Due DECEMBER 2008 - just over a hundred shopping days to Baby

[LadyThompson]

New thread, people, unless someone else has started one...

Great news Rose

As well as the gown, it's a good excuse to go and stock up on Belgian chocolates jenduck! Ohh, but just realised that we pg ladies can't enjoy the Belgians beers or bowls of mussels though - oh no, I enjoy a trip on the ferry most years, purely for a day of eating mussels and chocolate and drinking beer!

Great news from summer and rosmerta, and best wishes to beans and veggie

There seems to be quite a lot of boys in this group now, am I right? We'll need to update the list from DC's to DS/DD.

And those of us who don't know - are you referring to baby as 'it'? I don't know what we've got, but think it is too impersonal, so call it 'him' most of the time, so everyone says 'oh you're having a boy' and then I have to explain I don't have a clue. Or maybe that's some intuition going on (didn't think I had any!)

Z.x

Rosmerta glad your scan went OK.

Good luck Beans Veggiemummy what is it that you do? Have you studied at all? I was always very bad at science, sports & art at school, but excelled in languages & have just taken that further (have an MA in Translation). Could never really get on with the linguistics side of things, seemed very scientific to me. But I love to learn new languages (speak 4 apart from English - French, German, Spanish, Swedish) & am looking to add another to my repertoire - possibly Afrikaans as my dad is from South Africa & his family spoke it when he was a child, & my nan used to sing to us & tell us stories in Afrikaans.

Re exotic mushroom farmer - do you mean exotic as in magic??!!

Great news rosmerta!!

And good luck to veggie and beans!

So at the scan, the nice lady who was doing it seemed genuinely excited and kept saying "What a lovely baby!" Surely they all look the same?? It was very nice of her anyway. Maybe she is just excited as she is 16 weeks pregnant at the moment. Or do they generally look different. Obviously I thought it was a lovely baby, but i am biased! Or maybe she just says this to everyone??

On a totally different note, does anyone know how swimming costume sizing works, I looked online and reckoned I would want a size 38 from what it said, but my current (non-maternity) one is a 34?? I need to buy a maternity one online,
as i don't know anywhere roundabouts that sells them...I am a size 10-12 pre-pregnancy if that helps?

summer I bought my cossie in my normal size, and it cleverly has draw strings down the side so I can let out the bump as and when I need too - I was impressed with that! I got a cheapie in the La Redoute sale online. Apart from the tummy being too big at the moment (still wearing a tankini with my tummy hanging out - not a pretty look!) it fits fine

Z.x

Cossies: I bought tankinis last time (only time I do wear tankinis) and found them more flattering than a one piece with a big flappy but int he middle for your bump to grow into.

Zoejeanne DH & I usually go to Brussels by Eurostar & take a little picnic with us - bottle of wine, smoked salmon, pate - all forbidden fruits at the moment! So relaxing to enjoy on the train though. I have to say I also miss a nice rare steak when we get there!

Summer, glad your scan went OK. I have to admit I thought the same at my scan as the sonographer was positively raving about what a good baby & what cute feet it had . Obviously, we thought that but still... I guess we ought to just be glad for nice medical professionals though, given the stories out there.

Forgot to mention before, visited 2nd choice hospital last night - now may be 1st choice! Lovely cottage hospital with beautiful grounds & friendly staff. Last night only 1 'patient' in whole place, although total facilities 1 ward with 6 beds, 1 with 2 beds, and 2 birthing suites complete with water birth facility. Plus lovely lounge area with kettle & toaster for patients to use! Lady that showed us round said sometimes can be no births for 2 weeks, sometimes 2 in a day. You are positively encouraged to stay a couple of days after the birth, if desired,DH can visit till 10pm. Only downside is MW & nurses only, no doctor. But then nearest big hospital only 20 mins in ambulance, & you can only go to this little place if over 37 weeks & uncomplicated pregnancy (so far so good for me).

She did say we were v. early looking round though - I was under the impression things had to be booked early! Is everybody else sorted for where to give birth yet, or am I a bit premature?

jenduck i don't think that is too early at all but depends where you are. with DS pregnancy in London my GP told me to decide by the end of the week when i went to see him to confirm pregnancy or we may not get booked in in time for 12 weeks scan. at that stage i was only 5 weeks pregnant. But here in Derby you can decide where you want it (mainly out of hosp, home birth or birth center) and can change your mind as you go along.

i was more thinking shitake, oyser, enobi, and others along those lines, but magic mushrooms could be quite laucrative too.

I have a degree and Grad dip both in Nursing and paeds nursing areas. speaking of which have just signed up for a course with the open university that should help towards looking like i am trying to keep myself professionally updates in case my registering body wants to quiz me on the fact i am not working.

