Due March 2008 - for our early arrivals and the loooooong 3rd trimesters

[merryberry]

Hello all.

jo if your iron levels are low then i would take the liquid floradix stuff, i have been taking that and its good cos it doesnt constipate you

if you are not yet 35wks you have time to get your iron levels to a reasonable level, i think they have to be 10 and above for a home birth? so prob similar for the birthing centre?

mine were just above ten last time i had them done so i have made a real effort with my diet and taken the supplements to make sure they stayed ok.

Thanks for your speedy replies - I've been taking Ferrous Sulph for about 6 weeks!! With juice!! Excuse the punctuation but i'm flabbergasted given how much meat I've consumed daily that my levels are low (9.6 at last count...weird). I also eat spinach at every meal, makes for an interesting dietary time but until tomorrow I won't know if i've sorted myself.

My local pharmacist wouldn't give me any Floradix, she wanted me to see my GP but i'm going to head to Holland & Barratt in that case.

Merry your link was excellent, thank you. I have a new MW tomorrow, at my own request (felt teeny bit guilty, not that I made any proper complaint or anything)..

Glad to know I am not alone in the 36 weeks and no nursery club . The baby will be in with us to start with, and we do have a crib...all I need now is a new matress to put in it. Bloke has taken advantage of the fact that we have somewhere for the baby to sleep by moving the spare bed back into the 'nursery' so he can keep all his photography stuff set up in the bigger spare room. Grrr. Still, I have told him that we are painting on the weekend, and he seems keen on the idea. Mr 'I-won't-know-what-to-do-with-a-girl has gone all gooey and is insisting that his daughter has to have a pink bedroom.

First day of maternity leave today - hang on in there all of you who are starting to think the end will never come. Last week absolutely flew by for me, and I passed today in a happy haze of watching Jeremy Kyle in huge pyjamas.

Is anyone else trying raspberry leaf tea? On the advice of the midwife I have gone from one cup a day last week to two from yesterday , and my BH contractions are getting stronger.

AdelaideJo, a vegan friend of mine who has a medical condition that predisposes him to anaemia avoids eating too much spinach because according to him, even though it is high in iron, it can have a leaching effect on iron levels in the body. Apparently spinach is high in oxalate/oxalic acid and thus the iron present is not available to the body. You might be able to find out a bit more about this by searching about online for some scientific articles and maybe running it by a dietician. But just flagging it with you in case the thing you're doing to raise your iron levels is having the opposite effect.

I was wondering about my iron levels. I was tested at 28 weeks and my levels were good 11+ (down from very high the first time they were tested) but since I'd been more tired I was thinking of having them tested again as I thought when I went for my 2nd anti-D they'd be taking blood to test for antibodies. When I found out they weren't going to I decided not to bother having blood taken just for iron as I hate, hate, hate needles etc. The midwife recommended I start taking Pregnacare, which apparently has some iron, so that's what I'm going to do.

nothign specific in cochrane reviews re: labour risks of anaemia.

have lost access to elsevier, so can't get at duration of PG data anymore

feel sick, ate 6 bendicks bittermints in 5 minutes.

merryberry...I also feel sick. 25 choccie biccies with choc chips in with a Dark Chocolate hot chocolate. Apparently, there's iron in chocolate...

hi all, thanks (a few pages ago now) for advice on how to handle mother-wanting-to-be-at-birth. I have digested info but haven't yet confronted her (yikes).

I'm 33 weeks and am wondering about everyone's scans. I have midwife appts but no other scans booked in, is this normal? Have you all paid privately for extra scans towards later weeks?

thanks for all advice on nappies and carseats etc. oh, also, i sent an email to mothercare (they were extremely shit, long story, am not a normal complainer) and they called me today, apologising profusely and are sending me a £15 voucher, which I guess is something...hmmm .

Hi Frannie - i'm having a scan for 36 weeks on Weds morning purely because i'm booked for a home birth and they want to check the presentation of the baby (hopefully not the sort of presentation that involves him wearing decent clothes, having his hair parted nicely etc).

HAd no internet access at work all day, that was so boring! Still haven't booked up our team spa day either as the hotel has confirmed they have rooms available ok, but noone was answering the phones on the spa desk to check they had space for us!

