The PESH are waddling their way to Christmas & trying not to freak out!

[FrankelInFoal]

The ante-natal fred for BESH graduates.

Recent Grads (aka CRESH)

blonderthanred, boy, born 26th October 2012
FriendofDorothy, boy, born 14th December 2012
QueenRollo, boy, born 21st January 2013
LazyMachine (38) boy EDD 9/2/13 - need an actual arrival date!
CamelKnees (34) EDD 22/04/2013 - need actual arrival date!
HaveALittleFaith (31), Faithlet arrived 14th April 2013
fertilityFTW (34) arrival date needed!
pinkr, (33), girl born 25th August 2013
Jethro (36) boy born 23rd September 2013

Waiting to lay:
Noks - EDD 28/12/2013
Frankel - EDD 4/3/2014
Sinky - EDD 18/3/2014
Ginfox - EDD end April 2014
Kat - EDD needed
Drizz - EDD 7/6/2014
Draf - EDD 19/6/2014
Winks - EDD 29/6/2014

Apologies for any misinformation or omissions!

Morning everyone. So nice to see everyone here. It is busy!

Glad to hear that everyone is doing ok, scans are good and things are exciting!

I am knackered today though, which would be why The Little Mister ended up in bed with us all night. I was feeding him and simply went back to sleep when he was latched on. Oh well!

We are also back on the TTC wagon and it is fucking tedious in every way!

This has made me :) because it's exactly the set up we've got. My Dad will be having Faithlet 2-3 times a week so he will have the travel cot at his house. I think I'm going to leave a sleeping bag and sheet there, even considering buying a cheap folding high chair. I will be supplying him with boxes of nappies and wipes! I'm doing a KIT day today (oh so much e-learning) and had to lug loads over there this morning!

Re washables. I liked the idea but Faithlet had such a titchy bum to start with we used disposables. I bought washables secondhand when she was about 4 months and I love them. I use them in the day time most of the time and wash every other night. They've definitely saved us money. However they aren't man enough for overnight so we use Pampers baby dry or Asda's little angels for that. I think they're too bulky for newborns so I'd recommend stating with disposables and seeing how you feel later down the line.

Also newborns go through a heck of a lot of nappies. Fortunately after the first few weeks the mini kit only pooed once or twice a week until weaning.
i like aldi ultra dry overnight.

a couple we are friends with just had a baybee. Was sorting out card and present this morning and my eyes started leaking! Bloody hormones!

Tell me about it Kat! Did you hear the little 7 year old girl on the Chris Evans show this morning saying her "thing I'm doing for the first time ever" today is going to the hospital to pickup her mum and brand new baby brother

Also I have to turn off that new Ellie Goulding Children in Need song whenever it comes on. If I hear the opening lines of "How long will I love you? As long as there are stars above you, longer if I can." I'm a blubbering mess.

I'm actually leaking just bloody writing that!

AIBU to be upset that my sister, who was sworn to secrecy, told our mother the ones we liked, and my mother has literally just laughed at it down the phone? I'm on the edge of tears, stupid I know, but we both liked it and now how could I use it knowing its apparently laughable?

Oh Winks that is not in any way unreasonable. How very insensitive of her

Names, you mean? YANBU

Oh, yes, coherence failure. I did mean names. I don't expect everyone to have the same taste as me but keep your fucking moutb shut, or if there's a reason for not liking it say so but just taking the piss and laughing is rude. She said "well there's a lot of hormones going on, ha ha."

(Is elijah that bad a name? Fair enough if I'd said bilbo skywalker!)

Elijah is lovely and not exactly an odd newfangled name. Tell your mum it's none of her business and she'll have to get used to whatever you pick.

My BF had real problems with her Catholic MIL who made nasty comments about any Old Testament names as they "were too Jewish"

FWIW I really liked Noah and Nathaniel when we were looking at boys names, they're of exactly the same era/origin.

Elijah is a lovely old name! Makes me think of Elijah Wood's adorable face :)

Elijah is lush. I have to admit that I laughed when I first heard that my sister had called her son Barnabas, but now I love it.

Names are funny things. I have a friend with a distinctly odd name, but after the initial surprise it is a total non-issue and now I get confused when new people are surprised/amused by her name. Names get so strongly linked with a particular person that they lose most of their other connotations/associations.

I've calmed down now, and spoke to HWCA (who also has quite a Bible-y name), and elijah is still the first pick. So there. frank my mum is Catholic and I think she did make a comment about the 'Jewishness' of the name. Because of the large number of Jewish people she knows

draf you're right, names do become associated with people. There's some lovely names I could never use because of people, and some names I used to hate until I met people who owned them that now seem lovely.

Glad HWCA is on your side, and definitely don't change your mind because of one silly person's comments. I'd give your sister a rocket for betraying your confidence too.

FWIW all of the names on our current short list have been English Queen's/Queen Consorts over the last 1,000 years

I had a quick look - there are far fewer queens and queens consorts in the last 1000 years than I would have guessed. Nice names too.

Oh, everyone has an opinion on names!

We both like a Gallic name, which is, as a result, a bit tricky to spell. And now I'm agonising if it would be cruel to use it.. Sigh.

Oh I'm with you on that one sinks, I really love the irish girls names, but Aine and Aoibhe don't work well in Essex.

Very tempted to go looking up queens now! I suppose Henry VIII ups the numbers a little

HOTB is convinced we are team pink too, but we daren't think about names yet - all feels a bit premature at the minute.

You're right Winks, by my calculations there have only been 22 different names of Queens/Queen consorts over that time period. A very low number for such a long period of time, but as you say they're nice and "classic".

Don't think we'll go with Blanche or Edith though!

Ah but Draf, Henry VIII had 3 Catherine's (MIL's name funnily enough!) and 2 Anne's, so he didn't raise the average by much!

I'm shutting up now before I give anything away

I feel like I ought to feel its premature, but my mind keeps running away with me

frank you can tell uuuuus..

Well, true, but Catherine and Anne are both gorgeous names, so he had good taste in that regard

Both excellent names!

(I may be the owner of both...)

Guinevere? Does she fit? That would be an awesome name!

We're still stuck on Beowolf. I think CASAF is of the firm view that our child will jump out of my foof, spear in hand, stab the midwife, kick the doctor in the head and shout 'I. AM. BEOWOLF' and then slay a deer and eat it raw.

we're not really stuck on Beowolf but he's still fixating on Viking names, god help us all

twonks I would be quite cross with my sister (if I had one). You should absolutely stick to your guns on names as I think Elijah is a brilliant name.

franks spill the beans. Oh go'won.

draff I absolutely agree that the 'oh because I've experienced child birth/child rearing or anything else before you, you have absolutely no idea about anything' brigade. They can cock right off.

Hi to everyone else. Where is pink the titty flasher ?