I have to say while i am very interested in Linguistics i seem to fall back on the ability to actually learn a language, apart from doing quite well in English at school. i can just barely get by with a few pleasantries in Mandarin and get myself served in most restaurants in Italy. I do love all the stuff about development of language though, i find the history of the English language quite interesting, and also language and auditory development in children in different countries.

oh speaking of things we are not supposed to eat i'm about to have a soft boiled egg.

I thought mussels were ok if they are cooked properly, but then i'm vegetarian so don't trust me.

Well I am eating prawns, so how are mussels different really?

I wish I could view hospitals before deciding. I was told I had to choose a hospital before booking in, as the 2 local to me are in different primary care trusts so have different paperwork and procedures and I had to start on the right one, with no way of changing. I found that a bit intimidating and asked about viewing both, to be told that the larger one didn't allow visitors because of infection control. I wasn't that impressed but thought it was normal, now I'm jealous!!

Z.x

that is the most rediculous policy i have ever heard, it's true that visitors to hospitals can assist with the spread of things like MRSA but that is more visitors to patients in hospital who pop over to see other visitors and patients and transfer things around not people coming into inspect wards, what the hell do they do with people delivering flowers.

getting excited we leave for hosp in 30 mins, it's barely 5mins up the road but i like to give myself some time to have a hot choccie when i get there, not quite the standard of the beverages at FMC but still good.

Hi Jollybear I'm getting on okay - I've got my scan on Monday and I'm a bit worried after the start of my pregnancy where I was told I wouldn't know if I'd done any damage to the baby from having a general anesthetic until the 20week scan. So, I'm anxiously waiting for 1.30pm on 4th! Baby seems lively enough and it's kicking me like crazy, so hopefully it will all be fine and I can finally start to relax and look forward to my baby coming. How are you getting on?

Big waves to any other 2WWers and their growing bumps!

Congratulations on all the good scans - and good luck for those still waiting!!

I personally wouldn't eat mussels when pregnant but only because I've had two really bad bouts of food poisoning from eating them in restaurants, and have never had food poisoning from prawns, despite eating them a lot more often. So to me they just seem instinctively more risky than prawns (which I am still eating). Maybe I've been unlucky though, or am particularly susceptible to mussel poisoning!!

Well I got my GTT results - all fine but they have booked me in for a second test which is routine apparently . I can't understand why my hospital is being so cautious when several other people on this thread have had similar scans and no worries - abdomen is only 2 weeks ahead, so not massive. Am tempted to refuse the 2nd test if my urines etc are all fine - do you think this would cause ructions?

oh i found out why was chatting to a colleague about it and how over the top some MW's were being about it, but she told me a year or so ago a women went undiagnosed and actually unfortunately died some time after the birth so i guess many health trusts have changed or been made to change their parameter due to directive following this case. Fair enough i guess when something like that happens. shame you have to have it twice but good that first test all clear.

i'm off yay.

JollyBear pram choice was easy - my SIL is about to have DC3 and she has ordered the same one - she has tried them all (is a bit of a pram fanatic !) and assured me this one is the best on the market - saved me a lot of research and I love the look of it It gets good reviews on the internet too - We had a demo last weekend, MIL ansd DP were impressed so it was a done deal
Ha ha are you another 70's child ? My mum dressed us in similar - so cruel ! Not so good abut sickness though - you poor thing, you've had such a rough time of it

Am also getting cramps on and off - when I had Braxton Hicks they weren't sore like cramps, it felt as if the whole bump just went tight like a drum and all hard and lasted for about a minute or so...

Summer yippee for scan and wee boy

Oh Beans you are so pretty and your bump looks fab ! Good luck with scan ! and you too Veggie !

Hurray rosmerta another succesful scan my baby has bigger than average head - presumably for its HUGE brain !

ZJ we are exactly the same - having a surprise but refer to him as 'him' so people assume we know - I bet a wee girl pops out and we're all really surprised !!

jenduck clever you speaking 4 languages ! I studied French at Uni (MA Hons) and also did German to 2nd year - but now work in IT as fancied a change - often wish I'd stuck with the languages

Oh and sonographer raved about our lovely baby - I think she was referring to the fact that it was well positioned for her to scan so made life easy for her - then she said 'aah look at the wee feet, sweet' and 'look it is suckig its thumb, sweet' but TBH there wasn't much conviction there but I was still dead proud of my super-cute baby !!!

Hi abbeymeg cross-posted - lovelty to hear from you, wishing you truckloads of luck for Monday and hoefully you can relax after that

Veggiemummy I agree that language history can be interesting. Did you watch the series Balderdash & Piffle when that was on the BBC. Kind of a lighthearted look at word/phrase origins. Hope you enjoy your scan (& hot choc) this afternoon!

