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.

Eeyoreish I am not even sure where my notes are at present. But I suppose if I was travelling into London every day I might take them.

There was a point a few months back when my HG was so bad I really couldn't see the end of this pregnancy and felt like it would go on forever. So it's an amazing feeling that we have all come so far and will be meeting our new babies in a few months.

This is the magical bit of pregnancy when baby is moving about and the bonding can really start.

Although, I am not sure I would say that about 20 toilet trips in the night was magical, or the cramp that kept me up until about 2am. But I surely am enjoying trying to guess which body parts he is sticking out and giving them a rub. I think it was his foot a few minutes ago. Last night I think I was rubbing his bum that he had pushed out.

Breaking news! champagne I am sure you will be happy to celebrate with me that I have finally broken DH and the DC with my constantly referring to baby as Eli. We have finally come to an agreement to name him Elijah. I am so happy as now I have been calling him this every day I couldn't imagine calling him anything else.

I have never liked that name before I was pregnant. And I don't know anyone with the name either. What do you guys think of it? What does it make you think of? Although I seem to love it I am a bit concerned it is too old.

Yay somany! It's a great name. It is old fashioned, but not in the way that, say, Percy is old fashioned. More in a classic way.

Eeyore my midwife told me off for not taking my notes with me EVERYWHERE! I have been keeping them in my car whilst commuting to/from work but today have taken photocopies of the key pages so that I can keep the copies in my car and the real ones at home. I also take the full set with me when travelling away for weekends etc.

The industry I work in (construction/engineering) is obsessed with safety and this has really rubbed off on me. I've put a little card in my purse next to my drivers license with In Case of Emergency numbers plus a little note saying 'I'm pregnant, EDD 16th Feb, notes are in the glove box'. This is probably overkill and I'm 99% sure will never ever be needed, but given I spend 3hrs a day driving on the motorways I figured it can't hurt, cost me nothing, and if I do have an accident at least the ambulance crew will have all the important info to hand.

somany congrats on settling on a name! Eli is lovely, I do know of one little 10mth old Eli but it's not a common name. We have now got a shortlist of 4 boys names and 2 girls. Almost all of them are in the top 10 names for 2012 and the others are in the top 50. Ho hum.

littleen only you know what is 'normal' and 'acceptable' for your relationship with your DP. The only bit that worried me from your post was the bit about smashing up the house - not sure if this is an exaggeration or not, but surely not a good vibe for bringing a newborn up in. Perhaps when you're out and about at the weekend (away from home/TV/game) bring it up that you feel more anxious than usual - blame it on the nesting instinct - and that the game is not helping. He might agree to cut down on hours or only play when you're not around?

41 days left at work and I actually cannot wait to stop now

Well done somany, I knew you'd get there in the end :) I think both Eli and Elijah are beautiful names.

I absolutely love it when there's a baby body part sticking out but am still feeling a bit worried about the movement thing in general, she was moving well during the night and I did count 10 in an hour easily first thing this morning but she just seems to be as still as a stone during the daytimes at the moment. Possibly she's just flipped so the movements are much less pronounced than the full on belly wobblers.

Anyway champs you'll be pleased to hear I've now made a spreadsheet on which to monitor movements. Good old Excel.

As for notes - I've only taken mine with me when on holiday! But I don't go anywhere in my daily life that's outside the vicinity of my nearest hospital (half hour drive from home) I might take them if there was a chance I was going to need to be admitted to a different hospital far from home.
jazz my husband works in the engineering industry and the health and safety stuff drives him nuts :)

somany hurrah for perseverance! Eli is a great name - there is a character in Stargate Universe who is super-insanely brainy and their resident "likable" genius to contrast the resident "bastard" genius. He's a little stocky, but sweet, emotionally intelligent, caring and generally ace. By far one of the best characters. I'm in two minds about our first choice of name, Arthur, or Artie for short, as it sounds almost too old-man-ish, but we've got Alexander and Alice as emergency back-ups, just in case.
i don't know if it's strange, but I kind of feel that Artie as a daily-use name is too twee, given that I am an art historian/critic, and I can visualise him introducing himself as "Hi, I'm Artie" and them hearing "arty" and thinking to themselves hmmmmm, ok then. Especially if he takes after his dad and turns into whatever the next generation of uber-geek looks like.

Am probably over-thinking it.

littleen definitely seconding the suggestions to talk to your partner, when he's in a good mood, about how this game makes him feel - it sounds like he's unaware of how it's impacting you, and he needs to know. Good luck!

