September 2019 #7

[easterbuns1]

I get nervous when it's so close to post 999..:

kyles101 why does everything bad for you have to be so tasty?! I demolished a significant portion of a bag of Black Jacks and Fruit Salads the other week, felt the sickest I've been the whole time and had to lie on the floor of the office. Then my boss's boss walked in. God love him, he was seriously concerned. Whether it was for me or the carpet is less clear. Lesson learned!!!!

happydays00 DSis keeps going "£120 for a pillow?!", but she doesn't understand. I've tied it round me and am using it as a portable armchair right now- you'll see me on a channel 5 documentary in a year's time having left DH and married the BBhugMe. At least I managed to get 10% off it

You guys are all lucky sods, I'm working til 20 September- off next week but I'm banking the rest of my leave so not even a wee day off after that. Some of you will have had your babies by then!

@boodles101 have you tried ranitidine too? I found that helped more than the awful Gaviscon!!!!

@TheCraicDealer - they don't understand... we can be in the documentary together because if I had to choose DH or the pillow right now it would be the pillow. Without hesitation 😬😬 he thinks I have literally lost the plot because I am packing it up and carrying it through the airport but I just cannot be without it for 5 days!

@TheCraicDealer I will be with you at the end - working till 16th Sept (edd 26th).
I'm taking a days holiday a week from full time. Extra time with DD and a day less childcare. We use or loose our hols annually and if baby comes early its definately loose!

The calcium deficiency is a teeth weaker and I found it continued with BF. Thats the rationale for the dental exemption according to my dentist. I had brilliant teeth to the point of baby teeth removed in late teens....a filling, route canal and a threat of losing one since DD, no sickness but extended BF - still worth it IMO, but when I'm crying over this lost tooth in three wks I may reassess!

Re: calcium
The only prenatal vitamins I can find with it in is pregnacare max and that’s only 60% RDA 😱 anyone else found any?

Hi, I commented a couple of times back in Jan, then totally got distracted by life (new house etc). Hope you’ll have me back?! Just had a birth choices chat with obs and doc today and emerged with a provisional C-section date (9 Sept-39 weeks) which was the result I was hoping for! Only slight concern is that he mentioned it may have to be moved forward to 26/27 weeks if my placenta hasn’t moved up by then (20week scan showed low and posterior). Still feels like quite a long way off, can’t believe lots of you are working out days left in work. I think all being well i’ll only stop a week or maybe 10days before the c-section date so I have more time at the end.

@I boodles101i have also just moved to Gaviscon and it is absolutely vile!! Back to Rennie for me!

@happydays00 and @TheCraicDealer - I am a BBhugme fan too! I was asking my SIL which pillow she had and her response was, "oh a £25 one from amazon, one of my friends got one for £130 which is mental"... I asked her for the link to it (pretending to agree with her), saw the pics and bought one immediately!! I ❤️ it!

@Florencenotflo why are you taking a (relatively) short leave? Will reminding yourself of how you decided help you figure out your leave dilemma?
@boodles101 PEPPERMINT Gaviscon any day of the week!!! Although what has made a HUGE difference for me is quitting dairy. I've not needed the gaviscon since. That said- with two of them in there your stomach has nowhere to go so I really feel for you!!!

@kyles101 they really are. Mine is a lovely guy and amazing at everything he does, but just cannot/will not delegate. I don't think he realises how bad it makes me look when everyone else is so busy.

My days left at work are only so limited because I know I'm having an ELCS at 38/39 weeks so finishing up at the end of july. And I only work 3 days a week anyway!

@Moraxella you can get just calcium supplements over the counter (I'm on adcal as apparently it can help with BP issues). That said- supplementing calcium is associated with kidney stones, while a calcium rich diet isn't. So leafy greens, anchovies/whole sardines (ie, where you eat the bones), bone broth, almonds, dairy, especially hard cheese. Most people get plenty, although in the UK we may not absorb it due to low vitamin d.

@Florencenotflo have you checked you can definitely carry your holiday over to use to tag into the end? Ours is calendar year so I can't... although I've used 3 weeks already this year - the little breaks have kept me sane though to be honest.

@TheCraicDealer oooh fruit salads would be worth it, really want some now - they take me back to my youth - and you always ended up with a bit of paper too!

Marvellous news, my lovely boss has decided to reappear, he alluded to (not directly you understand, but pretty closely) to accepting responsibility for his actions leading to our disagreement last week, and he has promised that we'll work around whatever I want hours wise when I come back. So nice of him to return, and just in time.

@DustyDoorframes money unfortunately. Once the enhanced part of my maternity leave stops I'll have to go back quite soon after. We have some savings to extend it slightly but I can't manage on smp alone. I think I had 8 months off with dd. I'll be going back on reduced hours and DH will be having the kids on the days I work, it's nice for him to get involved! He loved having his days with dd when I went back to work.

@kyles101 yeah, I'm public sector. I carried over some leave when I had Dd. One of my admin officers is on mat leave at the moment and has used 2 weeks she was owed from last year.

