Due Sept 08: The one where we pack our bags and write our birth plan.

[mamamufin]

I thought I would be brave

mustsleep I use Nigella's one from her Domestic Goddess book. It's delish! how's your conservatory coming along? when we had our extension built I found it the most stressful thing we'd ever done, mainly because the builder was a twat and didn't read the plans correctly and consequently built the extension too short. If you've got one of those companies who do everything (design, plan, build) then I'm sure it's much more straightforward.

mustsleep so nice to see lots of smileys in your last post! Glad work is nearly sorted and the bloomin' builders have finally arrived.

I only have 3 days left at work, last day is next friday. (puts virtual bottle of champagne in fridge)

Kasha congratulations! Glad you are both ok. Those huge breast pumps are a bit antiquated are't they!

mmm, a friend made some banana bread once that was pretty yummy. I can't be bothered to cook at all at the moment, and really find normal healthy food strangely unappealing. I think I might go back to vitamins etc as I'm a veggie, and can't even contemplate things like lentils at the moment, and I have no idea where I could be getting iron from at the moment. Maybe that's why i'm so tired 9along with late nights, early mornings and running after a toddler for 12 hours a day)

Talking of building works, we are supposed to start ours soon - everything from re-wiring, to new bathroom & new kitchen and more. Off to Wickes soon to talk to a man about some plans, though partner is optimistic we (he) can do much of the work instead. I am a little dubious about his skills, and think his enthusiasm may outweigh ability when it comes to diy, but perhaps he will surprise me. Are we mad to be doing this so close to new baby???? Also, things still not going well between p& me so I am contemplating selling after it's done up but that will be total nightmare with new baby I think.

Notcitrus - do you live near Sutton then? I went to school there, though live in Croydon. The Croydon meetup that fell through recently was going to be at Carshalton Ponds, and there are a couple of people from around Carshalton who wanted to meet too. I know it's not possible for you at the moment, but hopefully your spd will vanish after baby and you can come out to play?

thanks meglet and digitalgirl am feeling a lot less stressed now!

so far they have dug a trench and there has been a lot of sitting down but i think that they only have today and tomorrow so should be done in time - feel a bit sorry for him as there isonly one bloke doing it!!

have finally well nearly sorted out the mess british twats made of my bills - left them and they are trying to charge me £200 for 30 days gas - which is wrong as the readings are all estimated and completely wrong it's three months on and the meter still hasn't reached the figure they reckon it is!! so the new gas company are contacting them...... i hope

splishsplosh maybe if you are doing it now's the best time - if you leave it till later it will be worse with a toddler about trust me
i have pollyfilled this hole in the wall about fifty times as dd feels the need to stick her finger in it every time i do it!

lol starlight i don;t think i will clean mine just waiting to buy a new one - i think that the grease is the only thing holding it together

My best tip for oven cleaning (I think I may have cleaned 2 ovens in my life - moving out of 2 rented flats!) is to sprinkle water over the whole thing, then chuck bicarb of soda everywhere in it - use about a pot. Leave it for a couple of hours, then clean with a cloth. It takes a teensy bit of elbow grease, but it works magic at cutting through the grease and glued on food. Also you don't have to spend 3 hours rinsing the oven to make the chemical cleaner smell go away - I find everything I cook for a week afterwards smells very alarming!

Sympathy to anyone embarking on building works. ours have taken a turn for the worse. A structural engineer has informed us of various things done in the past (long before we bought the house) which in combination with what we're having done now could cause big problems (house falling down type problems). The end result is a delay in the building works of over a month, during which time we have no kitchen, no washing machine, no running water except on our 3rd floor. Plus all the savings we had for my maternity leave will be sunk into steel and builders/surveyors fees to prop up the house. Boo hoo. Anyway, am trying not to feel stressed about it. Better to find out now than in 3 years time and have to redo all the work. And we're off on holiday in 2 weeks, to a self catering place with kitchen and washing machine .

Now .... a question .... anybody else (I guess particularly of the homebirth brigade) thinking about hiring/buying a pool? I'm thinking about the Birth Pool in a box, but can't make up my mind to actually order the blooming thing. Last time I had a bit of a fiasco and bought something which then had a product recall on it due to a possible fault, by which point I was 37 weeks and ended up hiring one from Splashdown, which was rather costly.

I think I was! I got my bfp on new years eve, definitely. Gosh, that seems a long time ago now...

Starlight - glad I'm not the only indecisive one!! My homebirth team also offer a pool for hire at £60 but there is a slim chance of it not being available and I want to be absolutely sure as the water was brilliant last time. Dd2 was actually born in the pool.