Sorry last one I promise! Elijah makes me think of the actor who played Bilbo Baggins (sorry his last name has completely gone) and my friend's DH whose parents are very religious and all the kids have beautiful, less usual Biblical names. So both of those people are actually fairly young!

Artisticme - I've got extra scans at 28 and 32 and possibly 34 wks at the moment. I finish work on 11th Dec as added leave in front of mat leave

somany, we have also decided on Elijah. It was always on our extensive name list during the TTC process but only became a front runner when I hit the second trimester. I just love the sound and its a little different but not too much. no doubt the fact that two of us in the Feb thread are choosing it shows a massive spike in popularity but I'm not too concerned. We are still stuck on a middle name. Perhaps Elijah Flynn.

Love Elijah and Flynn is also a favourite! I'm pretty set on Noah now and DH likes it but prefers Theo. Hmm...

gnitting he might well wind up calling himself Art rather than Artie - and based on the ones I've met, I don't equate Art the name with the kind of Art of which you're a historian!

A one syllable middle name for Elijah sounds good - Elijah Flynn, Elijah James, Elijah Saul, I've run out :)

Quite relieved we're having a girl or I'd be very jealous of all your boys' names, the only one DH and I could agree on was Matthew, which I love, but it's not as exciting as Noah or Theo!

We also like Theo. We were toying with Theodore as a middle name but thought 1 syllable might be better.
Just a week ago I was set on Leo or Benedict. This naming process is so hard. I always thought naming girls was much easier but then again 90% of the baby name threads are for girls so perhaps not.

thingy we are going for Elijah Thomas as Thomas is one of my dads names. I love Flynn that's cute. I am very relieved as I really thought he would end up with no name the way DH was going on. Glad he decided to come round to it.

Feeling a bit sad about my son. I feel awful sending him back to school his tics have become much worse since yesterday, first day back. Now his Tourretes is getting worse I get worried that kids might pick up on it and make fun of him. He came home with 2 new tics yesterday, one being a really ugly face grimace. I felt like I just wanted to keep him at home where he is loved, warm, safe and not judged. Another thing is I think he may be experiencing some racism at school. We have just moved from London where he had never experienced feeling 'different' before. This morning he said before we headed out for school. "Mummy I don't like the way I look, I want to be white with blonde hair". Maybe we made a mistake leaving London

The thing is (and I know I am biased) he is the most handsome little boy I have ever seen. He has the most beautiful complexion with long brown and golden ringlets. He has the most funny personality and is the most loving and sensitive boy. I just can't stand the thought of kids at school making fun of him for looking different to themselves.

Is anyone in France? Someone was telling me yesterday that in France they don't feed babies on demand and that they expect babies to be able to sleep through the night from newborn. There is a book written about it and a French doctor says it is a myth that babies need to feed through the night etc. sounds crazy, I did leave my babies to sleep through once they were 6 months and they had started solids and then they slept 12 hrs a night. But I would never have left my newborn with our a feed more than a few hours. But I would be really interested to know if this is the norm in France. Is that why they are all so skinny? They have been trained to not over eat from birth

Aww, somany that must be so painful to hear :( I hope things will settle down for him soon. Really interesting about the France thing!

I wish we could have used names like Flynn or Dermot but... have you ever heard of a Jewish boy called Dermot? :D I don't have any links to Ireland/ Wales/ Scotland, and while DH isn't Jewish he's regular English, so I'd feel uncomfortable using them. But Flynn is so nice!

Whoa there...... enough with the Percy bashing!

Thanks for the advice girls - now I must clarify that he certainly is not abusive in any way, he just got a bit of a temper at times (I am much worse on temper, blame the red hair, haha) and might chuck things in the floor (nothing major lol) and once knocked his chair over in frustration, in an argument. Smashing the house is a slight exaggeration on my part, I woke up really pissed off. He's never laid a hand on me and never would, and is well aware that his behaviour on these occasions is unacceptable. It should also been said that this stuff has happened only a handful of times - but I am always scared of angry people due to my mum's abusive ways. I am scared of driving in case another driver gets angry with me for some reason, it's ridiculous honestly. I left my ex partly because he pushed me once when angry and drunk, so I can assure you I do not accept actual abusive behaviour from guys!

Now, I will just nod and get on with stuff when he rants at me like Julietee says, and also I think he will have to cut down on his gaming time once little one is born. He adores children and I feel confident that he will prioritise our baby rather than a silly game. The thing that draws him is that most of his friends play this game, and ask him all the time to play with them! So some of the time he's having a great time, but when he gets frustrated with it, it really does my head in. I can't ask him to stop playing - I don't want to be controlling with him, and he has cut down his playtime and now only plays a quarter of what he did before. I'm also slightly offended that he can't talk to me and play at the same time :P But he needs some alone time, and seeing as I'm in the house most of the time, it's the best way to get that. I'll just have to have a chat with him I think!