Apparently I'm looking even bigger today -from 2 people in work who hadn't seen me since, ooh, Friday, and DH who hadn't seen me for 18 hours.

Good news though, i managed to take the dog for a walk this morning and not seize up afterwards ! Pelvic pain may be improving. Got a m/w checkup tomorrow afternoon so hope to hear the head's engaged a bit now, bump looks like it's dropped.
2 more days of work to go, woohoo! Now I just need to work out a way to find the £3.5k I've managed to miscalculate on the budget for my maternity leave (big oops). Hah, so much for being a bloomin' accountant!

a quickie on Braxton Hicks, the only way i've heard them described is like period pain, so haven't had that yet. However, have been getting pains more like stomach ache across my belly button - is this just the baby expanding?
[confused old bird emoticon]

oh and merryberry - haven't had any comments re induction at 40 wks, birth plan states i want to leave it as long as possible. M/w advised she can take it no longer than 10 days post due date, if i want to leave it longer than that then they have to transfer me over to consultants to monitor the placenta etc. No mention made of my age at all. She also said they tried leaving induction to edd + 12 but the extra 2 days made little difference, as apparently most babies put in an appearance within 10 days, if not they want to stay put for much much longer.
Hopefuly won't be a problem though!

and finally...the lodger starts to move his stuff out tomorrow after work and reckons it'll only take 3 car trips, so may all be done and dusted before bed time, yay!

frannie,

I'm not having another scan (not had one since 20 weeks). In fact, I've also had my last midwife appointment (35 weeks) and from now on will just see my GP once a week. I'm not too bothered about any more visits to the hospital though. It hadn't really occurred to me to pay for another scan. I can feel the baby kicking all the time and been palpated and told how the baby is positioned, so everything seems to be going along very normally.

Ahhh insomnia.....nature's way of preparing us for what is to come. Still, not ideal when you have a cold!!!!

I suddenly feel like the bump hasn't grown for ages.....that middle of the night paranoia setting in. Where I've gone from looking quite big, I now think I look quite small for 35 weeks. Does this mean the baby has stopped growing? Seeing my midwife tonight.....will have to get her to measure me again.....

Hi frannie I've had loads of scans but it is only because I am classed as high risked, had a low lying placenta and (apparently) a giant baby at one of the earlier scans.

i bow before turtle's 25 bics! Olympian!!

frannie, my extra scan was an NHS growth scan because they were worried I had a mutant vast baby in there.

doup, you've maybe 'lightened' where the baby drops deeper in pelvic cavity, so not feeling so stuffed full and looking so swollen around the diaphragm?

Honestly, I leave you for just one evening and you all go mad with chatting. I can't believe I've just spent 10 mins catching up on everything I've missed since about 5pm last night!!! To return the favour, here's a super duper HQ rambling special which will probably take you 10 mins to read

frannie - I get an extra scan at 36 weeks but only because my placenta was very low at 22 weeks so they need to check it's moved.

skidoodle - I've resorted to buying lots of different types of squash and just adding that to water. I'm not a huge squash fan but it's going down much better than plain old water. So far this pregnancy I have gone through raspberry cordial, ribena, lemnon barley, orange barley, ginger cordial and elderflower... Still got to try merry's suggestion of slices of lemon in the water which at least had the advantage of being much healthier than any of the above! Oh, and although I don't really do fizzy drinks, a can of Lilt did the trick the other night!

fitnforty - no Braxton Hicks for me yet either, I think, although I do get pain across my tummy quite often which I am pretty sure is stretching.

How is it that a bump can suddenly seem huge? My fundal height has been growing at the normal 1cm per week or whatever the guesstimate thing is that doctors use, yet some weeks I seem to have grown far more than others. In the last two weeks I have exploded despite still only being the right number of cm for my weeks!

From reading your messages, I think I've discovered another downside of the shared gp/midwife care thing. I don't get blood test results through my GP because they're done at the hospital, but all my checks are being done by the GP. So my latest iron level results won't be given to me until I go at 36 weeks (and I'm only seeing midwife then because of this extra scan, otherwise I wouldn't actually see another midwife until labour!) which sounds like it might be too late to do anything about my iron levels if they're low. Grrr... Is it worth me starting taking an iron supllement to be on the safe side? My levels were 15 at 12 weeks but don't know what they've been since.

