September crew - baby bumps are appearing and we're emerging as team blue, pink or yellow! Thread 8 :)

[Treaclepie19]

Stats sheet here

bonzo you have made my day! Seriously LOL. You poor, poor sod! Hope you're not too poorly with it.... Shitting oneself is never good. And in tesco, too.

Thanks ladies, I had a look and it says in my booking in notes that I should have a midwife appointment at 24 weeks, so I think I will ring up on monday and ask for one :)

Bonzo what a nightmare. Hope you feel better soon! At least they have loos in tesco. If you had been in Aldi you would have been fucked! ;)

I didn't bother with a birth plan last time and was booked for a home birth. I didn't want to be reminded of any airy fairy ideas i had before experiencing labour! Home birth didn't happen because my waters went and then labour didn't happen. I ended up flat on my back on monitoring, hooked up to augmentin and with a blissful epidural! Very different from the home water birth!

Bonzo you poor thing!

Thanks for the sympathy. In our house shitting oneself is a cause for mirth, definitely not embarrassment! My main concern was that I was wearing my favourite maternity jeans. Fortunately my knickers caught the worst of it and they are now in the san pro bin. Funnily enough I shat myself once driving to work while pregnant with DS1. I called in and told them why I would be late. Unsurprisingly they told me to take the day off.

bonzo I may use that one myself if I'm desperate for a day off.... I've shat myself before too, but not while pregnant. Just awful. Luckily was alone when it happened! Still went beetroot though.

Haaaaaaaaaaaa bonzo that's brilliant! Made me chuckle! I once had a similar, albeit little, incident at Glastonbury! Altho that was the cider and dodgy food rather than a bug, the bum clenching walk to the long drop was interesting tho

Hi Button, welcome.
I've been given nhs classes info and will be doing them. I booked into nct ones very early as I'm keen to do them and didn't want the one in the location and the dates I wanted to get booked up. I also wanted to book early so I'd paid, in order to spread cost of things. This is because as it's my 1st baby I feel I would like as much info and potential contacts as poss and feel I have nothing to lose except money, (hence paying early) and want to do hypnobirthing too (my mum is not the sort of person you'd think would go for it and it wasn't called hypnobirthing then, but someone dad worked with did this kind of thing so she spent time with them and said it was great). I think feedback about nct is very varied, depending on where you live and luck of the draw in terms of meeting people you gel with. I really want to breastfeed and heard good things about nct which is my main motivation, but the advice about breastfeeding groups sounds really sensible too.

I'm not recommended or required to see my gp.

Haven't started a birth plan yet. I will do one, but it will be 'in an ideal world' and I will be prepared to throw it out the window!

Birth plan - mws here ask you to complete a form, which i have done,which basically goes like this - DP can come in, no one else (except mw docs etc obvs!), dont mind gas & air, would like to avoid pethadine, definitely dont want epidural unless emergency, happy for have injection to assist delivery of placenta. And thats about it! Lol as with DS, happy to let the peeps who know what they're doing advise me for safety of babbamoon.
With DS, i was lucky to have wonderful mws who made it as relaxed as possible, and were quite happy with the random swear words i invented! Only person who wasnt too impressed was the poor auxiliary who had the door propped open talking to someone whilst i was being stitched & i turned to DP and, rather loudly in my pethadine-induced state, shouted "I WISH SHE'D SHUT THAT F*ING DOOR!". Which she did. Very quickly.

Other things to think about on birth plan:

1. Do you want baby to have a one off vitamin k injection, drops (over several days ?) that you have to give yourself or neither.
2. If baby has to go straight to nicu or Scbu is your birth partner going with or staying with you.
3. There might be an option of you or your birth partner cutting the cord. Do you want that? Or might you want delayed clamping?
4. If you have a cs do you want the screen down or lights down at the moment of delivery? Skin on skin / BF in theatre. Choice of music? Sounds daft but these requests can often be accommodated, even in an emergency.

Goodness, that's a spectacular birth plan. Mine would read:

Mum: alive
Baby: alive
DH: conscious (if possible)

I won't be cutting the cord, either, and DH is far too squeamish. He doesn't even like cutting nails.....

