Fab Feb Fourth Thread: are we blooming yet?

[onwardandupward]

Here we are! This should do us for a few weeks...

lardy, that's horrific... are they forceps marks?

i still have scars on my head from the forceps, nasty implements but necessary unfortunately in some cases

Pluto - Isabella Oliver tends to size quite big in my experience (mainly though because it's all stretchy so there's lots of 'give').

I have a couple of scoop necked tops and vests from last time and a ruched neck jumper - and they were great.I found they looked a bit different to the catalogue/web page , but I guess you can send stuff back if you don't like it. Or you can buy it 2nd hand from ebay - it tends to hold it's price quite well, I tend to buy in the sale and then sell on ebay !

Rachrox -sorry to hear on your family falling outs - my stance is always to take the mature approach and write a letter justsaying how you would like things to be in the future and not rake over old ground (mind you I don't know what you fell out over ...so might not be appropriate!)

I had a posterior labour at home with DS2 - was painful (particularly having my waters broken) but he was 10lb 4 anyway ... The other two were much less painful. Standing up for labour is the key for me !

yep.... i spent most of ds's labour right up til i climbed on the bed to push standing up and moving around (hospital rules were you had to deliver on the bed ) and it was very managable..... pain took my breathe away towards the end when the contractions were blending into each other but standing up and leaning on the bed swaying around seemed to make it just bearable.

i'd had the constant throbbing back for months at this point so i think my body had just adjusted to the sensation so i didn't feel it too much.

i would strongly suggesst giving birth on hands and knees if possible as well. i did with dd and it was a lifesaver (her life in this case). with ds they insisted i turn on my back to be examined (i'd been pushing for 10 mins at this stage ) and i couldn't turn back over and there was a definite differance in the pain leval when pushing.

Yes pink they are the forceps marks, it was barbaric but saved her life as there was no time for c section because up to this point I had only had gas and air so they would of had to have called the anaesthetist and it would of taken upto 30 mins for that to all de done so they just cut me and yanked her out. I was so sore and bruised for about 4 weeks and could only pee in the bath !! It was barbaric the mw had one foot on the bed and the other on the floor and was yanking with all her might while I pushed with all mine. I was sure that she was going to pull my dd's head off.....

Still she did the right thing and I have a beautiful baby girl to show for it. I hope that I don?t even see the stirrups this time?

I still remember it all with rose coloured glasses though because although it was bad it was also very magical if that makes sence!!

Ooh lardy - I'm flinching at the sound of that !

here to anterior babies all round for the feb girls

Amen. Anterior R us.

And what an amazing story lardy - almost as bad as a wisdom tooth extraction You should be so damn proud of yourself.

Ah thank you.

How about we resort to spending the next 5 months on our hands and knees?

That should do it!

Hello everyone! I am back in Cyprus and so back online!!

Hope everyone is ok, I need to spend sometime reading up on this thread but must confess I haven't had a chance yet.

All going well for me. Had my nuchal fold on Thursday, all is well although it was a bit of a task getting the baby in the right position but we got there in the end.

Sickness has finally gone - thank goodness. I feel so much better!! Still haven't got much of a bump but I am convinced I have felt the odd movement.

Anyway good to be back

just been reading up and have figured out why all those weeks on my knees did nothing, you're supposed to have your head down on the ground and bum in the air for it to work [do'h]

I'm baaaaaaaack [sheep emoticon] from two weeks in cold, wet Wales - anybody missed me?

welcome back.

did you have a good time in the holiday hotspot that is wales?

welcome back.

did you have a good time in the holiday hotspot that is wales?

Hey RachRox
How you doin today? Feeling any better? Obv don't know the full story but personally would want to try and clear the air before your brother moves. As I say, don't know what the argument was about so quite difficult to comment!
So your outside of Cheltenham then....

Welcome back McDreamy and Swampster. Swampster - spent a week (one week ago) in a very soggy muddy tipi in Herefordshire so take my hat off to you sticking out 2 weeks of the rain in Wales!!

First-timers on the thread - please dont be put off/scared by the previous birth stories you read on here. Posterior labours and traumatic births do happen - but so do beautiful births where things go well and you feel in control. My DS's birth was a non-positive story (though on plus side the medieval midwife who caused the majority of the issues was sent off for mandatory retraining and supervision after I complained) but I do know plenty of people who had positive births.

For those of you whose babies have forceps/ventouse or like poor DS are wedged in place ready to be delivered for so long that they get a groove in their head (!), I absolutely recommend cranial osteopaths (a number of those are charities - especially the Osteopathic Centre for Children in London - where you just pay what you can) - they helped get DS's head back to a normal baby shape in no time and also helped him calm down etc and start feeding and sleeping better within the first couple of weeks of seeing him....

even the horrific births can be positive experiances.

it's hard to explain until you've felt it but that rush of pride/love/protectiveness right after birth does tend to make up for alot of the hell difficult experiances that preceded it.

and once you have your baby out safe and well 90% of mothers could care less what labour was like..... why do you think we all do it again?

