November 2014 Thread 2: Springing through the first trimester!

[Nessalina]

Welcome to all you nervous November ladies! Settle in for sore boobs, inappropriate puking, and hopefully happy early scans!

The crew so far:

Just1moretime DC3 due Oct/Nov
devoncreamtea due late Oct
MammySam DC2 due 31st Oct
RandomInternetStranger DC2 due 1st Nov
Canweseethebunnies DC2 due early Nov
booksshoescats DC2 due 3rd Nov
BatCave DC3 due 2nd Nov
Hopeful83 DC1 due 2nd Nov
Annarose2014 due 2nd Nov
CraziesTogether DC1 due 3rd Nov
WinterLover DC2 due 4th Nov
weeonion DC2 due 6th Nov
alita7 DC1 due 6th Nov
caravela due 5th Nov
Littleyewtree DC2 due 7th Nov
Greenstone DC2 due 7th Nov
flipflopsonfifthavenue DC2 due 7th Nov
AussieGoingHomeSoon DC3 due 7th Nov
SazHoopz DC2 due 7th Nov
Fergie11 due 7th Nov
Snook99 due 7th Nov
AveryJessup DC2 due 8th Nov
MabelMay DC3 due 8th Nov
edwardcullensotherwoman DC3 due 8th Nov
Catnap1 DC1 due 8th Nov
Polkadotscarf due 9th Nov
RecklessLadybird DC1 due 9th Nov
Nessalina DC1 due 10th Nov
ladydolly due 10th Nov
PosyFossilsShoes due 10th Nov
LittleRedDinosaur DC2 due 10th Nov
MrsY87 DC1 due 10th Nov
Giraffeski lo DC3 due 11th Nov
BJZebra DC2 due 11th Nov
MrsCuppa DC1 due 11th Nov
nickiswiss due 11th Nov
Mathssssteacher123 DC2 due 11th Nov
HRMumness DC2 due 12th Nov
Misslaughalot due 12th Nov
LadyMillion DC1 due 12th Nov
Amyrose82 DC1 due 12th Nov
FurryScoob DC1 due 13th Nov
Tigsy DC1 due 13th Nov
Lauraparsons233 due 13th Nov
WutheringTights DC2 due 13th Nov
Grayby due 13th Nov
movingmovingmoving DC2 due 14th Nov
MrsWombat DC2 due 14th Nov
Petal26 DC2 due 14th Nov
Misslaughalot DC2 due 14th Nov
Laura1410 DC2 due mid Nov
happyjessie due mid Nov
BeetleBeetle due mid Nov
Baxter2014 due 15th Nov
33goingon64 DC2 due 15th Nov
SeaSaltMill DC1 due 15th Nov
theduchesse DC2 due 15th Nov
Barmybunting DC1 due 16th Nov
selsigfach DC1 due 16th Nov
Getyourflipflopson DC3 due 16th Nov
pinkgirlythoughts DC2 due 17th Nov
StudyFullTime DC2 due 17th Nov
Snooky17 DC4 due 17th Nov
daisydalrymple DC3 due 18th Nov
DilysMoon DC3 due 18th Nov
stowsettler DC2 due 19th Nov
Whenwillwe3meet again DC1 due 19th Nov
utopian99 DC2 due 20th Nov
robynarmstrong92 DC1 due 21st Nov
NorthernExile DC2 due 23rd Nov
keeponkeepinon DC3 due 24th Nov
maeanne DC2 due 26th Nov
ImBrian DC5 due 26th Nov
Sleepingstarsmommy DC1 due 27th Nov
WhatWouldCaitlinDo due Nov

my scans come through, 23rd april excited but scared now

Can I moan about the fact I don't feel sick, with all 3 of my pregnancys I felt sick 2 girls and 1 boy, no sickness with my mc and none so far with this one. I'm 6 + 4 today tho based on scan possibly more 6+6 seen hb but seen hb before with mc too,

Hands up anyone who's feeling cold? I've seen a few of you mention it. I am freezing constantly. I do get that it's March though and I'm a cold person anyway. But I'm really really cold all the time now and I don't remember this from the last time.

