Dec Mums - Christmas is coming...the Dec ladies have got all fat...time to have our babies...the novelty's worn flat

[Beans33]

Here's a new link for us all - think it needed doing asap as running out of space!!

Thanks for the support. Am feeling a bit weary I have to say. All this conflicting 'advice'. I thought I would be immune this time round!!!

Forgot to say - thank you very much to my Secret Stork for the very posh Space NK lotion which arrived yesterday!!! Lovely to think about something for me, rather than related to BF, for a while!

Hi all .. we did it we finally have a car big enough, so i can now give birth without the wory of transport!! Kids all love the car, very excited by sliding doors and loads of space, so we are all very happy. Although 38 weeks pregnant is not he ideal time to start driving a new, much heavier car but i know ill get used to it quickly afterwards.

Good luck PD you sound very upbeat and hope things progress smoothly for you.

verso so sorry you are having such a hard time of it but you are doing soooo well. Honestly you appear to be a very strong person and i hope i do as well as you are doing xx i had to give up breastfeeding ds2 from about 5 weeks because he was very demanding and my then 14 month old ds1 kept climbing ontop of me everytime i tried. It was all just a bit stressful and i felt i had to make that decision. I dont regret it, i just hope i can manage longer this time.

Re pelvic floor, well fourth time round mine is pretty much shot but it has recovered in between each time so fingers crossed it will again.

Love to everyone xx

Verso - if pain not thrush, then what do they think it is? If it is a duct, then I would think the best advice would be to feed(rather than express) as DD2 will be better at getting milk out than any pimp.

Sorry, I don't get this "pump rather than feed" advice without a good reason. IIRC, if it were thrush, you should have been given flucloxanale, DD2 should have oral nystatin and you should both have been told to carry on. If pumping then feeding the milk, isn't that just making more work for yourself at a hard time anyway? Won't relieve the soreness either.

I agree re conflicting advice. One person whose advice I would go with though is Tiktok - could you face starting a thread to ask her for help?

Be back later. XXXX

Verso - if pain not thrush, then what do they think it is? If it is a duct, then I would think the best advice would be to feed(rather than express) as DD2 will be better at getting milk out than any pimp.

Sorry, I don't get this "pump rather than feed" advice without a good reason. IIRC, if it were thrush, you should have been given flucloxanale, DD2 should have oral nystatin and you should both have been told to carry on. If pumping then feeding the milk, isn't that just making more work for yourself at a hard time anyway? Won't relieve the soreness either.

I agree re conflicting advice. One person whose advice I would go with though is Tiktok - could you face starting a thread to ask her for help?

Be back later. XXXX

Verso Sorry to hear you are having such a rough time with the BFing. Hoping that it will get better soon and that your little one will retain the weight and the jaundice will go away!

turnip It was great eating lunch with you yesterday! We should do it again some time! Sorry to hear about your mom, I know this must be a rough time for you. Lots of hugs to you!

Congrats Katie Lily is beautiful!

Made lip gloss with some teenage girls this afternoon at the art centre! Had lots of fun trying out the different flavors.

Hope everyone is having a good day!!

Hello everyone,

katie congratulations on the birth of Lily. Fancy your DH trying to steal your thunder .

olipop Poor you, that sounds really painful. Hope it calms down.

turnip Hope you managed OK today with your Mum's anniversary. It must make it all the more difficult this year. I hope your DH is looking after you.

chutney Glad to hear you fought your corner and got home.

veggie Hope your cat is OK and it doesn't cost you too many pennies.

I went into the big smoke today to have my hair cut and get a few presents and I'm now exhausted. We've got friends coming over in a bit and to be honest I'd rather eat my own weight in chocolate and go to bed instead. I'm a sociable soul tonight!

Verso hope you get things sorted. Won't you get even more full/sore with just expressing??? Not sure

katie congrats on your daughter. What a whopper! cannot believe your DH fainted.

My baby-which has been engaged for about 3 weeks-has now decided to disengage. Ho hum.

kayz my dh had verigo last year-was horrible so sympathise with your balance probs

PD these positions are recommended for people with babies in the OP position (sorry can't find piccies)(which I think was your reason for asking?)