@Florencenotflo. I only get 6 months too. As the main wage earner in our house I’ll need to go back once the full pay maternity is up but then DP is dropping to part time and taking over.

Public sector too. We can carry over up to 10 days but I’m using it at the beginning :)

dusty well apart from tasting vile it did actually help, so I'll just have to deal with chugging it back quickly. And yes I feel like my stomach is currently in my chest!

@Florencenotflo can you take a day off per fortnight as a kind of half way position? (And actually your first full week following your short week will no doubt tell you whether you need to just make it every week!).
I've been chatting to Americans this week and am feeling super privileged for our mat conditions. I'm self employed so not stellar, but at least there is MA. One person I was talking to was overjoyed to get 6 months unpaid, someone else had been sacked for taking ANY sick days in her second pregnancy, having been very badly ill and in hospital for a chunk of her first (with over a decade at the company behind her!). We can do better here, sure, but we certainly have a lot of rights to lose if we go for some kind of massive deregulation.
And from a business point of view- surely it's way easier to get decent cover for 9-12 months than for 6-12 weeks????

Ps boodles try the peppermint I find it much less vile. Not entirely un-vile though.

25 weeks today! So relieved to hit this - I know it is a horrible thing to think about but if the worst happens now baby will have officially existed and would be a stillbirth not a miscarriage. For some reason this has mattered hugely to me and my anxious brain.

@boodles101 the liquid Gaviscon makes me heave but the dual action tablets are good!

Our leave year follows the academic cycle so the gods have timed this baby to perfection - I can carry 5 days leave over if I want but no need so I am using it now to take 1 day off a week then finish at 36 weeks. I'll get my full allocation again from 1 Sept to take during my year off - which equates to 7 weeks, 1 day. Then when I come back in Sept I'll have another full leave allocation. Genuinely couldn't be better timed!

I get 6 weeks full pay, 12 weeks half plus SMP (which gives me about 2/3 of my take home pay), then 21 weeks SMP plus the 7 weeks, 1 day holiday pay - we've got just about enough in savings to survive for the remainder although it will clean us out.

I'm also main earner by a huge margin, but really want to make the most of the time with this little one as there won't be any others! If we were planning multiples then I'd be back in 6 months too.

Hoping to return slightly part time (32hrs instead of 37) over 4 days. I have worked out that this is financially beneficial as will entitle me to child benefit plus a 2% reduction in pension contributions and a drop in tax - so net pay is close to what I get now full time.

Oooh megan for some reason I assumed the dual action ones were not ok in pregnancy (not based on anything but masochism I think!). Whole gaviscon horizons open up...
Your dropping 5 hours next year thing sounds brilliant!
I'm so torn re when to go/come back. I will def use my 10 KIT days! I'm thinking possibly mid sept to mid May, phasing back in with half days. Maybe.

@TheCraicDealer I’m working til September 20th too. I just had three weeks off and I’m saving the rest of my annual leave to tag on to the end of my maternity leave so no more days off for me.

I have 19 days of leave left this year and I can carry them all over to add the the end of my leave so that’s great, I was worried I’d have to use it all before I started maternity.

I have the Queen Rose pillow, I love it. Most nights I have to share it with 2 cats though, they seem to love it just as much as I do.

I woke up a couple of times last night and when I stretched my legs out I got cramps in my calves each time. I thought the leg cramps weren’t supposed to start til the 3rd trimester?

Keep the Gaviscon around, it works much better than Rennie, even though it's boggin. I hold my nose to swallow it, tastes soapy. That's what makes it work so well though; it binds what's in your stomach, stops it sloshing back up.

pro tip - It doesn't matter which one you buy, the "advance" and "double action" ones are just stronger versions of the exact same thing.

Oh God @DustyDoorframes the US is so behind. I was due to move over when I got pg with DD. - 12wks off vaginal, 14wks C-section and that was only because I worked here 9+ years....and one HR person referred to it as disability leave another sick leave! Wages were incredible, enough for OH to not work - but not worth it.

I literally can't swallow gavisgon, it makes me gag to the point of throwing up. Very dramatic. I'm stuck with the heartburn. In theory this should make me steer clear of the fatty treats... 🙄

@kyles101
I am the same with liquid Gaviscon but the tablets are great!

I haven't needed to reach for the gaviscon just yet, but have created a pillow fort for sleeping - means I can go to sleep on my side on an incline, so don't feel so bad with heartburn at night. It's helping so far - relegated DH to 1/3 of the bed, he's not complaining, yet 🙈

@Karigan195 glad I'm not the only one! Unfortunately for us it's just high outgoings. We took on a bigger mortgage a couple of years ago which eats into our disposable income. But we do have our lovely forever home. So I can't complain!

@DustyDoorframes I've just sat and worked it all out! I'd actually forgotten about odd days I have already booked in so those days are already accounted for, so from next week I'm doing 3 days a week most weeks. Then my last day is 31st July! 2 weeks leave and then start maternity leave at 39 weeks on 20th August! And it still leaves me 5 days to carry over next year!

I honestly can't wait to finish now!