Dec 08 - the one where we wonder what are our bodies going to do next?

[rosmerta]

Sorry for rubbish title, best I could do

hav ebumped for you Turnip!

Sorry for indulgant "me" post, but I just had my 24 week growth / blood flow scan - this was due to BP problems last pregnancy and huge baby /potential diabetes scare at the 20 week scan in this pregnancy. So they wanted to check size and also blood flow to the placenta etc.

Anyway I was completely petrified - if the baby came up small it would be a red flag for the blood pressure problems and would result in more monitoring, and if the baby came up big it would result in a red flag for the potential diabetes and would result in more monitoring.

Fortunately the clever little thing got it bang on the 50th centile yay!! So I've been signed off on the diabetes thing and don't have to go back for another GTT after all, and the blood pressure looks unlikely to recurr.

Hooray hooray all round. Not counting my chickens yet, but at least feeling a bit happier.

Anyway, sorry for the me post - lots of sympathies to those with evil SILs and bad holidays! We are going to visit my SIL and BIL in Sweden next week, travelling ryanair, gulp, so I will probably be able to regale you with my own horror stories in a fortnight or so...

arti, so sorry to hear abotu your bp problems - I really, really sympathise.

Have you got a home bp monitor? I found mine really useful last time, and this time it's made me more confident about things as I know whatever my bp does in appointments it's fairly stable at home (I have rabid white collar hypertension which doesn't help - my heart rate was 135 bpm in the scan this morning!)

Mibbles - my DH feels much the same about sex in pregnancy. He is fine until the bump becomes really visable but once we pass that point he feels funny about it. Sadly we are just reaching that point now. Once, when I was pregnant with DD, he felt her kick while we were getting down to things and that has really put him off. I don't have any good tips really - luckily I am not up for much action either, if I was I would be getting very cross. My friends who have been pregnant with boys have reported very high pregnancy sex drives but I have only ever carried girls!

Sorry youngvisitor, x-post. I am very glad to hear about your scan. Potential BP problems are a real stress, which is clearly counter-productive. Last pregnancy how high did your BP go? Did you get pre-eclampsia. With DD1 my high BP developed into pre-eclampsia but not until late in the pregnanacy and luckily it was mild pre-eclmapsia and they just induced me at 38 weeks. This time they checked my placenta blood flow at the 20 weeks scan and all indications are that it won't be pre-eclmapsia this time and it is just high BP, they can't guarantee though. Sadly my father died from BP complications when he was only 39 so I always have that in the back of my mind (which I am sure pushes my pressure right up when they test).

I do have a home monitor and my BP is usually better on that one. Also my medical student friend can montior my BP while we are away. I just dread something going wrong while aborad, but on the other hand I do not want to cancel the holiday when I feel fine and the chances are that I will be fine.

youngvisiter: so glad your scan went well and you get to avoid another GTT .

I often have a few high BP probs as well, but no issues so far this pg (fingers crossed). I also have a high resting pulse rate, which makes those gym machines interesting!

Arti - worst case scenario - Italian hospitals are pretty good and Sicilian ones should be no different. Have you got that card which enables you to free care in EU countires? Would urge everyone to get it as it can cut through a lot of red tape and it's completely free. You need a form from the Post Office or there is something you can fill in online. It's replaced the old E111 card. Sicily is lovely - Taormina, Ortigia, the Aeolian islands...

Mibbes, I sympathise. My DP says he feels a tiny bit funny about it, I think it's very common. Tips to overcome this...I don't know, but there is a lot of pregnancy porn on the web so some people out there would go wild for the way we look (sorry to be controversial). My DP told me about it and I looked at some of it out of curiosity...funny really.

Youngvis, I had that same test last week so I know how stressful it is. The size of my DD was fine too. She's got long legs, but that's not going to induce anything (other than jealousy from her Mummy)

artichokes I don't know how high my bp would have gone because they put me on medication quite early - at about 24 weeks I think. At that stage it was averaging about 150/85 at appointments which I didn't think was that high but they were obviously worried.

After that it crept up again but the medication kept it within normal limits.

At the time they thought it was essential hypertension that had not been picked up until I was pregnant, but it returned to normal after birth (in fact at one point it was down to 90/60) so I now think it was a combination of white coat hypertension and gestational hypertension towards the end - but I never had protein in my urine or abnormal bloods so although I got intensively monitored it was never treated as pre-eclampsia.