There is a good chance that baby will turn during labour (more likely given its your second)

For the second stage:

Use kneeling or all-fours positions. Kneeling on one knee can help.
Supported squatting in second stage, but the mother must be lifted quite high up; her bottom should be at least 45cm (18 inches) off the floor.
Birth stool seats should be at least 45cm (18 inches) from the floor.
Avoid lying on your back, semi-reclining, sitting or semi-sitting. These positions all reduce the available space for the baby to turn. Lying on the side is OK.

Very best of luck!!

Congratulations katie - really lovely name.

hatty am loving the fact that frilly curtains are midway between natural and medicalised birth....even for my medical birth lights were nice and low - think it's possible in every room if you insist. they can bring in sinister looking searchlight type thing if they insist on seeing business end in glorious technicolour. I think it was you (and really sorry if it wasn't - have mush for brains at the moment) asking about northallerton. My sister had 2 of her 3 there and thought they were great.

V excited to hear news from pd. thinking of you. Impressed with sang froid to be mnetting while contracting. Maybe there should be prize for that too.

Verso hope you're feeling a bit better. Am struggling with bf this time too (i did with DS). Had forgotten how much it can hurt. Do those silver things help? Today i've got swollen lumps in my armpits (TMI) which according to the MW is also milk. WTF? Milky pits. A further indignity. Sorry for wobbly typing. DD (woo hoo - still can't believe I now have a daughter) is asleep on my chest and DS is wriggling about next to me. He should be in bed by now but slackness still reigning in our house. Brilliant.

Oooh just had a quick skim to catch-up and I see PD is in labour as we type. How exciting! Good luck *PD&, I hope things speed up soon .

Am also in awe of Katie's baby's weight. How much did DC1 weigh Katie? Was this a total shock?

(((Hugs))) to Verso. So sorry things are still not going smoothly.

Hi to LadyT. Glad you are finding your Mum so supportive at the moment. Have fun on Sunday!

I have felt a little better today. DH did his back-in yesterday and was screaming in pain on the floor. I was still flu-ish as was DD and I started to get so desperate about our bad luck. Anyway, I do not want to tempt fate but hopefully we are all a little stronger today. I acutally had a lovely day playing with DD and having lots of cuddles . She is funny though, I spent half the day battling her away from CBeebies while she protested, then at bedtime I relented and relaxed while she watched In The Night Garden and she suddenly announced "For Heaven's Sake, I have watched TV all week, I need to do some art now" .

well the cat is ok. the vet thinks he has some soft tissue damage in one of his toes. she thinks he might have done it when he was running away from whatever attacked him (we think it was a dog). She could rule out an infection though so has given him an injection for pain and another one with AB's and has given us some of both to go on with orally. He is now happily asleep on our bed after a good dinner, bless him. It was £62 but happy we paid the money. Will be keeping him in in the night time now.

DH picked up the christmas tree and we will decorate it tomorrow, i had to sort out the front room a bit, put the birth stool away somewhere dicreet, fold up the birthpool and we now have 4 bottles of G&A and a bottle of O2 ready for the birth so they had to be shoved under the couch.

Verso hope your nips settle soon, well done with the 2 oz thats all that great milk your giving her, i know they have to check the weight ut it's not just the weight you are giving her it's all that other great stuff that only you can provide.

Lal- i've heard of those milk duct things in your pits apparently they can come even before baby is born. Oh and well done for BFing and to Katie, I am still LOL about your DH i hope he didnt have too much of a sore head.

Arti that is so funny, cheeky little monkey, did you 'do some art'.

i have an image of your DH screaming and writhing on the floor and you watching cbeebies with DD and ignoring him.

Veggie I'm glad the cat is ok. Lots of pampering for a few days and he'll be fine.

I really want to get the house decorated, but we need to find a tree. We normally have a real one but we thought this year with a newborn we'd better have a fake one. But we haven't found one that we think looks nice enough.

It could be quite cool giving birth under a Xmas tree.

Anyone who knows a bit about breast feeding I have a small question.
Is it normal for one breast to leak more than the other? My right one seems to leak loads and the left not really at all.

