've not really taken any vits at all the whole way through. I'm terrible at taking tablets

28 week bloods were perfect and I'm feeling great so I'm not worried at all. I was the same with DS and he's a very healthy, strong boy

sorry; incoming rant (again)
My other half likes to play this computer game, league of legends, with a bunch of his friends. He plays other games too, which I don't mind, as I also like to play some of them. However, the majority of our 'big' arguments have been after/whilst he's played this game, because it pisses him off so much when he loses or when people are abusive to him in the game (there's a huge amount of trolls and horrible people in the game, as in many other places online). So we have massive fights, not over the game, but over any other random thing, often due to me trying to lighten the mood by being silly or something. Obviously I have stopped trying to do that now, and instead just listen to his rant and pretend I have empathy with him (it's a game ffs).
I hate this game so much, because it's the only thing that brings out the worst in him - and whilst he can be laughing his head off at the start, I never know whether he's going to be so mad that he smashes the house or starts an argument when the game finishes. So I'm sat just tensing for hours until he is finished playing. It's not on, but I can't tell him to quit, and I can't just sit here and be worried either! Should I just start leaving the room when he plays?! Such a stupid issue!!

littleen can you tell him to only play the stupid game when you are out? or discuss with him his reaction but before he plays the game?

Games are supposed to be a fun release from everyday life and shouldn't impact anything else. The fact that he can't seperate games from actual life is worrying. The most worrying thing you mention is that he smashes the house. My partner would be thrown out if he showed actual aggression like that.
It's tricky to get an accurate portrayal of someone's relationship from a couple of paragraphs though so only you know how bad this situation is and how you should cope with it but I'd be very wary of anyone expressing themselves in a violent way especially with a baby on the way.

I'm with thingy on the game - it's meant to be an enjoyable experience not something that causes more frustration in life, and to let himself get so wound up that he can only deal with it aggressively is a bit worrying. Rather than telling him/asking him not to play it could you question what he gets out of it that he couldn't get out of a different game? If you can somehow get him to think that it was his idea to stop playing it or choose something else then he might be more likely to continue not playing it if that makes sense?

Littleen hopefully once baby arrives he will have no time/desire to play. My dh used to play lots of games (luckily he didn't get annoyed by them though) but since DS was born 3 years ago he just doesn't have the time as any free time is spent enjoying DS.

Thanks sassy :) how often are you having growth scans at the moment?
Also was just wondering when is everyone planning to come off work? My maternity leave officially starts New Year's Day:)) already can't wait!!

Champagne Yep, folic acid is useful in the first tri when baby is still developing it's structure to prevent spina bifida, I think it is. Can't hurt to take it afterwards, but from what I've read it's not a big deal to stop it at that point.
The other ones that are useful to consider are zinc and vitamin D.

Littleen So sorry you're having to deal with your partner's game-induced mood swings. It's so not fun having to deal with someone emotionally unstable (even if it's only at times) - I've had it often with one of my relatives and it's very tension-inducing!
It sounds like he needs to a) realise that this is impacting you, and b) take a break from the game to get his reactions into perspective. IT's not fair for him to be terrorising you with his shitty moods just because of trolls. Seriously. From a cod-psychology point of view, when you listen to his rants you are offering him positive reinforcement, which strengthens the behaviour. I'd shut down any post-game dissections by just giving very short, monosyllabic answers and going back to what you were doing.

Littleen that behaviour would really annoy/upset me (the latter if you are serious about him smashing things! But I'm not sure if you are - as Thingy says it's very difficult to understand a situation from words online)

Have you talked to him about how much this impacts you on an occasion when he's in a good/neutral mood and hasn't been playing recently? It's true that he might stop playing when your son is born anyway but still, it's not fair for him to act that way around his girlfriend at the best of times, let alone when she's pregnant (and you have anxiety anyway right?)

If he won't give it up at all then, yes, I'd ask him to only play when you're not home. The worst game issue I had with DH was when he got completely addicted to this one game and would be up literally all night playing it, he turned into a complete zombie..anyway, in the end he physically cut the game up, because he could see how bad it made him. I don't know whether that'd be an option for your DP but he might at least promise to limit his usage (and surely he can't enjoy getting so upset and wound up?!)

Poppy I hope all goes well with your bloods, but at least if it is OC you will know about it and get on medication. It sounds like you definitely made the right call seeing the doctor.

littleen that behaviour sounds unacceptable to me, I would have to have a discussion about it when both are calm again. As someone else said, if he gets so wound up by the game why does he play it?

What are others doing about maternity notes? I've taken mine with me when I go away overnight, but it seems overkill to take them into work with me. But should anything seriously happen when I'm at work chances are I'd end up going to a London hospital, and be too far from my notes. I was thinking of copying some of the key pages, and just taking those.