Due August 2021 - Welcome to the World!

[PurplePansy05]

Welcome to the chattiest birth club on MN! Newcomers always welcome 💐

14 gorgeous new babies have joined us already, welcome to the world 💖💙🥳

@Smurf123 - Welcome to the world, baby Sophia 💖
@wimbler - Welcome to the world, baby boy 💙
@Jessicapebbles - Welcome to the world, baby Ebony💖
@Inmypjsagain - Welcome to the world, baby boy💙
@PurplePansy05 - Welcome to the world, baby Leo Alexander 💙
@WinterBabyof89 - Welcome to the world, baby Rosie 💖
@Winecoffeeteamum - Welcome to the world, baby Emily 💖
@Ready2020 - Welcome to the world, baby Rowan 💖
@Magik01 - Welcome to the world, baby Isaac 💙
@Hoares3 - Welcome to the world, baby Ellis 💙
@Daffodil21 - Welcome to the world, baby Elliot James 💙
@sarah13xx - Welcome to the world, baby Freddie 💙
@Biscuitcat - Welcome to the world, baby Rowan 💙
@Whatshouldbemyusername - Welcome to the world, baby Arya-Nyah 💖

Counting down until we welcome 20+ new arrivals:

@MrsB2019x - Induction w/c 9 August, Girl 💖
@Dia12 - EDD 8 August, Girl 💖
@Aaaaa1519 - EDD 13 August, Girl 💖
@Angelesque - C-section 16 August, surprise 💛
@lucyrp - EDD 16 August, surprise 💛
@livingwithbees - EDD 16 August, surprise 💛
@BertieBotts - EDD 16 August, Boy 💙
@WolfMother - EDD 17 August, Boy 💙
@Caz1226 - EDD 17 August, Boy 💙
@Millymay13 - C-section 17 August, surprise 💛
@RandomCatGenerator - C-section 19 August, surprise 💛
@Smallbean27 - EDD 19 August, surprise 💛
@Sheisfee - EDD 19 August, Girl 💖
@Alittlexmasmagic - EDD 22 August, surprise 💛
@LottSE20 - EDD 22 August, surprise 💛 @notinthestarsigns - EDD 23 August (but likely to be brought forward induction/C-section), surprise 💛
@Fran919 - EDD 25 August, surprise💛
@Ava50x - EDD 25 August, Boy 💙
@ame88 - EDD 28 August, Girl 💖
@HopefulB - EDD 29 August, surprise 💛

It's officially THE month! Watch this space! xx

@Aaaaa1519 apparently I'm still good to give birth at the midwife led unit ..🤨 midwife enjoyed telling me that my body has done it before so even if they're 9lb ill be fine ... that wasn't exactly what I wanted to be told really🥴 you would think so wouldn't you but nope not even allowed a sweep until 41 weeks which is when I'd be hoping they'd be looking at induction rather than just a bloody sweep but there we are. Seemed so convinced I'd be early they haven't even thought of any other circumstance🥺

Thanks for the new thread! So many babies still to come!

I had my blood transfusion and do feel much better for it. When they were doing my obs my temperature spiked at 38 for some reason and they were in 2 minds to do the transfusion until they worked out why. Thankfully the temp righted itself. It was a bit odd though and really worried me that I have some kind of underlying infection but all obs were fine on check out. Must have just been one of those things.

It was such a long day for OH and me (appointment was for 4pm but the blood didn't arrive until almost 7!) that we just wanted to come home and sleep for a week. But of course we have a wee sleep thief here called Rowan. OH tried his best to settle her as I was still feeling dodgy but now I've got her and he's in the spare room. It's kinda soul destroying when nothing you do will get your baby to sleep. I plan to feed the face off her and hope she'll go onto a total milk coma.

@Ready2020 I agree, so far I'm finding either milk coma or milk coma + cuddles or a good feed + lots of burps before being put down to sleep in a crib work. Convinced DS is too gassy which makes it difficult for him to settle straight away sometimes. Sounds like you're doing great, it's just a challenging phase, but we're in this together! Glad you're feeling better now too xx

@Ready2020 glad you had the transfusion and feel better for it. Hopefully you can rest up in the morning and DH feels fresher from sleeping in the spare room xx

@Ready2020 so glad you're feeling a bit better after the transfusion!

Funny you say about the temperature - when they did my inspection before CS, my temp was 37.7. So not as high as yours but the person who did it said as it's a little high, we may be put into isolation pending a rapid Covid test, which would push my section to the end of the day instead of being next. Thankfully they said the threshold was 37.8 so we were all good to go!