Thank you for all the thank yous

mibbes I am not sure what to advise as I have the opposite problem! My Dh is, if anything, even more enthusiastic when I am with bump, and although he is fairly understanding when I am not in the mood, I still think he thinks that twice a week is extremely poor going, whereas I think that twice a week is damn good for someone with a toddler and a bump and a job!

Thanks for the comments, I had a lovely long bath with my expensive bath foam while ds was at nursery so feel much better. Plus my Tara Lee dvd has arrived so at least I'll be able to do the relaxation part of it now if I'm feeling a bit tense!

arti hope your Sicily trip goes well & the bp doesn't get worse! Though like others have said, at least you'll be with an Italian-speaking medical student!

TYV thats great news hope you can relax a bit now.

Arti just keep an eye on things am sure oyu will be fine.

MM interesting about hte sex thing this time round I am totally uninterested but last time we were at it all the way through. I thought it was because I am knackered with looking after DS but maybe its because I am carrying a girl.

Although I can give you all a giggle, on our Sunday lie in when basically DS is left to his own devices benign parenting again we got a little amorous then halfway through suddenly hear DS in our bedroom then he decided to try and climb DP's back while we were ahem right in the middle. You can imagine how quickly that put a dampner on things!

jam lol, I bet that did indeed kill any passion

Jam that is hilarious, we tend to put Thomas the tank engine on down stairs so as to avoid scaring our DS for life. I am def having a boy then as have a high libido, and DH is fine with it whilst bump is around, he is just happy to be getting it really as things def slowed down after DS was born so he is making hay while the sun is shining so to speak.

I don't have a problem with porn but pregnancy porn is a bit weird. Asked DH about it he said it's not something he would be into but did say that a pregnant women is about as feminine as you can get so is quite sexy in his own wife, so made me feel a bit better about all my wobbly bits.

Pompeii is near Sorrento and Napoli, we went there when pregnant with DS and loved it had always wanted to go since doing a project on it in primary school.

With all the tearing and crying are you finding it a bit random the things that make you cry? DH is coping with it, trying to remember that it is not always him making me cry. During last pregnancy i was opposite as i would be unusually upbeat and laugh and some of his really crap jokes, which he understandably like compared to my current mood. Bless him though he gets really excited if he makes me laugh.

To all who do have a moan etc please don't feel you have to apologise for having a moan on here.

My libido is a bit odd at the moment - mostly absent then occasional nights where I have very dreams and am in the mood all the next day. DH seems to find me more and more attractive the bigger my bump gets though, which I should be grateful for I suppose!

oli sorry I wasn't on here earlier to spare you a trip. I don't think John Lewis do the rabbit clock. Blooming Marvellous and Jojo Maman both do though I think and you can order it online with Mumsnet discount!

LadyT I've only started driving again very recently myself. I passed my test twenty one years ago but have hardly driven since as haven't had the need - Edinburgh (where I used to live) is small-ish and London (a) has good public transport and (b) is full of mental drivers! Now we've moved out a bit though I did some refreshers and have finally bought my FIRST CAR!!! There was no way I was doing another maternity leave sans vehicle!

shudder at pregnancy porn! Although I feel a sense of deja vu at this - didn't we have a similar discussion about 3 threads ago?

Jam I literally laughed out loud at your sunday morning story - it's a bit too close to home for comfort! DS has never actually climbed in but we have had him in the doorway saying "I help!" because he thinks there is some funny game going on that he should be involved in!

I just noticed my cryptic message below "thanks for all the thank yous" - I have no idea what I was trying to say - thank you for all the sympathy maybe? Please put it down to pregnancy brain...

ach that's fine, we have the attention span of goldfish

tyv it was probably one of the first topics we discussed

effie I used Crashcourses to learn to drive. Interestingly, I took my test 3 times before I passed, 4th time lucky was in London!

Am feeling much much better now. Ds had a nap today which is getting rarer but it meant he was in a lovely mood this afternoon and we had a really nice time together. For some reason he was quite cuddly as well so I got lots of hugs and kisses!

Effie that is so true we do have the attention span of gold fish.

had a crazy afternoon looked after a friend DS same age as mine and they had a big fight and both ended up crying and screaming at each other. nightmare. but then went out with a couple of old friends in Nottingham neither have children and it was s nice to feel a bit normal and non mummy, the only give away was how much more i ate.

veggie, sorry to hear about your afternoon, at least you had a nice night out to make up for it! I've found that if ds's friends are here or we're at theirs, then there's more scope for arguments and tears than if we meet in the park. Must be the territorial thing.

