Due Dec 08 -- Getting Ready for final push (in every sense!)

[Beans33]

Here's a new thread for us all lovely Dec Mums!

I wanted Freddie for our DS but DH vetoed it. One years for the FA cup final a bunch of girlfriends and i did colour copies of one of those Clavin Klein ads and printed it onto a load of shirts which we wore for the final, a few years later one of my friends got Freddie to sign it. He's lovely, i think he has signed with a US team now.

Oh i see JJ, what size is your old mattress, we used his old one as soft landing when he used to roll our of his cotbed when we took the rails off. and now it is a spare mattress if anyone with kids stay over if they are small enough (under 4) they can sleep on it with DS in his room. It is safe for kids over 2 to sleep on the mattresses.

LT i think as long as you get an appropriate size the growbag should be fine from very little. It does depend on Ladybaby, if they prefer being swaddled or the growbag.

I think there are weight recommendations on some of the better bags too - I seem to remember when I was shopping for DS the smallest weight recommended was 7lb.

The only risk is that if they are very tiny and the bag is too big, they might wriggle their head inside. But as long as their head is clearly bigger than the neck hole then it should be fine.

Swaddling is often easier for the first few weeks though - I found it quite hard to position DS for breastfeeding in a grobag - there was too much bag flopping around while I was still getting used to the whole thing!

Hi all,
Braved the Westfield shopping centre today - wanted to look at Ugg Australia, but it was like a night club 1 in 1 out!! So didn't bother waiting- thought it would be quiet being Sunday but after the 8 mile drive took over an hour I realized not! Lovely place though -had GBK which def made it worthwhile!
LadyT sorry about your driving test - doesn't sound easy in London - Hope you are feeling better after your horrid day and getting more sleep? I'm not really but it's just babyk waking at 4am doing it but I'm thankful he's so active really! Sorry to hear if you miss the meetup? Maybe you'll feel ok then and decide to come along.
Kayz by "gooner" do you mean Arsenal fan I'm assuming? At first I thought you were saing you're a fan of wine!! (slang in Aust for wine - Goon!) until I asked DH! I was going to say mee too!! But i'm not with you (and Veggie) there - my nephew is a mad Man U supporter!
Twiga yay for the section date! Just in time for Xmas!
Trace sorry to hear about your scare and then feeling crap today - hope you feel better soon.
Kimberley I use to love Thanksgiving when I lived in the US - are you cooking for your DH or are other people joining you? I'm thinking Costco for a turkey but I really don't know - I'm going to get one there for Xmas - I've got all these grand plans for hosting my 1st Xmas dinner as a grown up, but I wonder if it goes tits up since my section is just 2 weeks before!! I'm hoping i'll be fine then though! Plus family will be here to help.
Anyway, I'm off - early start tomorrow so hope everyone else is well.

Kmp- are you from QLD. DH introduced me to the term goon for cask wine, he went to UQ and they used to have a game 'Goon of fortune'. we just called them casks in NSW. Hey have you noticed though cask wine has gone a bit up market these days. A friend bought some for a long boat trip we did a few years ago, it was a well known and respected winery (which i suddenly can't remember) and was quite drinkable.

LadyT sorry about the test but it sounds like you did really well and just did the one tiny thing wrong so fingers crossed you will pass in 10 days.

Trace it sounds like you've had a really emotional day - I'm not surprised after the trauma of Saturday. I hope you are feeling better now.

kayz yay for exciting paint and carpet!

verso your nursery sounds lovely. Where did you get the stickers from?

I'm fretting about the move tomorrow although I'm sure it will be fine. Have to say that packing and cleaning with an 8 month bump has (so far) not been anywhere near as bad as I expected. I've managed to get away with just a bit of backache. Fingers crossed that I will still feel this way after moving and then all the unpacking. I somehow doubt it!

I will probably not have internet for a week or so now so I may not post much but I will be following you all on my phone.

I hope you all have good weeks.

Pix - I moved house when pg with DD1 at 8 months and it was a doddle! All these burly removal men telling you to sit down and rest, as you are far too huge to help. They got a sofa in really quickly for me (as I was sitting on the floor reading a mag when they got there!) and I just sat on it and directed operations from there. I moved at 4 months pg with DD2 and it was much harder as I didn't really look any different at that point. Haven't moved in this pg except to the fridge .