I like your 'pool share' idea! To be honest I don't even want to end up with the pool afterwards, strikes me as bit cumbersome to use as a paddling pool. So I'll probably end up passing mine on. Gosh I need to just make a decision and stop being so vague!

I would love a heated one too. But they cost a fortune don't they? A friend had one and both her kids went swimming in it every day after school with their friends. It was a huge hit! I can't quite justify the expense though (particularly given our current kitchen rebuilding financial black hole!)

Wow these threads move so quick (I should ne used to it by now). I try to catch up every day but work just gets in the way and then I spend ages catching up!
Thanks for your kind words re my diabetes. I'm feeling so much better now all is clear and doc doesn't want to test me again, so all systems go!
I have 8 weeks left in work - cannot wait to go! I have a to-do list which is getting longer every day and I'm away all next week in Wakefield (boring meetings in & around the M1). Have terible indigestion and couldn't get my shoes on last night cos of cankles!!!
And, there's a Due March 09 thread too!!!!! OMG!!!How did this year go so fast without telling me?

Hope things work out Eandz. You're in the best place if it is pre-eclampsia and it may just mean lots of bp checks.
Scary re car sunshine hope things are ok now.
And huge congrats to Kasha can't believe it - makes things seem so much more real. I still think I'm going to give birth to a kitten or a blow up baby that I can put away when I get tired......

starlight the person who actually started the very first due Sept thread isn't still here as she miscarried so we started a new thread after that so her name wouldn't be on the top.
I did my test on the 30th Dec.

And I'm sure you shouldn't be using oven cleaner, think it's got lots of nasty things in it that you shouldn't be inhaling so I think you should get someone else to do round 2 of the cleaning

Splish - I live in Streatham, just south of the common. Croydon's very easy to get to by bus or train but I don't tend to go there as I don't know it, whereas I know where all the shops in central London are.

Had interesting day playing with wheelchairs - I could manoevre the self-push one in the shop fine but then it got shopping-trolley syndrome and kept veering left, almost landing me in the road! And I got stuck in every small groove on the pavement. So Mr NC then carted it and me back to the shop (on the bus as it tipped it down just as we got out - but I got out to get on the bus, and he got the chair stuck in the aisle...). We decided a chair would be most useful for leaning on when walking a bit, and swapped it for one that you can't self-push but fits me a lot better. Ah well.

The pigeon is no longer making lovesick cooing. Instead I got woken up by what must have been pigeon orgasms every 20 minutes or so all morning until the builders arrived. Grr!

Had the v.v.v. situation today of my card being refused in Sainsburys coz it expired at the end of June and I hadn't realised, and I didn't have the new one with me coz I was sent it months ago and I didn't want to carry it round. I can't believe how calm I was as someone took all my shopping away and I sauntered home with screaming toddler to get new card!

Being a Yorkshire dweller, I am very pleasantly surprised at the number of Yorks people on here! But I'm Croydon born and bred so maybe I can sneak into one of your meet ups too

Going to doctors tomorrow afternoon with shopping list for prescriptions for gaviscon, baby piriton, some sort of allergy thing for me, and asthma inhalers. Anything else I should ask for while I'm there?!

ps, biglips that is a SERIOUSLY impressive bump you were sporting last time, much more impressive than my effort!

omg pidge that sounds terrible

ds is sooo embarrassing poor builder bloke has been slogging his guts out all day and has got the foundation down and all the brocks from the front garden into the back to start the wall tomorrow. picked ds up from school he goes straight into the back garden and says extremely loudly " he's not done much has he?"

not sure where bbc weather get their details but they had forcast showers for today and yesterday and it has been glorious for the last two days! it's supposed to be sunny tomorrow so it should be like the carribean!!

Oh dear Ive just ate a massive (250g) bag of vanilla fudge whilst catching up on the thread . I feel a bit icky now.
Looking forward to seeing u tomoro carrieon banana milkshake sounds good . I will give u a text when I leave the hospital.
Only half a shift left at work (4 home visits)I am so excited. I have deactivated all of my work email accounts and have been tying up loose ends.
Eandz are u ok? Youve been quiet today.

Looking forward to seeing you too Mamamufin, and Ponymum too! If you're really lucky there'll still be some chocolate crispys left, but they're going down a storm with dh

I agree, where's eandz tonight? Hope you're ok hun!

carrie - .....i reckon ive got about 3 ins bump to go to catch up to look like that again!