Absolutely true, tulips

My previous labour (the posterior one) was an epic - lasted for ever, very very intense once the induction drip started, hallucinations on the entonox (I think that must be fairly rare, but I wouldn't ever want to take it again myself) but then, once I started wanting to push, and got rid of the entonox and got myself up on my hands and knees and damn well pushing that baby out -

oh, it's the most wonderful wonderful experience - the power, and the way your body knows exactly what to do, and you just allow it to happen - you just stop trying to control the sensations with the mind. It's completely primitive, and it didn't hurt me AT ALL, that part, it was endorphin city. And the ring of fire - yes, it exists, there's the moment when the baby's head crowns, but even that I didn't experience as pain (and I only tore an eensy weensy bit) just, well, a ring. Of fire. A moment of recognition ("oh! THAT'S the ring of fire they all talk about!") and then a couple of easy pushes and lying back to let my child do the magical newborn crawl from tummy to breast.

And by the time the baby had latched on for the first time, moments after being born, all the hours of sloooow labour, and all the back ache and the frustration of my unread birthplan and the trauma of those hallucinations and the fact of being in a hospital bed rather than my own was gone gone gone, and all I knew was that I was drowning in a pair of small but beautiful eyes and falling deeply in love.

i thought i was the only freak who loved pushing

it's so liberating to know you only have a few pushes to go and your body will do it whether you join in or not so you might as well just bloody go for it.

like you onward i didn't experiance any pain with pushing with dd on my hands and knees and with ds it was mostly just my back feeling tight as opposed to pain...... i found the ring of fire strangly exciting as it meant my babies head was there and i was one push from done, i actually pushed harder when i felt it.

it really is copable with no matter how bad it gets as long as you allow your body to do what it needs to do and just focus on breathing through the pain and zoning out to your happy place.

i never had entonox as i was told it makes you feel drunk and i stopped drinking a long time ago as i don't actually enjoy being drunk. and not being able to move with an epi seemed like hell to me so i got through both very long labours with nothing, and tbh... the only time i found the pain a bit overwhelming was during transition when the contractions pile ontop of each other a bit but tbh, at that stage you're almost done anyway so you cope as you know you'll have your baby in your arms very soon.

i'd strongly recommend reading up on self hypnosis and meditation techniques for labour as it really does work.

Do you have any meditation recommendations? I meditate every day anyway, but it might be good to be directing my meditation in a certain direction (and I like instructions, not CDs! I was lent a Jon Kabat-Zinn CD and oh fgs just shut the f*ck up! But I know he is a wise and enlightened man, and there are bits of the mindful parenting book which I just loved - I just didn't like having him there meditating with me )

My midwives this time said that if one can surrender to the pushing stage, then the battle is more than half won - that actually, many women make their labours slower and more painful because they are unable to surrender to those sensations and are fighting their bodies rather than working with. And like Tulips says, your body just is going to push the baby out once that particular hormone cascade starts, so we might as well accept it and enjoy the ride! I'm really looking forward to that bit next time

Advice about the transition might be good... my Mum says "oh, I don't really remember having a transition after my first labour". But I don't know whether that's a splendid signal that one's body does the turn-around faster second time, or whether she's got her rose-tinted specs on. Anyone got any gems of wisdom for having an ecstatic transition? Remember, I was hallucinating right through it last time. Not a route I'd recommend

Hi Ladies,

Mentalpup I'm much better today thanks, felt a bit of a relief as soon as i posted it yesterday. I live about 3 miles from town centre so still in chelt.

Sorry for all those that have had bad birth experiences, but as you all say it can't be that bad or you wouldn't be doing again!! ..lol..

All my 3 were relatively (sp?) easy, my 1 dd was born at 28 weeks but was face forward so had to be cut and forceps were used. I don't remember the stitches hurting at all afterwards and even strolled to the shops about 4 hours later !! (Could be that i was only 18!) My 2nd dd was born at 34 weeks, but thankfully just tore slightly with no stitches. And my ds born at term was less trouble with nothing! All 3 were just 5 hours long aswell, so i was very lucky. I even quite enjoyed the whole labour process, well i'm doing it again ..lol.. I might even try on my knees this time? But the thing that puts me off that is putting my bum in the air for everyone to see!!
Hope everyone is enjoying their bank hol weekend?

Laidback Thanks for your message aswell, i'm sure things will work for the best whichever way it goes. I think it's just the hormones making it worse!

nope, transition was worse with ds..... actually, i never had transition with dd as they manually stretched my cervix at 8cm as her heart had pretty much stopped so i think that's why it took my breath away a bit with ds, this time i'll be more prepared for that out of control feeling and ready to deal with it.

i have always been pretty good at what i call 'zoning out' as i've had migraines that didn't respond to pain relief since about 2/3 years old. the one good thing they've done for me is teach me how to control my mind and shut myself off from the pain and panic.

i did read the gowri motha natural birth book and she has a lot about self hypnosis but it is very much of the 'envision a restful garden' variety which isn't the type of thing i do. she suggests all sorts of stuff like making a tape to play yourself to trigger the hypnosis. it works for some but i do think not everyone needs this sort of stimulus to enter a trance, in fact a tape to me would be a distraction... i just need my dp there to shut everyone up, the room darkened and no one to touch me and i'm gone

lots of MNers have gone the self hypnosis route, i'm sure lots of them can recommend excellant books and classes that don;t involve fiddling with cd's while having contraction

rach... when it comes to doing it you could give a rats ass if the pope sees your bare bum sticking in the air as if feels so damn good

Hi everyone, just been reading through the thread & thought id drop by and say Hi....

Im due on the 9th Feb - my first baby Very excited!
XX

So are you all blooming yet??