Due Dec 08 - Christmas inductions ... The Holly and The I.V.

[kayzisexpecting]

Here I have done it!!!!!

Just need more babies now!!!!!

Icevube I second what Effie says - you could be a while away. It's all good though - your body warming up to do what it needs to. Keep to your plans.

Belated Happy Thanksgiving Kimberley! Enjoy!

Arti I lot of people DO get irritable before labour commences I have heard....but it's hard to seperarate from general late pregnancy irritability (of which I have loads and my poor DC end up getting the brunt, poor things).

Any joy with names? I posted Fay as I think my top fave on your names thread.

major glad it's just not me that got the wrong end of the stick on the "cleanshaven" comment...

I am v excited for Beans and worrying a bit about lal - wonder has she had her babe?

I've just had my first cup of raspberry leaf tea - don't know if I expected to go into labour immediately or something equally earth shattering as I was really scared about it - but nothing, it was just like drinking any other herbal tea. I'd wound myself up about that, so I'm a bit disappointed, in a relieved way!

Has anyone not had any Braxton Hicks yet? I don't think I have, should I have yet? What if my womb forgets to practise and doesn't know how to contract? (ok, so maybe the tea has made me a little irrational, on that last point ...)

zj: I think BHs are more common in subsequent pgs, I've had far more this time. Also, they can be v mild and painless, just a feeling of tightness over your bump rather than contractions.

oh and when are you supposed to start the raspberry leaf tea? I quite liked the taste...

Hello everyone, MIL is here so just a quick post while she is playing with my iphone (which judging by the 2 hrs she spent on it last night might be a while)

Another person here who got read the "cleanshaven" comment the wrong way!! Tee hee!

I had 7 hours totally interrupted sleep last night, not even one wee break!! Amazing!

ZJ I think you have to drink 5 cups of the raspberry leaf tea a day for it to do anything much! And I haven't had any braxton hicks yet either (am 37.5 weeks)

IceCube I would go to the pub as well - unless it's a long way away and you don't feel up to it.

MIL has returned my phone now so i had better go!

ZJ my bump measured 36 at 36 weeks then 36 at 38 weeks, the MW was not concerned as she said it was due to the bump dropping as head started to engage.

LOL I thought MIL was referring to you too wg, was absolutely when I thought your MIL asked that !!

Beans sounds like a show - how exciting

Bisou love the pic - what a fab and perfect bump !

I agree Olipop and others, let's just stick around here until we all have our babies then we can hop over to a postnatal thread.

IceCube I agree that it sounds like BH, but if the cramps get worse maybe worth checking with MW.

Kimberley YUM ! I am sooo hungry now.

ZJ I was the same with my first cup of RLT - waiting for something exciting to happen ! Have been on it for 3 weeks (since 36 weeks) and not a single BH or twinge so far....

good evening lovely ladies, what a foggy day Derby has had a spooky fog hanging over it since yesterday.

WG your MIL sounds like my mum, whenever she rings she always tells me some story of gloom that has befallen someone in her town.

how Glam does Lady T look, did she gets a makeup lady in? She looks totally gor-juss.

feeling really really really large today, and reminiscing fondly about the days when i just felt really large.

The Pizza (and curly kale) was all i wanted it to be last night and we watch the latest Indiana Jones movie which was good, but how old is Harrison now. It also reminded us that Harrison is one of the names we like for this DS but still not completely 100% happy with any of our list names. We watched all the credits to see if there were any names on it we liked but nothing.

Is v spooky that everyone on here had pizza last night. So did we! I couldn't have cooked, even if I'd wanted to, with the power cut.

Am going to email a pic around for those who'd like to see .

V v v happy to be out of hospital, and generally feeling very positive, which is a huge contrast to last time. Trust the community midwife to burst my bubble today though . While I was in hospital I asked them to check DD2 out as I thought she was getting a wee bit jaundiced. So the paediatrician and midwife came to see me at 1am to look at her colour. It was something of a feat to have got to sleep on the postnatal ward as there were three very distressed babies who SCREAMED the whole time, not to mention the nurse's station right outside the door where they had the radio on all night . Anyway, DD2 and I had just got off to sleep when they came and woke us up to look at her.

In the (yellow) electric light.

"I can't see anything in this light" says the paed. Er. Hello? Really?

Anyway - long story short - blood test showed DD2's bilirubin levels were FINE.

Midwife today: "ooh she's a bit jaundiced". "Ooh she's lost a lot of weight". I pointed out that it's normal for a newborn to lose up to 10% of it's bodyweight in the first week and she backtracked and said yes it was... (my card is now marked for being stroppy probably!) and she has lost significantly less than that.

BUT - because of the jaundice (even though her levels were fine) and because of the weight loss (which we established was within normal parameters) she is coming back tomorrow to "check up" on us. Grrr. It MAKES ME SO MAD!