Verso - good luck with the outlaws staying. I can hear my DH on the phone to mine as I type. I can't bear fussy guests - esp at this stage of pg, you are a heroine.

Lady T - sorry about the test. I do hope you get a chance to retake before the baby is here.Your DH's anniversary must be very hard as well - hope you are feeling OK.

Trace - internals can make you feel wobbly at the best of times. I am sure your labour will be fine. Once you are up and running there is no time to think about awkwardness etc.

Hatty, sympathies on the pox, hope other DD gets it out of the way shortly. Dr Mary prescribes liberal doses of Cbeebies and baths in bicarb of soda to help the itching.

Good luck to all those planning a home birth - I know lots of people who have done it and they all heartily recommend it.

Must dash. DD1 has jst done a wee in the bed so I need to get it all changed before she can go back. Hello to everyone I've missed. I'll try to catch up properly with you all at work tomorrow. My last week. Am so tired I can barely focus so I predict quality work to end on .

kmp Actually my DH is doing the cooking this year. He's a much better cook than I am anyway. But I'll be helping out for sure. We are planning on having a big dinner with a bunch of friends that have never had a Thanksgiving dinner before. So it should be fun! I'll have to check into Costco... not sure if our membership is still good though.

Summer thanks! I'll see if we have a butcher somewhere local and see if we can get any information.

Now I'm off to bed!

well it's 5 am and I've been lying awake for 3 hours now so have finally given in and got myself a cuppa and some chocolate digestives!
Don't know what's going on but I'm still crying and feeling very irrational, so am attempting to distract myself. TV is naff so will try my Eddie Izzard DVD - or Peter Kay - that usually cracks me up...
Can I just ask a very irrational stupid question, because I think once I get it written down it will stop plaguing me and I'll get it out of my system...you know you should feel the baby move 10 times a day (is that right?) - well my baby is soooooooo active that she's sometimes on the go for hours at a time...well I'm slowly convincing myself that she clearly has epilepsy and that this much movement is wrong. Seeing that written down looks ridiculous, and I know it's the insomniac talking...but am feeling the need for reassurance. SO sorry to be neurotic and selfish.
Anyway...
Have got midwife at 9am so lets hope I can a) be awake at that point and b) stop crying by then.
hugs to you all xxx

Morning Trace!!! I've been awake since 4!!! I was actually waiting for DS to wake up this morning! Don't worry about irrational (or not so irrational fears) we all have them. I think that the 10 movements thing is a minimum. You've probably just got a happy kicky little soul in there! Mine is giving me such mega kicks i keep thinking that it's going to be so strong its goign to do some kind of star fish when it is due to be born and refuse to come out!! See...these are the things we think about in the early hours!!!!!
x

Going to catch up ont he weekends chat and then I'll be back.

Right - caught up a bit...will just type randomly as I remember stuff!!!

LT what a bummer!! If its any consolation it took me 3 or 4 goes to pass can't quite remember which but that is not much help when you are on such a deadline.

pixsix good luck with the move!

All these shows are very exciting! The midwife visited yesterday to discuss the homebirth and had a good old feel around and said that minipop has its head right down (although not yet engaged). I am taking this as a good sign! I feel like you are all on the home stretch but I have ages as I am not due til end dec and was a week over with DS.
We (royal we!! Should read DH) painted the nursery yesterday and we are going to put everything in maybe tonight! Had totally forgotten about needing new mattresses so that is a pain! Can't wait to put my feeding chair in there...cue lots of sitting, rocking and daydreaming!!!!
Nearly finished the Christmas shopping and even managed to wrap some up yesterday. This has got me thinking about Christmas lots and one of my 4am thoughts was 'what if my waters break whilst sitting with my extended family on christmas day'. I had visions of a comedy 'oh f*' moment with a puddle slowly forming and my teenage boy cousins running screaming from the room!

Oh yes - on the reusable nappies front I used Tots Bots Bamboozles with Motherease wraps. They were great. Disposables in hospital for the sticky icky poos.