Question: is heavy breathing a sign that the baby is now so big he is squidging my lungs to be the size of a peanut? I've noticed my breathing getting noisier in the past week or so, and DH told me off last night as it was preventing him dropping him off to sleep...

Think you may be right mb, having been getting those really uncomfy lower abdomnal grumblings which I guess means my pelvis is doing its stuff to get ready. DH also comments on every other pregnant woman we see, that they are "MUCH BIGGER" than me. I think he is trying to flatter but it's not quite getting the desired effect.

HQ, just ring the MW office with your hospital number and ask them to look up the iron results? If below 11, consider witht hem what to start taking, don't start just in case, as TBH extra iron makes your tummy and guts feel like BLERGH (IME this am!)

It really is non-shared care, huh?

I had some real breathlessness recently, horrendous, gasping after minimal exertion, even speaking! Not sure if caused by my iron depletion (makes carrying oxygen harder) or when the bump was really high. Am much easier today, what with it finally having dropped. Sweet relief. Lord the indignities of the last month.

Hi just popping in with a big fat virtual chocolate birthday cake for everyone to share, apparently my life begins today!!!! I always said I would never have a baby after I was 40, whoops, slipped up on that one!!!! Also throwing in some pancakes, never had a birthday on pancake day, it feels really odd!

Big wave to everyone, sorry I can't stop to chat.

happy birthday rainbowdays - my life certainly changed a year ago, though i like to think it begins at 41 with a new little life coming into existence

Happy birthday rainbowdays and many thanks for the virtual choc cake... I'm about to start my virtual second slice

Ah, mb, the fount of all knowledge My mammoth bump growth this past week or so has all been up high so that probably explains the breathlessness / heavy breathing. I'll dig out my hospital number and give them a call for blood test results - I didn't realise they would actually talk to me over the phone! I don't mind shared care for logistical reasons because the hospital is actually a bit of a pain to get to by public transport and parking is too expensive, whereas doctors surgery is walkable, but I have had a relatively straightforward pregnancy (touch wood!) and I would probably feel very different if I hadn't.

Look at you Chatty Chattersteins! And I thought I was talkative!

Iron levels: had some confusing results and comments from both MW and GP (shared care and see different MW everytime). One MW initially thought I had low iron and said I needed to be retested. Went to hospital for new bloods and the managing MW looked at my file and said "no, you don't need new bloods b/c iron is fine."

Then at next GP, they said I looked pale and took new bloods. Called me up and said iron was low and put me on tablets.

Then at next MW, told her I had been put on iron and she said "why, your levels are fine from previous tests." Then she explained something about the level of iron in your blood gets diluted by extra fluid/blood. BUT, that concentration of iron in blood cells is more important and that level was/is fine. So, she said to stop taking iron.

So, no longer on iron, but feeling fine. Started on asidophilous (sp?) tablets to get my gut in order! And taking some alfalfa tablets for extra nutrients, both per my osteopath. Apparently, asidophilous is good for preventing colic in baby.

And feedme, I swear that you're reading my mind about the nursery! Having nowhere to put stuff is doing my head in. Thankfully, builders are HERE and stripping the room as we speak, so it's all a go. Woo hoo!

Happy Birthday rainbowdays. Thank you for the cake...although virtual cake has failed to fill me up so I might have to go and search for some actual cake now.

Am very excited that maternity leave will give me the opportunity to spend all afternoon making pancakes - for once I think I might actually be able to give Bloke a run for his money in the who-can-eat-the-most stakes!

Re carrying high - I saw some friends on the weekend who hadn't seen me since November, and they said it looked just like I had strapped a basketball under my boobs. I don't mind the slight breathlessness I keep getting, but does anyone else feel like they have been sunburned where the skin is stretching?

I'm off to put the virtual kettle on now, so we have some tea to go with the cake...

Happy Birthday rainbowdays! I shall save my cake for later as I have just had some scotch pancakes with hot blueberries and maple syrup....yum yum............

Happy Birthday rainbowdays - off for my elevensies piece of cake now - yummie!