What difference does she expect in 24 hours? She's a breastfed baby so will probably have lost another ounce or so before she starts gaining.

Anyway - upshot is we may end up back in the hospital and there's nothing I can do about it. Obviously if DD2 really does need the phototherapy then I'll be happy to do it - but I really felt the m/w was unnecessarily trying to pick fault with things today. I'd been feeling SO happy and she made me feel really rubbish .

DH has promised to stay in tomorrow (they refuse to give you an appointment time but I'm not going anywhere!) so he can read her the riot act if she gets arsey. My DH rocks! .

(Sorry for the screed!)

Hello ladies!

Glad to be back - I've read about ladyt & verso congrats to both. Has anyone else had their babies yet?? There are just too many posts for me to read too tired Hope everyone is well, and looking forward to their babies arriving. Baby Harry is just BEAUTIFUL. I couldn't be happier and DD is so in love with him its too cute to see them together.

Well, as you all know my waters went while I was on mumsnet - brilliant! It was hilarious - I rang the hospital they said to come in DH was getting my bag telling me to log off and I said 'I'll just do one last post'

The section went well although I was in agony afterwards for about 24 hours until I finally said to a MW that something was wrong as I was in nowhere near the same amount of pain when I had CS with DD. Turns out I hadn't had all my painkillers written up - I was practically on paracetemol on its own I was . Thankfully they sorted it asap, but I transferred to MW led unit after 24 hrs (much to their horror) for some proper post natal care. It was brilliant - so good I only came home this morning!!!!

Well off to read DD a story....catch up soon

So lovely to see all our ladies who've popped on here and to hear about the stories.

Verso you have my sympthies with the trying to sleep on the ward, I remember the nurses having the radio on all the time as well - it drove me mad, and according to my community m/w they're really not supposed to have it on at all..hope DD is not jaundiced, or if so the therapy sorts it out quickly.

Can someone tell me again the e-mail to add myself to the e-mail group? My e-mail is [email protected]....

evening all!
It's sooooooo nice hearing from everyone who's got their precious bundles already...thank you for keeping in touch even though it must be the last thing on your to-do list!
Well I slept quite well - no pain apart from massive headache (typical!) and had a lie in this morning while dh entertained dd.
Made the silly decision to go into York today to see the St. Nicholas Market - along with the rest of Yorkshire, Humberside, Tyneside and Scotland it would appear! It was still nice coz we didn't have an agenda so we could just wander aimlessly, but it was very very very cold!!!! Can't wait till I have a coat again!
Have a very achy back now - probably from walking round in the freezing cold for hours...trying the warm wheat bag technique!
Have got a new mobile phone today so am planning to spend the evening being very sad and entering all my contacts etc...thing is I know I'll love doing it!
Hope you all have a relaxing evening!

thanks for the photo Verso, unfort. i can't see it very well on my laptop as it's coming up quite small but will have a look on one of DH's laptops later.

Annoying about the MW & paeds and just general lack of sleep due to staff, i have spent a lot of nights on hospital wards but luckily never as patient but always think it must be a horrible place to try to sleep. Glad i didnt have to do it with DS and hoping i won't have to with veggiebaby.

Daisy can't believe they missed something so essential as pain relief, the aneasthetist is responsible for that and considering how much they have to do (not much) for how much they get paid (a lot) you'd think they could remember something like pain relief. But still the nurses are a bit thick for not noticing that you didn't have any written up on the handover. I think LadyT had some problem with pain relief, CS is pretty major surgery and i can only imagine how painful it must be afterwards.

Trace- i hope you have warmed up now, you need Pizza.

Testing, testing

Verso, I am really sorry you have not got your secret stork present. I posted it at the beginning of the week, so that it would be waiting for you once you returned from hospital. Bloody Royal Mail.

As it hasn't arrived, I'll replace it in the next few days and resend. Could you please post quickly on the board to let me know that it has arrived safely? Hope you like it .

Apologies again.

Hatty: have emailed you the photos and the list, hope they get there OK

I can see us end of December gals are going to have to up our game on the photos front! Any ideas on a Christmas theme?

Evening everyone.

Daisy It was quite exciting when you posted about your waters breaking. I would like to be able to do a post like that.

Verso I honestly think that the MW's and HV's that do the home visits are put on this planet to annoy us. DS put on 1oz in his firt 3 days and the MW called out a GP to check him as it was unusual.

I have done far too much walking today and I feel terrible now. My bump aches, my pelvis aches and I am shattered. I am really tempted to go to bed now, but I'll probably wake up really early if I do.

Hope everyone is ok.

Hi All, another birth announcement here!!

Baby boy born last night, no name yet.

It was a home birth and completely wonderful (well, bloody painful and knackering but apart from that you know what I mean). We are all tired but very happy...