Traceface firstly a big {{{hug}}} for your insomnia and weepiness. I SO know how you feel. Have slept ok the past couple of nights but most of the time I'm up between 2am and 4am like clockwork. I hope your m/w can reassure you about the movements. I think it's natural to worry at this stage - and especially at that time in the morning. If it helps at all, I lay awake this morning at 5:30am worrying that the baby hadn't moved enough overnight (ie it hadn't woken me up). You can't win!

Interesting you say about comedy DVDs. I was chatting to someone the other day who said when she was doing the long lonely nights of breastfeeding in the early stages she kept herself sane with comedy DVDs on quiet. I think it's a good idea as I have a tendency to melancholy at the best of times... (and it's an excuse to pop on to Amazon! ) Does that count as nesting?!

Got a handyman coming today to put up some shelves, put in some cupboard child locks (we've been very lucky with DD as she only goes in the cupboards we say she can - might not be as lucky next time! - and bolt a bookcase to the wall - I'm fine with most DIY but have a drill phobia.

Morning,

Kmp Yes I'm an Arsenal fan. Never knew the Goon thing. I might start saying it to confuse DH. Hehe!!

Today is carpet day and it also means MIL day She thinks we need help to look after DS as the carpet is being fitted. We're quite capable of doing it.

Hope everyone is ok and doing well.

Trace: DS was on the go constantly, really it was unusual for him to be quiet for more than an hour or so at a time. Absolutely nothing wrong with him apart from having bags of energy! I found sugar made him even more manic, so maybe eating low-GI stuff might calm things down a bit. I actually worried more about this baby because he isn't on the go all the time, when I'm actually feeling a fair amount of movement. Agree that the panic and weepiness perfectly normal for this stage, your hormones are all over the place. And that's not taking into account your scares and bp issues. Hipe the mw appt went well and REST!

LT: sorry to hear about the test, but if you only failed on a minor point your first time well I reckon it bodes well for you acing it the second time. Hope things aren;t getting too much on top of you, the tendonitis sounds miserable.

Tanks fgor the reminder re: mattresses, I'd forgotten as well! Must start doing a list, though the end of Dec seems like ages away. We have a lovely family crib which we'll be using again, though I'm also tempted to get a moses basket (didn;t use one with DS).

I'm off to the wilds of Humberside (as was) to give a talk this evening, hope I managbe to stay awake! PLus they;d better have organised my a taxi, or I'll have to ask my Dad for a lift (see LT, this is why you are learning to drive!).

Morning everyone,
Trace you and me both if the 10 movements is meant to be a guideline rather than a minimum. Mine is a bit of a crazy one too. I haven't worried about it to be honest, but if the midwife says there is something wrong with lots of movement let me know! Anyway I hope you are feeling a bit more positive soon and manage to get some sleep.

Re comedy DVDs it's my birthday on the 4th and I've already asked for some comedy DVDs!! Blackadder the compete 4 series and something else I think. But if anyone can recommend any others that would be great as I definitely like the idea of passing those boring sleepy hours with something funny!

Not done any christmas shopping yet! Argh! But our baby room is now looking great, got the new furniture and cot last week and spent friday night and sat morning building furniture (well mostly DH did, I just made a few drawers!) It's soooo exciting.

Hi all, we are flooded in today so DH and DS both home, I will therefore not get anything done at all!
Slightly worried as one of my friends is 4 days overdue and also flooded in. She has asked if I'll help out with a homebirth if she goesinto labour today - not too keen on that TBH, but will swim through the floods if she really needs me to I guess.
Getting excited about my consultant appointment on Thursday as this is hopefully when they will finally agree that I can have a C-section and give me a date.
Sorry for everyone feeling low at the moment. Hope you feel better soon.

Morning all,

Sympathies to all those who are waking early. Ds ended up in our bed last night so we had about an hour of him wriggling around before he went back to sleep.

trace hope you're feeling a bit better today and that your mw appt goes well. Don't worry if the baby's moving too much, mine seems to be constantly on the go & ds was the same!

veggie I hadn't realised that you shouldn't reuse cot mattresses within the same family . We'd planned on dc2 using ds's mattress, I thought that because I could take the cover off the mattress & wash it, it would be fine but I'm thinking we're probably best buying a new one now.

kayz good luck with you mil today!

pixsix good luck with the move!

