March Mummies 2015 - ever hopeful for the return of sanity and departure of sickness as we approach second tri!

[lotsoftoast]

New thread - think this is number 4?! Can someone post the link to the stats please? Thank you

Oh no zebra. Hope you don't have the same mw this time?

kettle what kind of book do you mean? Things to expect during pregnancy and childbirth? If so I have a good one called 'Your Pregnancy week by week' by Lesley Regan. I got it from Mothercare for about £25-30 but you can probably find it much cheaper online. It's got lots of info on how the baby develops, how your body changes, common concerns, labour and recovery after the birth. It's really good.

Oh she was truly dreadful and is part of a list of people I have refused to be treated by again! She's moved to the hospital labour ward, but previously she was a community MW.

I think it was one of those things that obviously isn't ideal but DS was fine and the MW's reaction and handling of it was more damaging than him sleeping for nine hours. But it did also kind of bring it home to me that I'd focussed so much on the emotional/bonding/breastfeeding/sleeping/style of parenting aspects, I hadn't really given too much time to the more practical aspects. A book probably not too dissimilar to MN's Why Did Nobody Tell Me is probably a good read.

I read - and loved - books on attachment theory like Dr Sears' books
A Gentle Birth Method - all about handling pain and massages in labour, hypnobirthing techniques, what happens to your body and brain in labour
A Gentle First Year - bonding things to do, baby massage, breastfeeding.

And Dr Yehudi Gordon is a friend and a private obstetrician wrote a good book that is a complete anthology of all things baby called Birth and Beyond. Covers practically anything you could think of and we used as a reference, looking up each new thing that completely dumbfounded us

Zebra the same thing happened to us with DS. I fed him at 7am the day we left hospital, he slept right through until the next morning. We did try waking him a few times but he was out cold. We thought he was catching up on his sleep after the birth but he didn't have enough energy to wake up and feed.

MW was lovely though and helped us get milk into him through a syringe, he eventually began waking then to be fed and eventually latched on himself.

No one had told us this, I told the midwife at the hospital when we were leaving (1pm) that he hadn't fed since 7 and she gave me a few syringes and a leaflet on hand expressing

zebra what am awful
Midwife. I naively think that all
Midwifes must be lovely as I can't imagine why anyone horrid would want to do that job.

I have no idea on newborns. My sister just had a baby and I changed a wee nappy on her at the weekend. That's quite something for me. Even if I did have to be dorected by my
6yr old niece!

I don't know anything!! Where do you read you need to feed every two to three hours; that babies should sleep at the bottom of the cot; that you can't keep them in a car seat for ages; I know NOTHING! My plan is to but a million books after my scan (too scared to do anything now).

My scan is Friday. Am very nervous...

Oh yes Christina the little tiny syringes and hand expressing! I found one the other day, going up in little 0.5ml increments. We also used the lid of a Tommee Tippee bottle, using a spoon to hand express into and then use the lid to sort of force his lips open. Little baby DS refused resolutely to open his mouth or eyes, determined to stay asleep while we tried gently to force some precious golden colostrum into him. MADNESS.

Exactly m33r I don't know how you find this stuff out. I wasn't told on leaving the hospital. The night he was born, a few hours after, I called for the MW to ask "...errr should I be feeding him again...?"

But luckily you guys have us to talk to and hopefully a lot of these things will come out in conversation, or you'll come across it and us second timers can share our experiences :)

I think my MW was just vastly inexperienced and tended to err on the side of panic/aggression when faced with anything other than remotely HOW THINGS SHOULD BE. Which for first time parents, is far from ideal. Luckily DH is fairly resilient and independent, and while I sat on the couch crying, he was googling and looking at you tube videos on what to do.

Thanks zebra. Everything I put on that list, I'd picked up on here and is the sum total of my knowledge!

It's nice when DH comes through. Mine does that kind of calm, helpful thing!

I have very sore muscles tonight like flu but no other flu symptoms. Is this just pregnancy exhaustion?

Ok so the Lucozade didn't work I just ended up spewing the whole bottle back up all over my bed .
Dp thinks I'm slightly crazy after finding me Sat in the middle of the room butt naked & crying

I think I'm starting with a migraine & I don't know how I'll cope as I can't take my migraine meds , so it will last around ten days

Hi Ladies,
I had my scan yesterday and all was good. Apparently the downes risk was the lowest the computer is able to process, so that's pretty damn reassuring, especially as I'm 37!
Baby is WAY more active than either of my others were at 12 weeks. Bouncing, kicking and punching like a little goblin in there!

M33r Mumsnet is great for info, but if you feel a bit clueless (I was!) I recommend reading lots of books but not taking any one opinion as absolute gospel. Just absorb the information so that you can pick and choose from it and work out your own way once you have your baby.

Oh Panda that's awful! Are there any natural treatments for migraine that you can take? Obviously not going to be as good as your normal meds, but maybe worth a shot? You poor thing!!

Absolutely nothing but the migraleve works for me , I tried everything before resorting to them as I have suffered from migraines since I were 3

I'm just glad Ds is back at school as I really wouldn't cope at all

It's great that your scan went well btw

Hi guys, can I be a super late joiner please? i'm due March 7th, with my 4th. I'll do my best to catch up with the 664 messages on this thread :p xx

OK. I have read a million bloody baby books, but the one that really stood out for me was "Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering" - it's fabulous, talks about all aspects of childbirth and the early days of being a mother without talking down to you or saying "you have to do it X way" - she just goes over the research and reasons for things so you feel really informed. I found out things about ultrasounds and epidurals and induction that nobody had ever bothered to tell me, even though I had agreed to them, so that was hardly informed consent, was it?

