November 2017 #4: Bump botherers, nesting and maternity leave!

[GingerHanna]

In which we swat away unwanted hands, perform military operations every night to roll over in our sleep, clean the kitchen cupboards for the eleventy billionth time and count down the days to our maternity leave!

Previous thread here.

Click here for The List.

I've just put my out of office email on till September 2018 and it feels amazing. Finishing work is such a weight off my mind!

Good luck @gingerhanna, I'm glad they're looking after you properly.

Yay @AccrualIntentions - celebrations all round

Good luck @gingerhanna everything will be wonderful and you will have you're baby in your arms soon x x x
Lots of luck and thoughts to everyone else.
All good here. First wedding anniversary tomorrow and feel as bug as a house!
Baby bump is moving around so much and need to wee so badly at night! Much love to all x

Yay to all the maternity leave starters!! It’s so exciting.

Wow @Ginger that is so exciting, wishing you all the best for it 💜 another October Baby. We are all with you! Xx

Our nursery furniture finally arrived today and DH has assembled the change table/chest of drawers! It’s so exciting! It’s so touching seeing him so excited. He turns up about 3 time’s a day just checking in lol.

I’ve been having on off crampy pains for the last day or two but it’s so hard to tell if it is just normal toilet pain! I don’t remotely “feel” like I’m in labour!

@buttery how are you feeling today? Still a bit off?

We are going to our friends’ (next door) for a takeaway with another couple too tonight, everyone has voted for a bloody curry whilst I wanted Chinese, they are conspiring with my DH to get this baby out sooner rather than later! I want another 2 weeks of lounging around reading and watching films...

Oh and @accrual you’ve just reminded me I didn’t put my out of office on...whoops! Gonna spend first month back reading through a tonne of shit then 😂

Good luck @Ginger 💕

@GingerHanna sounds like the Drs have a plan which must be a relief. Although being stuck in hospital for the next few days might be a bit boring at least you know baby is being checked regularly & you're in the right place should anything happen. Hopefully it will be an uneventful few days & you'll be enjoying newborn cuddles on Tuesday.

I also started mat leave today. Only cried once when they did my leaving presentation. Much better than last time when I sobbed my way out of the building! My team took me for afternoon tea which was lovely.

Feels like baby is trying to put in an early appearance. Lots of twinges, Braxton hicks & tightening going on. She is really low again today. Didn't get any of this with DS, even right at the end. I'm happy for her to come any time now but ideally id like her to wait until Tuesday evening so I can DS to his first day at preschool & pick him up again. As he told me this morning tho she'll come when she's ready!

Thanks ladies.

We have a plan...! Induction starts with a balloon catheter tomorrow mid afternoon. That then does its thing overnight and we start Sunday with rupturing the membranes and straight into IV drip. Baby will then hopefully arrive during Sunday but may be Monday... most likely Sunday!

@hazandduck I've had mine ready to switch on for about the past 2 weeks, it's one of things that's been getting me through I'm sure they'll soon take the hint when you don't reply.

Good luck for your labour and delivery @gingerhanna! I hope that it all goes well and baby is in your arms safe and sound in the next 48 hours.

Hope all goes smoothly for you @gingerhanna.

I'm feeling so much better thanks @hazandduck, have had loads of energy yesterday and today after feeling so rubbish on Thursday. Weird. I think I maybe hadn't eaten enough carbs (constant balancing act with gestational diabetes!).

Hope everyone is enjoying the weekend. I've done loads today - probably a bit too much - so I'm just having a nice bath.

DH is preparing the house as we're having a new boiler installed this week. Bit of a nightmare as it means taking up half the carpets and floors and we'll have no heating or hot water for 3 days. This baby better not try to make an early appearance!

We are go. This is not a drill. I repeat this is not a drill!

Catheter insertion done. All good and much less painful than expected. Will see where we are at 07:00 tomorrow and if dilated enough then we move into the delivery room and the real fun starts.