I feel like hibernating with this miserable weather

Morning all,

Last night I thought I was going into labour as I had lots of regular and slightly painful BHs. I started a thread about it, thinking everyone would say "don't be silly", but instead got loads of people saying "I felt the same at 35 weeks and 2 hours later held my baby in my arms". So as a result DH and I trundled off to the hospital. Anyway turns out I have a UTI and was dehydrated. The contractions showed quite strongly on the monitor but my cervix was still closed. The head is fully engaged though. Now I am on antibiotics so things should get back to normal but my bump aches so much this morning. Standing up triggers loads of BHs and mades me feel quite faint .

Trace - so sorry to hear you are on such an emotional rollercoaster at the moment. I think by this stage we all begin to suffer from the hormones, the discomfort, the lack of sleep and the dawning realisation of how our lives are about to change. Don't worry about lots of movement - its a good sign. Sometimes this baby kicks ten times in ten seconds and does so all day long!

LadyT - sorry about your test, your hands and your horrible day on Friday. Re the grobag I am sure it will be fine but I would also consider swaddling at the beginning. It calmed DD so much as her arms were not flailing about. I could never work out how to get a good swaddle out of a normal blanket so bought these velcro swaddling wraps which were magic.

JJ - thanks for the reminder about matresses. I had no idea and had set up the nursery using an old one .

Effie - Good luck giving your talk. I am impressed you can still speak in public at this stage. I have chickened out of a few presentations this week.

Pixsix - Good luck with the move! Thanks for your support on my other thread last night.

Kimberley - My SiL is American and she always does a huge Thanksgiving dinner for loads of us. She just asks her local butcher to obtain a Turkey and it is always lovely. Whole Foods in Kensington have loads but that might be too far for you.

Verso - we got wall stickers for the baby's room too. I got these trees and they look fab. Good luck with the outlaws.

Kayz - I hope the carpet fitting goes well and your MiL manages to be of help. maybe if she took DS out for the afternoon you could have a nice nap?

Hatty - Sorry about the pox.

Anyway I better go. I need to find a way to support my bump so the aching and tightening will stop .

xx

haven't quite got through all theposts yet and have to go to kwik fit as we got a screw in one of our tyres lastnight so off to get that sorted.

But just wanted to bookmark myself in and also say to Traceface- i am exactly the same. We had one of our Neuro consultants once discuss a case with us at work of a child that he felt may have been having seizures inutero (let me just say there has never actually ever ever been a documented case of this ever happening) anyway all us nurses when we all got pregnant were all certain we were having babies that were having seizures. I was actually thinking it the other day with this one, DH reminded me i thought the same thing with DS and he came out perfectly normal but very very active. I think like me and many of us you just have a potential olympic medalist in there. I would estimate that veggiebaby moves on average 100 times a day and some very erratic movements. I think some are a little like a startle reflex or even a shiver all things that are quite possible inutero. oh and don't forget hiccups cause strange movements and a lot of them.

I hope this is helpful, i wish i could give you a hug. Have a good cry go see the midwife and have a chat to her about your mood. Really what you went through the other day was quite hard to deal with. You might want to talk to her about only having midwives to your internal exams during the birth if possible, some Docs can be bit impersonal and cause ladies to slow down the labour a bit when they examine them because they are so rough.

Hello all.
Well I've been to the midwife - BP is ok and she's happy with everything which is a relief. I asked about the amount of movements and she said it's fine to have a very wriggly baby - I still burst into tears on her though!
Thank you so much for all your lovely comments - still feel like a tap and wonder if my tears will ever stop, so maybe you should start saying mean and nasty tings to me instead of being so supportive!
I've been on anti-depressants all pregnancy and felt fine and am due to reduce the dose then stop next week - bad timing or what?!!
arti - hope your aches and pains settle down - that sounds really scary.

Hello everyone.

Hope all going well. Last day at work was lovely and am finding it quite odd being at home. Off to Tescos now. I think I'm going to get bored! But loved not having to get up this morning.

Everyone has been so busy this weekend on here! I'm feelinga bit overwhelmed by it all! Just wanted to stick my head in and say hi and hope all going well.

xxxx

arti: that sounds very scary, hope you recover soon. Good news about the baby's position though.

trace: glad the mw was able to reassure you

Pixsix: good luck for the move!