Can't believe dh sometimes, seems all my hormonal-ness got through to him yesterday so he's taken the morning off work and taking ds off swimming so I can have a rest . Normally I have to as blunt as a sledgehammer to get through to him

Some people never grow out of the territorial thing - when my DH and his sister return to their parents they revert back to childhood and fight like horrible teenagers - including door slamming, foot stamping and tears - it is hilarious to watch! Obviously me and my sis are much more mature and never argue like that now we're grown up ... I don't think parenting ever ends, looking at his parents, what have we got ourselves into??

Ok, Turnip, now swiftly reversing the curse I put on your SIL earlier in the week....

Of course, I am JOKING and I hope all goes swimmingly for her and your niece. Keep us posted. What's the baby called? And what's placenta abrupta?

Re: pregnancy porn, I joined in this thread only a couple of months ago I think, so I missed that. But if some random perve wants to get hot under the collar about my lumbering bump, thunder thighs and torpedo tits, quite frankly that perks me up rather more than it weirds me out.

What kind of car did you buy, Verso?

Turnip, am praying for them. Like you said, 34 weeks isn't too bad for a baby, so hopefully she'll be ok! I do know of a little boy who was born at 26 weeks & you wouldn't notice a difference at all now.

LadyT, its where the placenta separates from the uterus.

I hope your little neice is OK Turnip. A good friend of mine started suffering from placenta previa at 24 weeks. For 10 weeks she has been on hospital bedrest knowing she might have to have an emergnecy c-section at any moment and not being able to look after her two year old. Last week she had another big bleed and they whipped the baby out at 34 weeks and 4lbs. I went to visit then the other day. The baby is thriving - no intensive care or oxygen, the only issue is that she is too young for her suck reflex to have developed so she has a little tube in her nose to help her feed. I hope your neice is doing equally well.

My news is that last night I felt very odd and faint and started panicing that maybe my BP was going up. I got out my home monitor and it was really low rather than high . How can the midwife measure it as high (147/85) and then 48 hours it gets so low (90/58) that I nearly pass out??? I know low BP is less of a worry than high, but what about fluctuating BP?

Your poor little niece Turnip..I nearly had my twins at 34 weeks and they weren't massively worried..they said thats the turning point for when it gets much easier for them to survive without any big problems. They managed to stop the early labour and I went on for another few weeks. Hope the little one is okay.

I just don't get the pregnancy porn either. I won't go into the unpleasant physical symptoms I have this pregnancy, but I certainly don't think anyone would relish a close up of my bits!

Artichokes i'd ring the midwife just to put your mind at rest. If you've a history of high blood pressure, do you think you get nervous when it's measured and it therefore goes a little higher? A Gp friend told me a word for this, "white coat syndrome?" where bp is often higher in the doctors office than when you're more relaxed at home..I may be talking rubbish so please ignore me..hope your m/w can shed some light on it all..

LadyT lol@ "lumbering bumps" etc (and thank you for the change, which arrived today! )

I bought a little Rover 25 - not the coolest of cars, but more car for your money than a Focus (which is what I really wanted). I love it though - it works, which is the main thing! Still can't quite believe I actually own a car after so many years. (Maybe I should have got a Verso, Turnip! It never occurred to me!)

I hope your SIL and baby are ok, btw. Sounds very scary to give birth that early. Is placenta abrupta where it starts to come away from the uterus wall? Really hope all is ok.

Very tired today as DD was up a couple of times during the night after soaking the bed . She was doing really well at staying dry - but looks like she might have to go back into nappies again. It's a real shame as she's so excited about getting her grown-up bed this week.

Oh and top tip: don't buy online from John Lewis! Would you believe they have billed me for my pram and DD's single bed etc (quite a costly order) - and then ALSO withheld the same amount AGAIN because they had temporary problems at their end with the transaction the day it went through?

I only found out yesterday because my debit card was declined despite me checking our account every day and knowing to the penny what the balance is!

DH and I have both been on the phone to the bank and John Lewis numerous times and JL finally said this morning that they "might" be able to release the funds back to us tomorrow. Upshot is that although we have cleared cash in our joint account (ie for such non-essentials as groceries ) I can't touch it because John Lewis have put a hold on it!!!!!

I am so cross I can hardly speak! Didn't help my BP at antenatal appointment this morning either - but MW didn't seem too worried.

(Will go and stomp. about. a. bit.)