With disbelief and minimal drama, the PESH are ambling into springtime diffedness!

[SinkyMalinks]

Antenatal fred fun for BESH graduates

CRESH

Faith - pinky faithlet arrived 14th April 2013
Pinkr - suitably pinky one arrived 25th August 2013
Jethro - blue one arrived 23rd September 2013
Noks - a surprisingly breechy pink one arrived 12th January 2014

PESH

Frankel - EDD 4th March
Sinky - EDD 18th March
Merks - EDD 21st March
Driz - EDD 7th June
Draf - EDD 19th June
Kat - EDD 20th June
Winks - EDD 26th June
Dor - EDD 18th August
Ginger - 20th August
Euro - 28th August

Pleasantly busy here, isn't it?

She's wrong, frank. My parents both worked all my life, but I remember hating a few months when my mum was between jobs - I was about twelve and couldn't stand not having peace and quiet when I came home from school!

Mind you, I am a housewife and totally leech off HOTB, so what do I know

Draf

God I could do with a gin right now!

frank you won't be chatting to your mum before your next blood pressure test will you? :) Have you had any alcohol at all whilst diffed? I'm not opposed to a tiny bit in principle but I've found the smell of it makes me gag.

How are the plague ridden Esh this morning?

Frank I wouldn't even try to reason with her! Just use some kind of vague Thanks for your opinion, I'll bear it in mind then make your choices. She won't listen to sensible arguments so there's no point. I've actually dropped my hours more than we'd initially planned because by not having her in a child minder's the balance of the cost of childcare/my earnings we're not much worse off and I get more time with her. We are fortunate that we have family to help with childcare though.

Thanks all. Next blood pressure check is tomorrow so, no I won't be speaking to her before then!

I've had a couple of watered down glasses of wine over Christmas, but to be honest I haven't actually felt like drinking alcohol.

winks there is a big X on my front door. I am in an awfully bad way - just about managing to drag myself between bed, sofa and kitchen, leaving piles of soggy tissues in my wake. It is an absolute stinker of a cold! I still feel completely dreadful.

I've been craving wine. I don't even think I want a whole glass. Just a taste (which would be fine of course, but I'm worried once I started I might want more). I have promised myself I can have the odd one once I am past the first tri.

frank I know my mum disapproved when my bestie went back at 6 months after each of hers, so I suspect I am heading for similar. The ridiculous thing is that she was pretty miserable being a SAHM and desperate to get back to work once I was at school, but word processing was introduced while she was off (she was a legal secretary) and she lost all confidence about going back to this strange new world. It's her experience that has always made me determined to continue working if we ever had a family! She made her choices and I will make mine. Me and KFZK have talked about using the shared parental leave provisions (as I earn about 40% more than him) so I would take maybe the first 4 months and him the next couple. I suspect she won't be able to get her head around that at all!

We are getting better I think...Little pink has been much more smiley Thank goodness!

I am still full of the lurgy and this terrible cough has reminded me I need to do my pelvic floor exercises! but Faithlet is fine--

I have decided to take one more night off. I'm utterly drained, even after a nap. Days off start tomorrow and hopefully I'll be myself again by Monday.

Glad Little Pink is improving and that Faithlet is doing ok. Fingers crossed she stays that way.

euro hope you're getting plenty of rest? Are you knackered anyway? I couldn't believe how tired I was in the first trimester.

How are the sick and lame doing today? Winks, definitely a good idea to take the extra day off you'll only end up feeling worse if you go back too soon.

34 week midwife appt this afternoon, so I'm hoping my BP is back down and she can reassure me about my PFF

I feel a little better today. Incredibly tired and with a lovely headache, but the manflu symptoms have calmed down, thankfully. I don't think I could have taken another day of constant noseblowing - the skin is peeling!

wink I have been pretty tired anyway. I am ridiculously tired at the moment though.

Fx for the BP frank.

euro do you have the kleenex balsam tissues? Ludicrously priced for tissue but so much kinder on the nose. Glad you've broken the back on it, and keep resting. Tis knackering being diffed.

frank good luck today, hope all is well with Precious First Foetus/Franklet/Foal (?)