I've just seen on another forum someone mention that if you feel the cold it might be a sign you're carrying a boy. I haven't seen this anywhere else though! I am sure it is a totally made-up nugget.

Greenstone I'm freezing all the time!! Will have to see if the boy theory is correct?!

Also snooky I am very nervous at my 'lack of symptoms', I'm sure I'd feel better if I was being sick. I dont think I had many symptoms with my first baby either at the beginning, but from 18 weeks I was sick every day until she was born! We should be careful what we wish for.

Got an appointment to see my GP this afternoon (they make you book in with them first and they refer you to the midwife), So I'm guessing this will be quite uninspiring, but at least it will make it seem more real and get me in the system for a booking in appointment and that all important first scan!

5+5

You’re all lovely – I’ll moan away then!

alita - ugh, how horrible for you. I really feel for you and Tigsy and anyone who’s a teacher or any kind of public-facing role. I have to deal with the odd author face to face, but generally it’s just colleagues and it’s a pretty laid-back place so I feel free to just be myself. I’m going to tell my boss next week, as I now (having booked the Harmony test and nuchal at the Fetal Medicine Centre) am going to be out of the office as some scan or appointment or other every week for the next four weeks and she’s great – and honestly on Monday I’ll be nine weeks and if anything happens now I’ll be telling her anyway, so I might as well put her in the picture now.

Winterlover - how brilliant – so nice to have a date!

Snooky waiting is the worst, and it’s so easy to misread the signs as something ominous – once you’ve had an mc you can never relax, I know. Hang in there! Do you have another scan booked? If not, maybe book one for 8 weeks+. The miscarriage association gives fantastic odds if you see a heartbeat after 8 weeks.

Greenstone Yes, still cold. Like you I am a cold person, but I wasn’t like this last time, and was pregnant all through winter. So far the evidence for a boy for me is: cold, implanted on the right-hand side, fast-swimming sperm (must have been, as I got pg so late in my cycle). I do love a good Old Wives’ Tale

Just making myself chips and beans (with lots of vinegar) for lunch. Yes I am disgusting. I’m feeling sicker and sicker today. Just got up to check on the chips and momentarily thought I was going to be sick (not from the thought of chips, though). God, I got off SO lightly last time!

anyone else had painful external genitalia (don't know how else to put it :p) it's really odd :p

Barmy fingers crossed it will be around DH's birthday then, good timing hey!! My 12 week scan was just before my birthday!! It's a good omen I'm so relieved for you, I couldn't get you out my head yesterday so I'm thrilled it's all good news. Keep me updated with scan dates etc xxx

Yeah I'm freezing too! But other than slightly sore boobs no real symptoms, although I'm not 6 weeks yet. I'm really hoping they'll do a dating scan because of my irregular cycles, but if not, I would feel tempted to do a private scan! I just don't feel very pregnant. books, that is reassuring to know about having a scan at 8+ weeks.

I can't believe I just realised I forgot to drink my clipper decaf tea this morning and I didn't have a drink afterwards either... so now making loads of cups of tea and hot water to make up for it!

I was wondering if anyone else is paranoid about chemicals, like in plastic, tins, face creams and even bloody non-stick pans. I'm not sure what to do about it. I don't want to go crazy avoiding all kinds of stuff, but it does worry me a bit.

blamber I'm also a bit paranoid but there's only so much you can do to avoid those things... they're every where. I can't suddenly stop using my non stick pan :p although I'm barely eating things I'm cooking now anyway :p

blamber I am very paranoid about chemicals when I'm pg and around my kids. I wouldn't use any baby wipes or chemical bath and body and hair products on DD and still massively restrict it now and she's nearly 8. I don't use nail varnish or body lotions or sprays when I'm pg or around little ones, I try not to eat anything that isn't fresh homemade and preferably organic and household cleaners and washing pacers are all switched to organic or natural versions. I don't have any non stick pans anyway as all mine are cast iron (the only ones which will work on my induction hob!) but everything else is switched over to hippy versions.