This time round I decided I still wanted the ultrasound as I feel the benefits outweigh any potential risks, but at least I was able to make that decision. I really hate that so much of ante-natal care infantilises women. It's just assumed we're going to be good little baby-making-machines and do what the doctors tell us.

And yes, generally babies need feeding every 2 or 3 hours, even through the night, in the early days. If a baby regularly sleeps longer than 4 hours it can be a sign of jaundice, or lack of energy from - wait for it - not feeding enough!

If anyone is interested, I'm a breastfeeding peer supporter, so I'm happy to help with any queries about that you might have, and if I don't know the answer I have excellent contacts who will :)

For instance, if any of you are diagnosed with gestational diabetes you can start hand expressing and freezing colostrum ante-natally so that when your baby is born you can give them this, as well as straight from the boob, to help get their blood sugar levels sorted, which is a far better solution than to feed formula (which is what most hospitals would direct you to do in the absence of stored colostrum)

American article on ante natal expressing for diabetic 'moms'

Mumsnet thread on it

Sorry if nobody is interested. I've been awake since 4 and trying to find ways to entertain myself that won't wake anybody up.

eatscake I'm a type 1 diabetic and I know I need to express before I'm either induced or have a CS. I've spoken to my midwife and she says she'll show me, but I may be coming for advice if that's ok?!

Panda i feel ur pain :( nothing but migraleve works for me either. The only thing to ease it is to lie in a dark room with a sock soaked in freezin cold water over my head and eyes. Mine don't last as long as yours though, only a few days. Must be horrible for you xx

Here we go again, up bang on the dot of 6.30 with butterflies. I'm only 13 weeks, but I swear my baby is going to be an early riser lol

Hello all

Another late joiner, if I may?! I've been lurking around this and the previous threads for ages, a bit superstitious. This is my first pregnancy. Have my 12w scan on tues.

Just noticed Surfsup that you got your downs results there and then?! All the leaflets I'd read said I would get results within a week or two so was wondering about telling people in the meantime. Is it more likely that they just tell you on the spot if you're low risk?!

Thanks. As the name suggests...clueless!x

eats honestly what you have written is exactly how I feel and what I struggle with with regards to ante natal care. I'm going to check out that book because last time, I felt like I'd done so much research and was ahead of the curve in terms of knowing my rights etc, and yet STILL felt bullied and pressured into an induction!

Clueless84 I got mine yesterday at the scan but it was at Kings in London, not sure if that makes a difference. Baby was 1 in 5650 and for the more rare risk, one in 130000.

I tend to agree also, about taking nothing as gospel. There's somethings that are pretty black and white - baby needs this, baby needs that. But for how you generally intend to parent, feeding, sleeping, carrying etc. Well you know, I've seen enough to know it's not always about how you want to do it We intend to co sleep again but this baby might be having none of it. I want to use a sling again as much as possible but I've seen some babies absolutely freak out in a sling. And vice versa, a mum friend who never entertained the idea of a sling, bought an incredibly expensive and beautiful pram to push her baby around in...and used it maybe three times because the baby screamed and screamed and screamed, and settled in the sling.

On my other group, their babies have proved things I thought were absolute just didn't work for them. So I guess, flexibility is best. My style has tended to be path of least resistance, whatever got me the most sleep

zebra I had DS at King's!
clueless i got my results this time throu the post 9 days after scan. 1in 13k so pretty low risk.

Was starting to feel more human this week but that's been ruined by a poor night's sleep and vomitting at the sight of DS' yoghurt at 06.30am. V strange he never gets up thst early let alone wanting to eat.
Someone at work told me it was obvious I'm pregnant yesterday and couldn't believe no-one had guessed. I guess at almost 15w I can't hide it anymore. I still think my stomach just looks fat rather than pg although it has popped out a lot quite high up so in one way I probably look further along.

Announced on fb yesterday which for us was an easy way of letting friends who we don't see that often know.

I'm just doing my abm peer support course now before moving on to the counsellor course

It is so hard to be assertive when pregnant but I hate, hate, hate women being told they 'have to' do something or 'aren't allowed' to do another. YOU are in charge of YOU - the only person who can allow or disallow you to do anything is YOU. Don't just blindly accept what health professionals say - often they do things for their own convenience, rather than your benefit, or fail to mention the risks of the options they are presenting you with!

stepsoffsoapbox

Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering is a great book - lots of good info there.

When is everyone's bumps starting to appear?

Think mine has gotten really noticable in the past few days! Its just popped out of nowhere and now it is really noticable that I'm pregnant. Have one pair of stretchy leggings I can fit into, cant shut any of my jeans now. And forcing them closed hurts! Think I need to go buy more leggings!

lotsoftoast that's exactly how it was for me last time. You "will be allowed", "we won't allow" etc. But in the end, the emotional pressure they put on me and the bullying...it wore me down :(

This time I've got it in all my notes how the experience of the HCPs affected me and the MWs this time were very sure to tell me they were my advocate...but they were still talking in terms of "well when you have to understand that once the placenta is over 38 weeks, it begins to deteriorate.." and already starting with that paradigm that begins the path to induction. I mentioned the research to show there's no more effect on the placenta at 38 weeks than 42 weeks, and they just looked perplexed...