Morning all, struggling to keep up at the moment, good to 'see you' NJ. Glad to hear DS3 (!) is plumping up nicely! We've got pictures of my big sis when she was 'new' and she looks like a chicken, really scrawny!
Tink, hope you're gearing up for birth this weekend !
about Blooming Marvellous, and what a shame too - there are few enough shops around for pregnancy clothes, or at least there were in the midlands when I was pregnant, it was a bliming nightmare! I just wonder when its all going to end. There are still more redundancies going on at work which is really sad. The latest two casualties have been there for 42 and 43 years!
LB, good to hear from you, sure everything will be fine with DD, she sounds like a real sweetie from everything you've said about her. Thrush sounds really uncomfortable, hope that cream is good.
Kay, there's no need to feel guilty, get cross instead and use your experience to help other women get better advice by complaining about that stupid MW who made you feed formula. MW are in a position of authority under normal circumstances, even more so when you've just had a baby and the whole world turns upside down and when recognising bad advice becomes impossible.
I'm not anti FF by any stretch of the imagination, what I'm anti is the giving out of wrong information to mum's who want to BF.
My MW encouraged me to hand express from 37 weeks so I knew how to manually express. Then, when we couldn't get a latch (I have enormous boobs and flat nipples) DS was given some expressed BM from a little cup that he lapped like a cat, thereby ensuring he was getting enough milk, encouraging my milk to come in and completely avoiding nipple confusion issues. Why Kays MW couldn't have done the same is beyond me.
I have to say one of the benefits of doing this is that when I expressed it was into this tiny little cup (like the ones you sometimes get with medicines, the 10ml ones?) and when I had about 1mm in the bottom, the MW said that was enough I was really shocked! She said its like drinking gold top with extra cream so fills them up really quickly and I think its a shame that mums aren't taught this during AN classes or something because there seems to be this myth out there on some of the feeding boards that mum's don't produce 'enough', and I can't help thinking its because we think babies drink as much BM as they do Formula, and they just don't! Not in the first few days at least!
The best bit of info I was given in the first few hours after DS was born and I was trying to get him to latch (we didn't get into the swing of it easily until about day four) one of the HCA's said that whilst there is an instinct in the baby to try to feed, it doesn't actually know how to, and while there may be an instinct in the mum to BF, she doesn't know how to either, so both mum and baby have to learn.
(NJ - bet you were just waiting for me to rant weren't you - you've known me too long!)
Don't really know what's going on for me, had the most chaotic weekend, starting at 2.30 on Friday when DS nursery called to say that he had spots and could I get him checked. Managed to get an appt at the docs at 4, doc confirmed a viral infection, probably contagious, but no real harm, no temperature, no treatment so fortunately he's been able to go back to nursery (probably got it there). Then I phoned DH to tell him DS is fine and we can still go to visit my poorly nan (say last goodbye's) and he said he'd just had a call from the dogsitter (he'd dropped her off in the morning) to say they couldn't have her after all. So I had to go and get her and try to work out what to do - then one of my mates called to say she'd left a bag in my car so I went to drop it off (this is all in space of about five minutes as pulling out of doc's car park!). She then offered to have the dog phew!
So, finally got home about 5.30 and was able to pack for the weekend, but had to drop the dog's bed in to my friend before leaving to travel home, finally arrived at my mum's at about 11.15pm.
Spent a stressful weekend with my nan and grandad, just holding hands and talking quietly, taking DS in a couple of times so that she could see him, but she's not coherent any more and I'm not sure if she really knows what's going on . The worst thing is seeing her reach out for my grandad and them just sitting, her leaning forward in her chair, resting her head against my grandad's, so, so heartbreakingly sad. They met when she was 17 and they've been married 59 years.
I've got a hospital appt at lunchtime today (dental) so have come back, but am thinking I'll go home again later in the week, even if its just working from home, leaving DH and DS here, so that I can provide back up in the evenings and be here for the weekend. She's not going to be around for much longer.
OMG, this is just the most ridiculously huge post in the history of the wagon, I'm so sorry.... I'm not finished yet though...
We got home on Sunday night, picked up the dog, crash out at home, wake Monday morning to find the dog has had a diarrhoea explosion all over her bed, the landing and herself. Cue 1.5hrs of me and DH trying to clean it all up.
Did I mention that someone trashed my car in car park over the weekend? All the paint has been taken off the bonnet.
FFS. Not sure there'll be too much ttc this month, my due date is looming ever close and there's not much hope of a BFP, which just adds to all my stress and sadness.
I'd really hoped that 2009 would be a better year, but so far, its just not shaping up that way. Its only January.