blamber Is it your first? I've found I just give things like that much less thought this time round - I mean, unless you're working with chemicals or breathing in gloss paint all day, I wouldn't worry. After I had dd I read something that really made me laugh: with your first, if the baby drops a dummy on the floor, you sterilise it and give it back to them. With the second, you lick it for them and give it back to them. With the third, you give it to the dog to lick and give it back to them. Bit like that really

I do think that the fact most of us are more sensitive to smell can make you worry more, though - if something smells bad, or stronger than usual, you can feel as if it's doing harm when it's probably not even reaching the baby, let alone doing them any damage.

alita - no, but I've had that slight pressure feeling a few times that I get when AF due to arrive/first day of AF in that area. Maybe there's just more blood going to that general area so you're feeling sensitive.

books yes you guessed correctly, it's all new to me .

I've switched most creams/shower gels to ones with low chemicals. I never heated food up in plastic, but have just gone to the kitchen and thrown out all the old plastic containers that have food stuff in them. But as alita says, it's just everywhere and hard to avoid.

alita I have had a couple of shooting stabbing pains in my labia. Nothing that last very long, just a sharp "ow!"

I've had to tell my boss already because we we're scheduled fir a lot of fertility tests and appts over the last/next few weeks (before we found out!). It's a new job, started on Monday, so she needed to know why I was missing so much time... I've been with the same company since 2010, but it's a promotion into a different department. She has been absolutely lovely about the whole thing, I feel so lucky.

Can anyone explain how do the dating based on scans? The ultrasound technician yesterday said she thought I was 5+5, but I'm actually only 5 weeks past my last period today. Was she going off the size, or just miscalculating based on my dates? I know docs in general base your dates from the lmp, but do the ultrasound techs usually make an estimate based on size? Thanks!

Another cold person here! Must say I'm not as worked up about things like chemicals, what foods to avoid etc as I was first time round. I'm still worrying away about a mc though, won't be happy till I see a heartbeat. I had an early scan at 7 weeks last time because of a scare, but expect I will have to wait the whole 12 weeks this time, which feels like aaaages away!

random - I've just seen your post on chemicals. I'm now that I'm so slummy. I mean, I'm not that bad with household detergents (use ecover, and organic baby stuff and never perfumed wipes, etc, find air fresheners repulsive) but still - I let DD occasionally have nail varnish for parties (I know, awful) but we eat way too much convenience food and I'm just rather lazy. I'm a good cook but never get the time to make the good quality food I would like to, and DD is a bit fussy and I do often give in to a round of fishfingers and beans and cheese on toast. I do batch cook at weekends sometimes, but not nearly enough.

In fact, one of the things I'm looking forward to about being on mat leave is having a few months to cook well instead of getting home at 7.30 and collapsing in an exhausted heap with something from the freezer on in the oven. (Disclaimer: I know I'll still be exhausted, but it's a different kind of exhausted with a different schedule from working full time.) (2nd disclaimer: DH does (a great deal) more than his fair share round the house, btw, but the cooking from scratch is my thing).

Carmine - that's great re your boss, but odd re the scan. It's very early though, so I'm not sure what scans show you at that point. I thought just a yolk sac/foetal pole - can they tell precise dates before 6 weeks? Also, I'm sure you are, but you are counting from the first day of your last period, aren't you?

Beetle - do it! I had mine at 7+2 and could see easily enough to reassure me. So worth it - I'd be bonkers by now if I hadn't. Can't think why I considered for a minute not doing it!

books -- give yourself a break over the food, I must say I find meal-preparation to be one of the aspects of parenting that's particularly relentless!