Haven't done a birth plan, but there's an NHS guided form online here for inspiration: www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/pages/birth-plan.aspx#close

Had a look through that & the info in my notes. I think it's a good idea, if only so you have some conversations with your birth partner ahead of time & both know what your preference is so they can support you properly. One thing I hadn't thought of was whether DP would want to stay with me if I wind up with a CS. The version above also has an option for 'special diet' - don't imagine the NHS runs to bacon sandwiches as standard after delivery, but still.

Oh - and for whoever was asking about appointments, round here the schedule is supposed to be: MW at 16w, GP at 25, mw at 28, GP at 31, then mw at 34, 36, 38 and 40.

letshope that sounds like what I am hoping for!

Anyone else ridiculously hungry? I now have to modes:

1. so hungry I cannot think and become ratty
2. overfull so cannot think and become ratty...

Today this is not helped by the small person dancing around until late last night! Dh had been away all weekend and I think potato was celebrating daddy's return!

My birth plan idea went as far as saying "as many drugs as possible please" until I read up on it and realised some of the down sides with longer labour etc. I'm slowly warming the OH up for what we should think about preparing for which in turn is helping me form some ideas but i suspect our medical team won't take much notice

Hayfever is still terrible, but whatabout thank you! I didn't know about some of the recommendations such as keeping an extra layer on the bed and windows closed etc and as of last night I think it's making a difference.

mrsdos I know the feeling. I cannot stop eating but everything I eat doesn't really hit the spot so I keep on eating trying to find out what I want. Made the mistake of getting on the scales this morning which are definitely reflecting this

letshope that's what dp thought till it got to the actual moment :)

My first one ran:
Intervention as and when medically necessary
Skin to skin with both parents asap
Vit k injection
Daddy to remain with baby if we need to be separated

This time I shall add MAKE SURE I STAY HYDRATED!!!!! Pretty sure I was in labour at least 12 hours longer than necessary due to a full bladder

Someone asked about our birth plan a few days back, and other than 'don't really have one yet' my only comment was that one of us has to be with baby at all times - DP was horrified! He said that if I was taken in one direction and she was taken in the other he'd be sticking with me. I'm not sure if he was being a wimp or being sweetly protective over me....

The hospital tour we did last week showed us that even in theatre they can do all the new baby checks with an open door to the theatre so I can watch .

The baby show at the NEC on Saturday was great - we bought loads of stuff we never knew we needed and a few useful classes too.

My 25 week midwife appt is on Thursday - I've not seen her since 16 weeks (only seen sonographer in between). She is great though, definitely not the tick box variety. I've been concerned about lack of consultant appts too, I have cardiac history and high blood pressure (as well as now suspected placenta previa) but have had a 10 min consultant appt at 12 weeks which just consisted of me telling them they'd filled in the wrong boxes on the form and them telling me I'd be receiving another cardiac consultant appt for the following week which never materialised! I suppose I should have chased it up really but I wanted to get to at least 24 weeks before they started trying to drug me up (which I've got to now, so I'll start being sensible now...)

Scan today was revealed all ok but baby was very uncooperative. Sonographer tipped me on my head to try and get it to move out of pelvis so she could get all the images. Inconclusive on sex unfortunately she said probably girl but not definite.

I was just about to right pretty much the same message Meinthecorner..I went back for another scan today so they could get a better look at face and heart..also inconclusive again regarding the sex..I was going to ask if anyone has gone for a private scan to find out the sex? is there any point trying somewhere else or not (p.s I know it would be nice to have a surprise but I'm inquisitive!)

We just had one and loved it. Sex confirmed and I recommend anyone who can afford the treat to get a 3D scan. We saw baby's face,clenching fingers,touching lips,swallowing,yawning,stretching neck - amazing bonding experience.Will try to attach pic in next post.

22+1

Oh wow, so amazing, I'd be keen to get one done..the scanners today said that she might be struggling to see things clearly because of an operation I had last year, which has produced some scar tissue..so don't know whether a private one might just show the same result

Does anyone know how to join the facebook antenatal group? Think it's time! Also suffered my first pregnancy indignity yesterday...sneezed and wet myself a bit! Complete surprise

Oops, fell off the thread. Just jumping back on :)