Indians - great news on the contractions; hoping to hear baby news from you soon!
Beaut I can't believe your little on is (probably!!!!) going to come on your husband's birthday! That is so ace and very, very special! Thinking of you!
Elliz it was so Withnail & I, only pregnant and boozeless. God I love that film. I may treat myself to watching it later tonight - that will cheer me up! Sorry you're in so much pain :( I've got to say, when I had trapped wind the other night I was really hoping I was right and that it wasn't contractions because I didn't think I would be able to manage that kind of pain getting more intense.
dats actually, that was the most helpful thing I've read about tearing / stitches my whole pregnancy, so thank you very much for sharing. Also, OH GOD, cows. I am not good with cows. Almost jumped in a rhyne (a kind of drainage ditch) once because I felt a group of heifers were getting a bit too interested - DH had to hold me back to stop me! Really I shouldn't be allowed to live in the countryside.
Cheery yeah I would like a new thread on here... I will go and set one up when I've done this if nobody already has. I feel far too superstitious to go onto a postnatal thread before my boy is actually here safe and well.
mascara sex and long walks are the only things my midwives have recommended. When was your due date?
MrsRolly eeks, bullocks are v scary!
becks yeah apparently DH was absolutely crapping himself - he did a very good job of staying calm on the outside though because I had no idea! He told me this morning that that's only the third time in his life he's ever been sketched out by an animal - and he's around animals a LOT. He looked up how to deal with rams this morning - apparently the best way to deal with them is to not get into a field with one, hahaha! But he was very pleased that his plan of wrestling the ram onto its back / grabbing it by its horns and doing a judo flip was exactly what was recommended! He said he was thankful it didn't come to that though, as the ram was pretty bloody big. All I can say is, it's a good job that women get pregnant and not men, because if I'd had to protect DH I'd have been shit!
gnat great news on the baby's engagement (is that the right term? sounds a bit like I am suggesting you are betrothing it before birth, fairy-tale style!). Mine is still only halfway there, which is frankly dispiriting, although the midwife told me she had her finger on his head during the sweep yesterday so it can't be that big of a distance left to go, surely? Have a lovely anniversary day today.
foobio I hope baby stays in till Monday for you, then!
I'm feeling pretty down in the dumps this morning. Despite having what I'm sure was a bloody show yesterday a couple of times (jelly-like, dark red and stringy?) there's been nothing else, other than what I think are Braxton Hicks (which I thought until yesterday were just the baby stretching - I've been having them for weeks without realising).
In the meantime, Sunday and induction ticks ever-closer, and I have realised that I am going to have to let go of my idea of what I would like my labour to be like. Unfortunately, I had let myself get really attached to the idea of a water birth, and being on the midwife-led unit. I knew I might have to have a c-section in the end because I'm fairly small and there's a chance that baby might get stuck, but I was okay with that.
What I didn't want - and what it now looks like I'm going to get - was starting off my labour in a medical environment, on a ward, without the privacy of being at home, without feeling like I am in control, and without the opportunity to labour in water. I didn't want any injected pain relief and according to the leaflet I was given yesterday, induction comes with an increased likelihood of needing an epidural.
I am absolutely gutted and feeling very tearful about it all. I had so much hoped that something would happen overnight after the sweep, and nothing has. I'm ten days overdue now and the baby just keeps getting bigger, which obviously is great that he's still growing so well but I can't help thinking it's going to make everything harder. This is likely to be the only time that I am ever pregnant because DH has strong feelings about adopting as well as having a biological child, and I so badly wanted the birth to be as natural as possible and now it looks like I won't experience that.
Anyway. I know that the important thing is that my baby gets here safe and well, and hopefully I won't care about any of this once he is here, but at the moment I can't stop crying and I feel like my body is just not capable of going into labour :(