Right am off to finish this blasted talk - not sure I am able to give a good presentation at the momoment but I have some nice pictures and have requiested a chair

Gosh Arti what a trauma for you. Thank goodness all OK, but just shows what these utis can do to the old body. Take it easy.

LadyT sorry about your fingers being so sore. Did you ever ask your GP about a splint for carpal tunnel/ Am so jealous you are so close to babytime!
Like LYV, I do gro-bags from about 12 weeks and swaddle prior to that. It really helps babies sleep imo, as it calms the Moro (startle reflex) and there is nothing more gorgeous than a swaddled infant...John Lewis to great swaddle blankets with velcro etc.

Kimberley - mmmm the thought of a Thanksgiving dinner makes me HUNGRY!! Do you also do all that weird jello with marshmallows and sweet potato stuff? I'd say you'd get a turkey in the butchers on St Johns High Street next time you are over there at John and Lizzies as there are loads of yanks in St J W (but you'd want to be driving home). Otherwise, I get my turkeys from these guys (as recommened by Delia, Jamie et al). Pricey but in my view worth it - massive difference to your regular turkey and, you know, you're worth it On the site, they have a thanksgiving ordering service. All brought to your door. Kellys Bronze Turkeys

Trace sorry you are feeling grot. As for your Q about epilepsy - I asked the exact same Q of my M/W a few weeks ago - so don't feel daft . For me its not even the frequency of the movement but the kind of vibrating crazy nature of them. But she reassured me it was OK and that they can't have epilepsy in utero.

*Kayz+ congrats on the lovely new front room and an end to Magnolia everywhere.

KMP impressed that you braved Westfield! Sorry you didn't get into the Ugg nightclub!

Twiga good to hear from you and that you got your date and some decent OB conversation! Would love to have my baby then too!

Oli congrats on getting that nursery done. If only I were that organised!

This msg has taken about 40 mins to type due to work phone calls (so ANNOYING) so I know I will have cross posted like yesterday. So sorry to anyone I have missed.

I got my hypnobirthing CD and book last night and started reading/listening. I have left it very late (33 weeks) but the lady assured me I still have time! DH put it onto the ipod with the titles "Hypnobirth is for Nutters" and "Only Listen to this if you are Mad" - he is actually supportive of it but has some scepitism. Made me laugh. I have a one day course at the end of November and will get to watch some hypnobirth DVDs etc. I know some others are into Hypno and Natal (Veggie from memory) so interested to see will this third birth be calm and relaxed?!?

Hi all - what a lovely grey drizzly day to start another week Hope nobody's being affected by the gales and katie that you stop being flooded soon

beans - enjoy your mat leave! So nice not to have anything to do

trace - so glad you've had a good result with the MW. Tears of relief much better than tears of nervousness [hug] This one's really wriggly as well - it must be the olympic year inspiring all our babies to get started early! Hope it goes ok with the ADs, is your doc keeping a good eye on you?

arti hope you're on the mend, the BHs can really take you by surprise. Weirdly mine tend to come on when I'm walking about.#

verso/arti - more wall stickers here! The baby room has pale blue walls (it was the first room we painted when we moved in and frankly it's going to stay blue!!) so have gone for these under-sea ones which I thought were v cute www.weegallery.com/wallgraphics.html

SL hurrah for building furniture, top nesting activity there

twiga hello there, sounds like you've got a really great plan for a lovely CS. It's so important for people to remember that a CS is still a birth, and if you can have skin-to-skin and see the baby coming out etc it's much less like a medical procedure that's "done" to you.

*pix" hope the move is going well even as we speak!

My bit of news for the day - completely non baby related but still v important to me. I've finally paid off my student loan, at the age of only 32! I was on the old style loans where they divided your total into 60 equal payments, and you only had to pay when you were at the national average wage, so having done post-grad study I deferred lots of times and only started paying off in the last few years. It struck me that having a rather pathetic £27 or so going out a month for the next couple of years was just going to annoy me, so just sent them a cheque for the rest (only a few hundred pounds) and phoned today, they confirmed it's gone through and I'm no longer in thrall to the b!stards at the SLC.

Hey Jump - congrats on being student loan free. You know - you are in good company. Barack Obama only finally paid his off a couple of years ago from the sales of his books!