Also just to add - I know it won't last but DS is currently asleep in his crib!

@Ready2020 so glad you had your transfusion.

We had such a difficult night last night, me and the baby were both in floods. He's now got feeding from my left boob sorted but the nipple on the right hand side just doesn't seem to be strong enough outwards for him to latch effectively. It means I keep trying him on it (plus pumping and tweaking it to try and make it better), he won't take it, or won't latch, and gets really frustrated, so eventually I just feed him on the left again so that side is now so sore and his feeding is delayed as he's been too frustrated to latch well. We actually ended up cosleeping which was a revelation - I had a feeling we might do it at some point but didn't anticipate it being night 1 at home for him 😳 luckily we'd learned about safe cosleeping in NCT and from the health visitor!

I'm wondering about whether it might be a good use of money to have a session with a lactation consultant. If anyone has done that before I'd be super interested to know your thoughts? (And recommendations in the Hampshire/Surrey/West Sussex area!)

Good morning all. The sweep seems to have worked at least a bit. Woke up with waves of cramping on and off all nightbut still slept. This morning I've had a pretty dramatic bloody show. Going to take it easy today as I guess labour might be st starting?

@Caz1226 the sweep was uncomfortable but not painful and very short (Maybe 2 min?) But I was told it was easier as my cervix was soft.

Oh @lucyrp, sorry you’re feeling so anxious. As @PurplePansy05 said it’s all estimates, so I would try to stay calm. Completely normal for a baby to arrive somewhere in 38-42weeks, you said yourself that your EDD had been brought forwards.

My baby was estimated at 7lbs at 36 weeks, which was well within normal ranges- again these things are estimates to try and identify the complete outliers. From what I can tell they are massively inaccurate for predicting birth weight.

Evidence base is also to leave babies in as long as possible to minimise risk of respiratory issues or developmental delay- obviously balanced with risk of still birth at the very end. Even with a breech, they won’t book cs until after you hit 39weeks.

I think it would be perfectly reasonable to ask for a sweep at/after your 40week appointment, so that you are lined up for induction after 41 weeks if it’s not successful. You could maybe make the case that your birth plan is MLU and therefore you’d like time to try 2 sweeps prior to mechanical induction to give you best chance of birthing there?

@HopefulB I think really the midwife just made it worse for me by saying that I would definitely give birth earlier or around the same time as my first which now obviously hasn't happened even by my own dates so can't help but feeling a bit of a fail 😔

I really hope mine is wrong it's just my bump measurements and the growth scans are following a similar pattern to what DS1 was when he was born so I'm just panicking. I have my midwife appointment on Monday bang on my due date and last time I saw my midwife she said "well let's hope I don't have to see you then but we'll book one just incase" 🙄😅 il see if she can do a sweep then for me, although I was keen for them to come completely on their own I'm having an internal fight with myself about how big they'll be etc which is difficult.

I woke up in the night with terrible pains and convinced myself it was starting then I think I got so anxious about it I couldn't get back to sleep so was awake for 2 hours and tried waking OH who wouldn't budge so can't wait until it actually is labour and he just moans at me when I wake him 😩🤣

@lucyrp there isn’t always rhyme or reason with Labour in different pregnancies.
My first was 39+5, second 40+5 and third 35 - so you aren’t failing at all - it’s a bloody mystery as to when babies will arrive.
Speak with professionals about your
Anxiety, have your concerns documented and keep pushing for the outcome you want (not always easy to do).
Hoping baby arrives soon for you.

@Ready2020 wonderful news about your transfusion.

My 5y/o has been such a delight this morning.. he’s currently singing like he’s in a choir and has accidentally snapped the charger end off in his iPad. DD is continually feeding to boost my supply so sleep is limited here so he is on thin ice!
My OH moved to the sofa to get some uninterrupted sleep at 3am - cracks me up when he says he is tired..try having a baby attached to the boob for 70% of the night haha

@WinterBabyof89 oh I know, I'm definitely not as worried as I was a few weeks ago which doesn't make sense but I'm always going to be a little worried right. DS has an iPad that we bought last Christmas or maybe the previous one and we called it "our"
iPad so it wasn't totally for him and was only allowed on it when we said. There was a password on it and he tried the password so many times he's locked us out of it for the past 6 months and I really need to take it to the apple store but can't bear to pay money to get it fixed 😂

@lucyrp absolutely - it’s completely understandable. The frustration is when professionals don’t always listen or share the same worries.