Once HWCA is awake, Operation Home Improvement continues apace with a trip to the furniture shop to buy the new flooring. The quote for kitchen & living room was surprisingly reasonable. I moved in here over 5 years ago and it was very much a man cave, with hints of evil ex-girlfriend. Now I've made enough changes, it feels like my home.

Go and get yourself some Lasinoh cream - it's used for sore nipples but is brilliant on sore noses!

Morning all. Back to fighting fitness here, but am getting pissed off with my sleep pattern. Sleep for a few hours, wake to pee, lie awake for a couple of hours, read, have breakfast, pass out fir another couple of hours. I've been up for half an hour but have only had a normal night's worth of sleep

I concur re kleenex balsam, euro - they're very kind to the nose. HOTB wouldn't get through hayfever season without them.

Good luck, Frank! Sure everything will be fine :)

Sorry Winks I should have added that PFF is Pregnancy Fat Face . The little monkey causing said problem is still just Turnip!

Zara and Mike Tindall have named their daughter Mia Grace.

I was worried they might use one of "our" names, but crisis averted

Phew!

I did wonder if they might use a girl's name I like. Forerunners for girl's names include Zara's granny's name. The other name we both like is one that has been used by an Esh and HWCA's mate at work. Hmm.

Doesn't matter, because its absolutely definitely a boy. Probably.

We have no agreed names... Kind of hoping he'll look like a someone when he's born!

The only name we both like is really common at the moment, and neither of us really really like it. It's just the only one the other doesn't hate!

Back from the midwife, BP back down to normal and urine all clear - phew
She also confirmed my suspicion that Turnip is head down, but I can't for the life of me fathom how she managed to identify spine, bum and elbows from all the lumps she was feeling!

I'm keeping schtum on names, but suffice to say our short list of 5 has 4 former English queen's/queen consorts on it and I was quite worried Zara might force us to rule one out!

I'm surprised by the choice of Mia, quite modern!

We chose Faithlet's name because we liked it but I was pleased to see it was only 44th on the UK names list last year! Winks I think it's ok to use a name a previous ESH has chosen.

Frank glad to hear all is ok. Yes it's amazing what they can feel!

winks I have used the balsam tissues all the way through. I got through a box and a half in two days... Thankfully the snot is easing now. Thanks for the nip cream tip dor, although that would involve leaving the house. I haven't been out of the front door since Monday morning. I'm hibernating!

draf I've had a similar sleep pattern since BFP. Go to bed around 11. Sleep until 12-1. Get up to pee. Get straight back off to sleep. Wake between 3 and 5. Get up to pee. Fail to get back to sleep. Read. Eventually drift off shortly before alarm goes off. Spend morning feeling very groggy indeed.

frank that's great news about the BP, and the head-down turnip! When my bestie had twins she pointed out various bums and things and I could never figure out how they were both fitted together in there!

I think Mia Grace is a lovely choice. All of my favourite names have been used by close friends while we have been ttc. I have a couple of new ideas, but neither of us is likely to bring up the subject for many weeks yet.

The closest we've got to thinking about names is "we should get a book"

euro you could get Amazon or similar to deliver some to you? Glad the snot is finally easing!

That sleep pattern sounds exactly like mine. Its been even worse the last few nights as I don't sleep well when HWCA is away, plus our part-time upstairs neighbour had been especially noisy. He woke me up at midnight the other night, making so much noise I thought I had a (particularly incompetent) burglar in the house. Scared the crap out of me. Pilates has helped a bit though.

frank glad all seems well.

Sorry about the snotty brigade! Glad things are changing for the better, tho. Waves at fellow insomniacs. I wake up once nowadays, but for hours... I reduced my work loads a lot this week, as I simply couldn't cope.

Glad bp is back where it belongs and turnip has turned, frank!

Names, we had a flutter of chatting about it after the scan. Now it's subsided a lot. Not a single name we both like so far...