See you on the other side!

@GingerHanna good luck, hope it all goes smoothly. I was induced with DS. If they give you the drip ask for an epidural. In my experience the pain ramps up very quickly once the drip starts & the gas & air just wasn't cutting it anymore.

@GingerHanna eeekkk I am so excited for you, the best advice I can give you is to listen to your body. Sending you lots of love

Good luck!!!

So excited for you! Hope you manage to get some sleep tonight!

Quick update. Had quite severe cramping and some bowel emptying last night but eventually managed to get to sleep. Didn’t have tons of sleep but - thanks to the heavy sedative - what I did have was deep so feel better.

Balloon has not fallen out so a bit disappointed but no way of knowing how effective it has been until they come around and see me in an hour. No cramps of pain now which is as expected.

Just waiting for Limpet to wake as as I haven’t felt him move yet this morning which is unusual. Given him a poke so hopefully he’s just a bit sleepy from the sedative also.

Will update once I know if we’re going forward. Really hope I have progressed enough otherwise it’s another day waiting for the balloon to work.

So, balloon worked and 3cm dilated. We are go!

Good luck @gingerhanna!!! Thinking of you x x x

Best wishes @GingerHanna will be thinking of you!! X

@GingerHanna so exciting. Hope things go smoothly for you xx

Ah good luck @Ginger so glad it worked for you! Xx

I had a bit of drama last night. For the last week or so I have been driven mad by itchy hands and feet. I thought it was just a normal symptom so hadn’t mentioned anything but last night I honestly could’ve scratched my feet to bleeding!! My tummy has itched for months but again I never told Midwife because I thought it was just part and parcel and wouldn’t be serious!

I text the Midwife last night just to see if she had any suggestions to relieve it, and she phoned me straightaway and told me I wasn’t allowed to google but I needed to go to my local hospital for a blood test, especially if the movements didn’t feel normal. Cue scared google! I had been busy all day so wasn’t sure if movements had been normal or I’d not been paying attention. It is apparently a symptom of a problem with the liver and they like to deliver babies early if you have it as their is an increased risk of complications for the baby.

Any way, nice lady on labour ward told me to come in any way instead of waiting all night worrying. So me and DH went up, I ended up on the monitor from 11 til about 3am because Baby was going so nuts rolling around their HB wouldn’t settle in to a normal pattern (all midwives were laughing about how active they were and weren’t worried which helped me!)

Annoyingly I dozed off a couple of times too which meant the monitor moved off the heartbeat so they had to effectively start the monitoring again!

Any way, they did all checks and blood test but the results haven’t come back by the time they let me go home. I need to phone them back at 10am for the result. If I have this thing they are worried about (something connected to liver function) it will mean I need to be induced! They also said even if the test comes back negative they will test me for it again, which makes me think I must have it!

I’m trying to be calm and think OK, at least with induction I know when labour will happen and have that element of control, also trying not to google or think about it all but yeah I am totally freaking out.

Sorry for the ramble! Overtired I think xx

I keep getting a stabbing pain right down in my lower regions, the closest thing I can compare it to is a stitch???

OMG @Hazandduck what an eventful night for you! I also had itchy belly and assumed due to growing skin so I guess hands and feet are different and more serious?
@DuRezidal I had period like/ stitch like pains during the night and was hoping it was the first of contractions, but nothing this morning. Keep an eye on it I reckon xx

@Hazandduck I hope you’re ok and get some results soon, keep us posted xx

Thank you @lydia, I’ve already tried phoning them twice, just googled and now I’m just crying and want to demand to be induced! It’s a condition called obstetric cholestasis that they are testing for and all the info I’ve read say as long as Baby is delivered between 37-38 weeks the risk of stillbirth isn’t as high but after this it goes up, well I’m 38 weeks. Why did I google? I just want baby here now, feels so close, feel like demanding they just take him out now with a c section! I know I’m being irrational but I’m panicking xx