Oh my days! What a little tinker.. that’s going to be hard money to part with ha

@WinterBabyof89 I don't think they completely always understand how you're voicing your concerns and how you're expecting them to help. I spoke to an advisor on apple support who told me to do something then I did it then he asked me to go and do something else which I then couldn't do because of what he'd told me to do before 😅 so it's costing me money because of them. Nightmare

Definitely not a fail @lucyrp Baby will come when baby is ready, your body knows what to do, they must just need a little more time.

Bumps are always bigger with a second. (And notoriously inaccurate too!)

There are some really positive stories about women birthing big babies on FB page from Serenity Doula- also lots of things about positioning to help. Just incase it is needed.

Definitely try and see it as a staged approach, you are giving baby time to arrive naturally, if they don’t then you have a sweep (possibly 2), if that doesn’t bring them on, then you go to mechanical induction, then local hormones, and finally if that doesn’t work the drip at the hospital. Hopefully that means you can stay on MLU?

We had a rough night .. dd really struggling with wind/poop and fed pretty much constantly all night. I think she wanted to feed as a comfort for her windy tummy.
She slept from about 130-3 and about 6-8am otherwise only if she was on me .. tried to give some dentinox colic drops for the wind this morning but you would think I was trying to poison her from the reaction 🙈
Oh and dh took himself to the gym around 730 or so. Dd has just finished feeding again and is grumbling I've put her down in cot and ds is sitting beside me in bed on an iPad with a cup of milk and a packet of rice cakes because honestly that's as far as my energy stretches right now.
Every part of me aches, sore head, muscles aches - back, legs etc it did last night too before I came to bed I'd hoped some sleep would help. Is that normal postpartum?

I had a total melt down this morning about how sore my nipples were and just down right refused to feed! I've expressed another 60ml of milk and we've been attempting bottle feeding but it's actually so different for her. I didn't realise how different a suck it would be for her if that makes sense.

She spat out half the milk though, maybe because of my bottle feeding technique or her confusion on what the hell this thing is that is giving her her milky goodness. I feel so bad about doing this to her but the pain is intense. They just need to heal.

I'm not sure I can express enough to keep up with her demands though.

@Smurf123 sorry you had a rough night. I'm pretty sure an ipad and rice cakes are perfectly fine. Hell I'll take that just now lol. Not sure on the aches. I definitely hurt and my body still hurts now as its moving everything back to where it was before pregnancy. Plus you're doing an awful lot so I'm sure your body is knackered!

Hope everyone is going ok, baby Erin was born at 16.08 on Thursday weighing 6lb 13. We are currently waiting to be discharged and looking forward to getting home! Still can’t quite believe she is ours to take home!

@Ready2020 just out of interest how long did it take to express 60ml? I'm trying to work out if my speed is normal or slow (I'm thinking slow!). I'm not going to stress about it but just curious! Took me about 40 mins (maybe even longer) to express that much this morning.

Huge congratulations @notinthestarsigns !!!

@Daffodil21 my left boob is a milk machine and I got that amount in about 25 minutes. But my right boob got 20 ml in that same time. I've got a lazy boob I guess or a super charged boob. I'm going to keep pumping the right boob regularly today and see if I can get it working better.

Huge congrats @notinthestarsigns You'll be glad to get home. Welcome baby Erin.

@Ready2020 wow that is speedy!!! Good going!

If I pump small amounts from the right can I add them to the already pumped milk from earlier? In the same bottle.

@Daffodil21 I'm not as speedy as you, I'd need an hour or more to express that. Most likely across two feeds. As long as I get that during the day I'm happy, that's a feed for DH sorted. Then another lot in the eve/night for his evening feed. Funny to read about one breast being more lazy than the other, I'm the same - the left one is lazy 😄

Sounds like quite a few of us are going through the exhausted phase! It's tough. We're having a lazy, quiet day as a family today, it was much needed. Feel like I really need a nap! xx

@notinthestarsigns congratulations on baby Erin!

Having a baby photo shoot done and DD looks so bloody precious I could cry haha
I didn’t have one with my other children but as she’s my last (and it’s now more popular) I thought why not! She’s put a super cute yellow headband and wrap on her.
When I look back on these photos I’ll remember how bloody tiring it was but how it’s all worth it 💗

Hope everyone is muddling through okay.. nice to have somewhere to share the ups and downs because motherhood can be quite lonely at times