I work part-time and so do have the time to cook from scratch a lot, which I do, and I don't mind doing it, but good lord it's pretty fucking endless, no?! There is also the fact that so many of my core ingredients are things like tinned tomatoes and beans and chickpeas etc which come in those tins which are supposedly terrible for your health.

Sometimes I have a little daydream about how life, and our everyday domestic practices in particular, would look if men were the ones who carried babies. There would be none of this uncertainty and these wishy-washy frowny lists that appear with things like 'new cars' 'non-stick pans' that we 'might wish' to avoid. It sounds like the science is there. These things can be dodgy. But how exactly to avoid them? Seriously? In real life? I don't have a clue. I'm definitely not a bleach and destroy kind of person, and natural cosmetics suit my skin better than chemically ones -- but at the same time the dangers seem to be absolutely everywhere.

Sorry about the rant. I guess I am saying that if you are damned for convenience meals then I am equally damned for cooking from scratch with healthy ingredients stored in unhealthy containers

Carmine I can't remember, was it you who had the odd sequence of bleeding/BFPs? Is it possible what you're counting as a period was in fact an implantation bleed or something? Disclaimer: I have no clue.

Northern I'll join you in the endless wait til 12weeks. It's SO long!

carmine, maybe your baby is just growing fast or you ovulated early :)

Another one feeling the cold here - wrapped up in my big coat and scarf this morning!

Alita - I had awfully sore, painful external lady bits for a week just before I found out. It was horrible, really uncomfortable and I'm sure it must've been pg-related as it's nothing I've ever experienced before!

I'm following all the official guidelines re food/drink etc and have never smoked anyway, but everything else I'm taking with a pinch of salt - THEY, whoever THEY are, seem to say you can't eat/drink/do anything while you're pregnant without any real evidence to back it up.

I mean, if everything was such a risk to pg the human race would've died out long ago! It wasn't so long ago that people smoked and drank during pregnancy - my mum had massive liver craving with me, which we now know is a no-no, and I turned out just fine

books seriously don't worry. You sound like your life style is too busy to be ultra careful about everything and while what random does is the ideal it's not strictly necessary! Each to their own! (try not to offend any one here!) not cooking every night when to work long hours is normal, giving in to kids wanting nail varnish etc on special occasions is normal. kudos to people who manage to keep to low chemical things and cook all the time etc but at the same time it's not realistic for everyone were all busy in different ways! my DSD sometimes isn't parented perfectly when we're tired, ill or busy. but I'm sure we make up for it other times!

My periods have been really light but very regular since I came off the pill in October, so to be honest I have no real idea when I'm ovulating. I had a 21 day progesterone test this month, got 45 and must have already been pregnant by then! I am counting from the first day of my last 'period' (which was more like a one day bleed) ... That was five weeks ago today. If I ovulated early in this cycle, I could be at 5 + 2 or so now... Maybe it i just a big baby! I tried to get the nurse to explain how they were working it out, but she just said that people are like chickens, some lay bigger eggs than others. Helpful!

I have another scan on 10th April so hopefully that will be more useful!

well carmine I certainly wouldn't worry, it's bigger than it should be, not smaller :)

books when it's just non pg me on my own I live on kebabs and coke and am permanently covered in a layer of fake tan, hair dye, make up, nail varnish, various sprays and usually have a Marlboro menthol hanging out my mouth. it's only when I'm pg or DD is with me instead of her father that I'm an all natural hippy.

Ah yes, people are like chickens, quite right Carmine - I can see now how the dates might differ then

random - rofl. You sound like my kind of girl.

Amyrose Have you read Expecting Better? It's great on debunking (or at least examining closely) what 'they' say we should/shouldn't do. Very interesting stuff. DH's friend's mum's GP 'prescribed' her two cigarettes a day when she was pg with DH's friend to relieve stress (so this is 45 years ago). She turned out fine, too! Not that I'm advocating smoking during pregnancy, but really, babies are pretty tough as long as you're not being totally reckless.