Theyoungvisiter I don't know anything about GTT results, but if the second test is just routine I'm sure it'll be nothing to worry about. You could always ask for more clarification perhaps? Could it be that they need an average from two test results or some such thing?

I personally am not eating mussels. I don't eat prawns etc anyway, but I just get the feeling that with mussels, oysters, ect, there could be undesirable grit or dirt left in the shells. Sounds silly now I write it down, but I shall just have to make it one more thing on my banquet wishlist for once babyduck is here

oh that's interesting veggie - I've just started another thread about it so I'll see what responses I get. I REALLY don't want to go back so I might discuss with my MW whether it's really necessary or not - see what they say.

they don't need an average - it's just that gestational diabetes doesn't normally manifest this early so they retest later if you have risk factors. But I can't really understand the logic because my risk factor is a fat baby - and if I haven't got GD now, then obviously the baby is not fat due to diabetes - it's just fat.

I don't have any other risk factors so am not sure why I am a candidate for retesting. I wouldn't normally mind going back but the GTT was truly horrible (at least I found it so) - it involves fasting for 12 hours and I got very low blood sugar and had a nightmare struggling across London on public transport feeling sick and faint, and had to organise childcare for DS because the tests involve sitting around in the hospital for 3 hours and I knew he would go mental. So all in all, it's a real pain and I don't want to have to do it again if it's not absolutely necessary...

TYV: good news re the GTT results but bah for having to do it all AGAIN. Do you have to go to the hospital next time? As I said before, mine was done at my local surgery (5 mins walk), the nurse took all the bloods and sent them off to the hospital to be tested. Might be worth asking. I suspect I will be in a similar boat if my results are negative, I think they err on teh side of caution when it comes to GTT. Def talk to your mw.

Also I had a nice heavy meal (chili con carne and rice) at 9pm the night before and didn't feel too hungry or woozy by 9am the next day - worth a thought

bah indeed effie! Do let me know what they tell you - I am really perplexed at the randomness of the policy here. I have 3 friends who had big babies at the 20 week scan - all at the same hospital - 2 did not get referred for further testing - another friend (plus me) did. Otherwise our results on paper look completely the same. I just think it depends who you see on the day and the problem seems to be that once you get into the testing system, they kind of keep summoning you back!

But that is a really good idea about asking if I can do it at the local surgery - it would certainly make my life a lot easier than doing it at the hospital. I am not sure if they offer that round here though - I'll have to ask. I don't know if having a big meal would work for me - I did have a pretty big supper beforehand but I've always had problems with low blood sugar in the morning (have never been able to skip breakfast for eg, without feeling horribly sick) so I think perhaps it's just something I'm prone to. I seem to have very energetic sleep!

Just seen discussion further down about cramps/BH. I had a lot of braxton hicks in my last pg and they didn't hurt, except right at the end when they occasionally caused mild twinges and felt like v early stage labour.

But I have had a lot of cramps - mostly stitch-like pains when I walk too fast or sneeze violently! (not sure why the latter!). I just put it down to the huge amount of blood being syphoned off for the placenta now - so I am guessing there is less left for me! Would be interested to hear any actual medical theories though!

TYV - I get pains when I sneeze too, and have done right from the start, coughing too. It always feels like I'm going to pull a muscle, but my sneezes aren't that strong!

And talking of muscles/mussels - maybe I will stay off them, boo hoo.

Z.x

Thanks rosmerta & Mibbes!

waitingirl - try not to worry re:scan - I'm 21+5 and only just started feeling baby move and there are big gaps in time when I don't feel anything. Had my scan on Monday and couldn't believe how much she was moving when I couldn't feel a thing! Good luck and keep us posted.

Doozie - try sweetcorn! I've suffered years of IBS and now have trouble too now pg - but sweetcorn always does the trick!

hope you're feeling better jollybear. You're going to hate me but I haven't suffered a single day of morning sickness whereas my poor sister suffered with it during her whole pregnancy. So much so that she had to regulalry be hooked up to a drip! Really hope it passes soon.

Really pleased all went well with your scan summerlightning and rosmerta.

You look so happy in your pics with your lil bump Beans. I put some up yesterday.

Jenduck - can't believe your DH is feeling baby kick already. Thought that would start much later. My DH is desperate to feel baby move.

Exotic mushroom farmer... hmmmm... sounds like a plan

Mibbes - which pram did you buy? Haven't a clue which is supposed to be good or bad???

BTW - apologies for repetative messages - It's taking me a while to read through all posts and comment/reply. Brain is crap!