Sorry for the wall of text :P

somany grats on finding a name! Elijah/Eli is a nice name, makes me think of my teenage crush on Frodo (Elijah Wood) :P My other half did suggest Eli, but it's a female name here so no can do!
Noah and Theo are super popular here, :) funny how trends are so different around Europe.

Somany Kids will pick on kids / be picked on regardless of how they look. I was bullied for my tics, being slightly chubby and also because I am very, very pale. They used to call me the "dead body". There is always something kids can find to pick on someone for, and I think the best thing we can do as (soon to be) parents is to help kids have the confidence and strength not to care, and to start a dialogue with the school very early on. In my case, teachers ignored the issue until it got really bad, when they finally decided to call in the main bullies parents, him, me and my parents. That put a promt stop to the whole thing, but by then it had affected me so much, I still have issues with it -.-

When it comes to his tics - they will come and go and change throughout his whole life. This is not necessarily an indication of anything being wrong, but if he tics more than usual, it's a sign of stress. When it comes to comments on his skin colour (what is it anyway? :) ) that is often something that will disappear once the kids get used to it, and get a bit older. Hope you can find a solution :) x

Somany Im sorry, I saw your fb post before this one. Your poor sweet boy. Do you know if the other kids commented on his skin colour? Maybe it's just that he's never thought about it before. As he gets older and gets all the girls he'll be very grateful for his gorgeous skin and hair. Does he have any pupil support at school to help him manage his tourttes?

As for France - I have family there and they definitely got up in the night to attend to their babies! (French not British ex pats) I would say the kids are expected to fit into parents life rather than vice versa more than UK though.

Somany I think the book you're talking about is French Kids Don't Throw Food. It's an interesting read, some of it I find quite feasible, other parts not so much!

Shropshire I was waiting for you to start the percy crusade again

I think I may be a bit over protective at the moment too because of pregnancy hormones. I feel like a mother goose I want to keep my little goslings safely tucked under my wings where no harm can come to them. It's especially hard with his Tourretes as he has always been so happy go lucky and just got on with things. But as his Tourretes gets worse I think it's starting to bother him and he is desperate to fit in and make friends.

But yes it's true the world can be a big bad place so we have to guide and teach our children in a way that they can be confident and get on with things even when people can be mean.

Somany his tourettes is probably worse due to changing schools (if I understood correctly) and perhaps the prospect of becoming a big brother too! Even positive stress can have that effect. The good kids (who are not bullies and "alpha" children) will not care about his tourettes, but accept him as he is. After the bullying stopped when I was 12, I have not had a single negative comment about my tics whatsoever, not from anyone, apart from my ex who used to get annoyed by them at times. Hopefully your son will have the same experience, (how old is he?) - and you could perhaps talk to him about how everyone has something different about them, whether that is tics or weird feet or whatever it might be! :)

I like Theo or Theodore, Ds nearly had that name, but we decided against it in the end. He is much more his actual name.

Shrops I like Percy too, but that will now forever be a little green tank engine!

Thank goodness I'm looking at girls names...

somany I agree with the person below who suggested that maybe it's something he's not thought about before but going through so many changes all at once can suddenly bring things to the foreground. If it's any consolation my dh struggled when we moved from london to a village - when he has lows now he reflects on the reasons we moved (more space, less crime, etc) but it's hard even for an adult who was actively involved in the change. I guess all you can do is stay strong and listen to your son (if he'll talk about anything) and make sure he knows you're there if he needs a friend. Really hope your school appeal is successful.

somany I saw the pic on facebook too, and he is gorgeous. I think some kids feel uncomfortable when someone new joins the school/class as the friendship groups are already established etc and some kids could feel threatened (by his good looks, nice personality – more potential to be popular than them) and it can be really hard for the new person to settle in. I hope it gets easier for him. If it does turn out to be a racism issue do you think you’d be able to home school? (Although thinking about it, probably not with a new baby on the way!)

somany he is so beautiful. Kids can just be so cruel sometimes. I hope he starts to settle soon and becomes more comfortable. And that you get him out that school! In any case like you said, giving him al the love and support from home is something you can do for him.

Congrats on the name battle win. I LOVE eli. Theo and Leo also, and flynn for a middle name. Finding finding a girl's name so much harder, and starting to run out of time (ish). Finally passed 24 wks it feels like such a relief