Congrats Katie lovely names - thank goodness for CS, that would've been a nippy VB ! your story is far from standard - I can't believe your DH fainted !

Sorry for those having trouble with BF - I have had to throw in the towel as nipples not a good shape (too flat) and Evan wasn't into sucking atall, when he did finally latch on he'd suck once and and either fall asleep or scream. It was all very stressful and made me really upset at my 'failure' and his distress. Eventually decided last night to go with FF and top up with expressed milk - any tips on expressing ? I have been hand expressing in hospital but need a more effective way to get a bottle or 2 of BM per day - I have a manual pump (Avent) should I wait until milk comes in ? and will it definitely come in given that I have only expressed about 30ml in total from each side and have no idea if Evan managed to get anything the few times he did latch. I now appreciate what people mean when they say BF is really difficult, am gutted I can't feed my wee man .

Here is the birth story: the contractions I had on the Tue morning stopped not long after I got up - must have been false labour - arrghhh ! Then went to hospital and got jump started with the gel - nothing after 6 hours (these are the reasons people suggest packing a pack of cards in labour bag - very boring). At 5pm they were going to break waters and put me on the syntocin drip but at last minute decided to try another dose of gel - after 2-3 hours it finally started which was a relief as really didn't want synotcin. Contractions quickly went from 5 mins apart to 1-1.5 mins apart and were really painful - used my TENS machine which was a good distraction from pain although didn't really reduce pain. Then at 11pm they examined me and to my horror I was only 1-2cm !!! I honestly thought I was well on the way . Anyway, they did a trace and noticed that baby not happy when I was contracting - Heartbeat was dipping a lot. MW pressed panic button and suddenly consultants arrived (I was pretty unaware of level of panic as just trying to breath through contractions), poor DP was terrifed as he could see how low HB was - they said if it dipped below 100 for too long it was bad and Evan's went down to 60 . Anyway, consultant wanted to break waters and couldn't find them so she asked for an immediate scan to done which showed that there were no waters ! The dribble of a leak I had was all there was !! No idea what had happened there but I defo didn'tleak any more so presumably there wasn't a lot there in the first place. So at this point they decided they had to get him out quickly, so was prep'd for theatre and before I knew it I'd had a spinal block and they whipped out a wee screaming boy ! Turns out he had the cord around his neck so another reason for low HB. It seemed like an age before I saw him but DP could see him and assured me he was fine - then he was laid on my chest and just lay there staring and DP and I - he is absolutely gorgeous , perfect in every way. He is the most angelic wee thing, he barely squeaks and is sooooo cute ! Ha ha check out the proud mummy ! Got home this afternoon and have been watching DP feed and change him - so lovely for them to have a proper chance to bond now that we are home - am so happy [blub emoticon]

Oh mibbes you sound so in love with him, glad they got him out safely, sounds like they were right on the ball.

with regards to the 30ml, thats pretty much your milk come in. Newborn babies have stomachs the size of a small marble. They obviously grow but even after a few weeks or so they are only the size of a ping pong ball. so 30ml is about right to express at this stage.

congratulations mibbes glad all went well in the end,although it sounds like it was all a bt scary for a while. Please dont feel like a failure for changing to formula, you are doing really well, especially after an emc/section, and topping up with expressed milk, really you couldnt do much more xxx

glad your cat is on the road to recovery as well veggie

Katie congratulations - I feel for your DH - sounds just like me Just wondering do u remember if your epidural was done by registrar or consultant etc or sho?
Veggie very glad your cat is doing better

Evening!!
Mibbes thanks for your story, sounds like it was a bit scary but glad all sorted in the end. Katie I am sorry but I did chuckle at the classic comedy value of your DH fainting!

Fantastic to hear from all of you 'on the other side'..I'm with you at the end of the queue Effie. It feels like it could be ages!

Poison SO exciting! Hope all is going well for you.

Bit worried about tonight...DH is out on the lash and I'm concerned about getting stuck in bed again with my screwy pelvis. Last night I couldn't have got out of bed on my own at all....he's going to be out late and will be pissed when he gets back! He'll probably end up rolling me over too hard and launching me onto the floor!!!!!!
He gave me a couple of his colleagues mobile numbers incase he doesn't hear his phone and the temptation to text one of them to wind him up is almost unbearable!!! That would be too cruel though...wouldn't it!?!?!?!?!

