Due Feb 2019 - we’re halfway!

[MakeLemonade]

Thread 8, let’s do this...

Here is a picture of our little (?!) contortionist!

Thank you @Katinkak8! Did you decide to keep the gender a surprise? I was going to keep it a surprise when I thought it was one baby but when I found it was twins I decided I was done with surprises

Lovely scan pics!
If you're looking for a not-too-expensive coat then it might be worth trying New Look. I emergency bought a maternity coat online there for £30 (it was £10 off) after dh left my coat at home when we went away a week or two ago. It's warmer than I expected but will probably need a warm jumper underneath when it gets really cold. I'm a heat seeker who hates the cold though.

@Picklesandpies 😂 love that picture.

I've ordered a maternity coat from Asda George £30 too.

There are always maternity coats on Facebook marketplace for about a tenner

Didn't realise we'd moved to another thread! Lovely scan pics everyone 😊

@powkin I got a kitchen done with John Lewis a few years ago, biggest plus with them is that they'll get it done in literally about a week, and any problems they sort out straight away. We went with an independent contractor who installs Howdens kitchens in August, and it's been a 6 week job (still not finished). I'd have paid the extra with John Lewis to get it all done quicker, it's been so hard! Still have no proper sink, hob or dishwasher 6 weeks on...
Go the easy option, being pregnant with an upside down house is horrible - I've been signed off work due to stress and anxiety from all angles, including from builders and kitchen renovations!!

Hope the stress starts to calm down @fizzledays! We want to do an extension to our kitchen but we're just at the planning stages. I've said that I don't want to start any work until October next year when I'm quieter at work and we're more settled with the baby as I can't cope with all that stress in one go.

Thanks for the advice re scan and whether to have a full bladder. It’s weird no one tells you properly, even nhs website says some places want you to have a full bladder and some don’t...

I think I’ll just see how it goes. I’d ordinarily want to pee before I leave work (hospital is 10 minute walk from work) especially as you don’t know how long you have to wait...

Looking forward to the scan but feeling nervous. Haven’t felt baby move this morning (usually do at some point especially if I sit down or lie down after walking around) but trying not to worry! I’ll carry on sipping my hot choc and see if that helps...

Good luck for everyone having scans today!

@powkin it's crazy how expensive kitchens are isn't it? Ours is being done by a friends bespoke kitchen co, so we've worked with him to find ways to save costs, using leftover surface tops from another job etc. He's also doing us a good deal as we're friends which is really helpful.
Hope you find something good in your budget, the John Lewis planning sounds like a good idea.

I've just found a coat I like on eBay for £10! And another on asos for over £100 I might wait and see if it goes on sale as it can be used as a non maternity coat too.
I'll check tkmaxx for bits too, there's one near work so it's very handy. Thanks for the advice everyone

@AliceRR I turned up for mine and at reception got told to have an empty bladder. Baby didn't play ball and was too low in my pelvis so in hindsight I think a full one would have been better. I have to go back for a rescan next week and I'm going to have a half full one. The way I see it I can always empty it! Also going to go with @Rowse suggestion and have a little can of coke before.

@pickles Its nothing to worry about DD was measuring a big baby on scans and they sent me for extra growth scans and appointments so if she didnt mention that to you nothing to worry about x

@fizzle we have just had a new kitchen from howdens in jan its really good quality i love it but my god they took their time!! I mean the whole thing was gutted even new concrete put down on the floor

Glad I'm not the only one who is doing crazy house renovations at 5 months pregnant!
We are having our living rooms done (they are half open plan so technically 2 rooms). They have been stripped back to the brick work hoping for 6 weeks to get it reasonably normal again as we can't have the heating at all during that time due to the size of the pump. Thank god for oil radiators and electric showers!

We are totally gutting our house and hope to have done every room (including relocating our kitchen) by end of Jan 😳 I’m an optimist! We’ve currently got one bathroom under way and the rest of the house to go. It’s quite a big job and I anticipate that I’ll still be living on a building site come Feb. I also did this last time I was pregnant too but big structural work, this is mostly gut and decorate apart from kitchen so feels manageable.