I'd had lots of twinges Thursday night and Friday morning and told DH to stay at home on Friday (he didn't want to - thought I was making a fuss!) Proper contractions probably started after lunch and I got the TENS machine on about 2ish and phoned the midwives to warn them things were moving.

At about 4ish I decided I'd quite like to see a MW and they came out and told me I was about 7 - 8cm which was quite exciting. At about 6pm I decided the TENS machine wasn't hacking it any more and went for the G&A, waters broke shortly after that and DS2 was born just after 7 after what felt like a bloody long pushing stage!

The midwives were amazing and it was soooo lovely being at home and tucked up in bed with DH and DS eating chocolate biscuits. Now all I have to do is think of a name...

Hooray TYV it's one down for us Homebirthers yay thats fantastic well done you. Sounds about like the birth i would like,so i think i will order one of those too.

mmmmm.....Gas & Air.

TYV hooray hooray hooray! how wonderful that sounds - well done! so jealous of a home birth. am booked into hospital and pretty much fine about that (esp as it is my first) but now getting a bit worried about postnatal care like Verso's. poor you, verso.

beans - that is SO exciting! as someone said, it still could be some time, but great to know that things are going in the right way. keep us posted!

and all of you who thought my MIL was talking to me about being clean shaven: !!! that made me laugh lots. trust me, she considers herself is far too refined to make any allusion to pubic shaving. hence the pointed question to her son about the state of his hirsuteness at the birth. dh only shaves about once or twice a week (he's a writer, so is inherently scruffy) and she said it in SUCH an insulting and patronising tone of voice...

have had an odd day - sproglet moving around much less - to the point where i got a bit worried. but i have felt it a bit, but also had a very strange sensation today of deep deep and sharp pain in my right pelvis which then suddenly made me feel like throwing up and the pain radiated down my right thigh. it only lasted about 30 seconds, but i suddenly got a bit scared. like ZJ i haven't had any braxton hicks yet (not noticeably anyway). any clues anyone?

also think i am now coming down with a cold - great timing - 37 weeks tomorrow.

btw is 37 weeks too late either to start perineal massage and also for the group strep b? i'm not seeing mw until i'm 38+1 - can someone point me in the direction of the private clinic who will do the test for money? thx

oh someone mentioned something about lotus birth. I don't understand do they keep the placenta attached to the baby?

I am considering not cutting the cord until after the placenta has been delivered (delivered it quite quickly last time) but i don't think i would leave it on, would it get a bit smelly?

Haven't been on the AN threads for ages, but can't deny it any longer - I've only got 3 weeks to EDD [shock}. Think I may actually be having a baby...

So lovely to see that babies are arriving already. Congrats on the hb YoungVisiter, that bit afterwards when you're all snuggled up in your own bed is fab isn't it? MW did home visit on Weds to talk about hb, so fingers crossed all will go smoothly.

Verso - DS was jaundiced, losing weight etc and we had to go to hosp for phototherapy when he was around 6 days old. But looking at the photos he was pretty tangoed, and v sleepy, didn't even peep when MW stabbed him in the heel. All you can do is keep offering the boob... Hope MW appt goes well.

WG thats sounds quite painful. I sometimes get pains in either side or both which i think is veggiebaby suddenly moving or further engaging. I once has a sharp movement from him that made me jump and also suddenly need to do a poo, so assume he was pushing quite hard on my bowel. However i have never had the radiating pain down the leg, could be hitting a nerve. But you could always give your on call MW a buzz or the unit at your hospital. Do you have nay numbers for them.

thank you for congrats everyone, I feel really pleased and privileged to have had a home birth as it wasn't a foregone conclusion at all - I had BP problems in my first pg and had tried not to count too much on a home birth for this one in case my numbers went up again and they advised against it. In the end they stayed just this side of ok though.

It was such a contrast to my first birth (induced, hospital, ventouse) and really everything I would have ordered for myself except for a bit of a worry with the baby's heart rate dropping at the end during contractions - midwives were very calm about it though and it definitely spurred me on to push harder!!

WG I had some pretty sharp pelvis pains this time round as the baby engaged and then turned round in the pelvis - maybe it's that? Did your midwife say how far the baby is engaged and which way its facing?

veggie I read that lotus article!! one lot of parents wrapped the placenta in a terry nappy and salted it every day to help prevent it rotting

Anyway feeling knackered here so off to bed now and hopefully will get some sleep between DS1 and 2 (how exciting - first time I have typed that!)

apparently babies heartbeat drop during contractions near the end because the contraction temporarily cuts off the blood supply between the placenta & baby, but it is apparently quite normal and babies can handle a the temporary drop or cut off (they are designed that way). If it reduces and stays down then they get concerned. However apparently in hospital they get a bit twitchy about it.

Again well done so excited it went well.

I think i will just cut the placenta off when it comes out (or get DH to) i thought we were being a bit out there and hippy waiting for the placenta to come out.