Arti DS1 was 11lb 5oz, so Lily's size wasn't too much of a shock, although I was a little surprised that she was a girl considering her size. I also had gestational diabetes so that also gave a clue that she'd be a biggie. She looks about 2 months old already but is very chubby and cuddly.
KMP my spinal and (aborted) epidural was done by an anaesthetist with a very good reputation (according to the midwives). I don't blame him at all for it being so painful, it was just one of those things. He mentioned something about hitting an open nerve, which is just unlucky I guess.
Mibbes congratulations. It sounds as if it was all a bit traumatic but glad everything went well in the end.
All feel free to laugh at DH and his comedy fainting, I still am, although laughing is not good for the stiches!

Another ridiculous early start for me today . Does anyone know if there is anything I can take to try & ease this cough? Lemon & honey tea isn't really helping.

chutney am lol at your advice to verso: "DD2 will be better at getting milk out than any pimp" . I don't mean to upset, great advice, just a great typo as well!

mibbes your birth sounds a bit scary but glad everything ok in the end. I know its hard but don't beat yourself up about switching to formula. I had to with ds for exactly the same reasons and honestly believe that we were both much happier for it than trying to struggle on and getting more and more stressed.

veggie am glad your cat is ok

I think we might also get our xmas tree up this weekend. We don't normally do it until much later but I'd like to have it up before junior arrives.

Morning Rosmerta DS was up at 5.30 today so a bit of a lie in here .

I did swig some illegal cough mixture the other night when my tickly cough got the better of me. It did say it was suitable from 1 yr so I thought stuff it. I was desperate. I can't remember if yours is tickly or chesty.

Well DH got in at 1.30 and seemed ok!!
Only thing is that I think I was nervous about him not being there (subconsiously as I thought I was fine). I ended up waking a few times feeling period type cramps. I then woke convinced I could feel my waters going! I don't know if it was all dreaming or whether i did have some periody cramps.
I then dreamt I'd had the baby but couldn't remember any of it and went shopping! Strange huh! He is out again next Thursday and Friday nights....I think my paranoid dreams will probably ramp it up again then!!!

MIL and FIL are coming round this afternoon to take DS out...never been done before!!! They are then bringing him back here and sitting on him so that DH and I can go out for a friends 40th birthday dinner! I am going to make the most of it as it is probably my last night out! It's prebaby and all my Christmas celebrations rolled into one...good job I can't drink, with that much pressure to have fun I'd get trollied!

Oh ..forgot to say as well that a good friend of mine had a little boy yesterday afternoon! I had spoken to her on Thursday and she had this dreadful fluey virus and was hoping nothing was going to happen. I gave her all the 'your body will probably know it can't handle birth whilst you are so ill' chat .
He was 10 days early. Her DD was 5 weeks early though so that wasn't so bad!
Her DD is only 14 months old now so she is going to have her hands full. Just hope she gets over the lurgy asap!
All these babies are lovely!!! I want to play with mine!!!! (Although I'd like to go out tonight first!!!!!!)

Morning girls

Great news - Poison Dwarf has had her baby. Her text is as follows:

"beautiful baby girl born 12.23am. 6lbs 15oz. Fantastic water birth. 1st BF a dream then slept through. Still sleeping now. Wish I could - I'm knackered. Home lunchtime with any luck"

How fabulous is that? Well done PD.

Morning

Hope everyone is feeling well this morning.

Congratulations [PD]! It sounds like you had a lovely birth.

Oli Congratulations to your friend. I have to agree with you, I want to play with my baby too. I want to know what he looks like. I really want to know if he has hair. DS was born with loads and loads of hair.

Mibbes Don't feel like a failure for finding it hard to BF. The milk you do express will be doing him the world of good.

Katie Your poor DH, I did have a little chuckle though. It made me think of that video camera advert where the Dad faints while filming the birth.

I slept all night last night. I am amazed, I woke up and looked at my phone and it said 5 past 7. I was expecting it to be about 3 in the morning. Hopefully it'll mean I won't feel so bad today, but I'm not holding out much hope.