@Rowse - yeah, I think it was my husbands expectation of what a nice kitchen would cost that has been the biggest issue, and the fact that we don’t know how long we want to stay so whether there’s value (my argument is I’d rather have a nice kitchen for 3 years then a shit kitchen that makes him miserable for that long)! It’s not our dream house in a dream area but who has that? We wanted to move out of a big block of flats with no lift and out of central London because of the noise/pollution and this is what we could afford! Although we’ve got a lovely park near by its also quite grim and dirty with a lot of drink and drug problems. I was verbally abused on the street at Stratford the other day at 8pm by some massive drunk bloke and a girl was raped in the park the other day. I know bad stuff happens everywhere (got a lot more creepy man trying to talk to me or making comments where we lived in central London, ie almost every day on my way to work, so thank goodness I don’t have that now!) but there’s a lot of violent attacks around here. My mum would let us go round town on our own at 10, 11 etc and the idea of doing that round here makes me pretty nervous! Partners job is 90% at home but then intensively in central London 4-5 times a year and lots of places we would consider and could afford would take us even further from our ageing parents so that also makes it tough to know what to do as we need their help and they’ll need ours soon I imagine! Plus the cost and stress of moving last year has almost put us off for life, took a year start to finish (including 6 months with my parents ) and we still have stuff in boxes a year after moving in.

I think we are falling into the trap of wanting everything to be perfect in time for the baby and ignoring the fact that life is unpredictable and chaotic and sometimes you just have to deal with the fact that it’s not possible to get things perfect, if ever!

I’m also late for uni and the guy next to me on the bus has bad breath and it’s making me feel super urgh.

@Lulabell1 Thank you for your reply . I do have a scan at 34 weeks to check placenta position but also growth. Surely if they were really worried then they wouldn't wait until then to check it though? Do you mind me asking whether your daughter was as big as they predicted in the end?

Were doing house renovations too at the moment, we started on 2nd January and are hoping to move back in next week, it won't be finished but will be liveable! Hoping to get it totally done before Christmas including the outside so we are builder free for when the twins arrive! It's been a big big project moving stairs, front door, new kitchen, bathrooms, replastering etc etc but will be so worth it once it's finished! Our new kitchen went in last week and I'm so so thrilled with it, can't wait for the worktops to be fitted on Friday!

Lovely seeing all the scan photos!

We used a contractor to install our Howdens kitchen. We are in a flat, so unfortunately we found random pipes and whatnot that couldn't be moved once we pulled out the kitchen. We found that stand alone appliances rather than integrated ones meant we had more flexibility to shift things within a few inches and make it all fit.

It really is lovely to have a new kitchen... with a new baby I'm sure you will all appreciate it! :)

Hey everyone! Glad the scans are going well. Mine is next Wednesday, will be 20+5, then will have them every 4 weeks from then xx

You're all so brave with the house renovations! We had a lot of work done back in the spring, complete new kitchen and knock through to the dining room/conservatory and replaced the conservatory with a proper single storey extension. Took 10 weeks to the day but the last week or two was very little snaggy bits. Our kitchen is Wickes, would highly recommend and it was only £7k or thereabouts (paid installation separately). We stayed at my parents' house the whole time would've been a nightmare living through it with DS!

Had 20w scan today. Did have a full bladder by the time we’d been waiting for about 45 mins! She got me to half empty it part way through and then empty it so probably was better for me to have a full bladder

Everything seems ok.

And we are team pink! 😊

💙💙Team Blue💙💙

Lovely news on the scans!
I hadn't thought of Wickes for kitchens - we'll have to have a look. We've just moved back in after rewiring so next job is replacing the boiler then doing the kitchen before Feb (including knocking down walls and possibly moving the downstairs toilet and doorways). The upstairs bathroom will have to wait until after the baby is here.