Due April 2009: Episode 18 - Mumble gets married and we have triplets and twins here!!

[PuzzleRocks]

Let the ramblings commence.

I just had to throw the contents of my freezer out after the disasters of last week. A new one is coming tomorrow though.

I might take a leaf out of Lulu's book, as her freezer strategy sounds much better than mine was.

I wish it was only ice cubes i had a fetish for atm i really wanted some chalk the other night, i wanted it so bad i pinched a stick of chalk from dd's room and noshed on that dh was and then PHL at me gnawing on this chalk.

i did feel so much better after it though luckily havent wanted it since

blardy embarrasing this pregnancy lark.

Smutty that's so funny

The ice thing is getting ridiculous, I am going in to pubs and ordering a pint of ice...

The waitress at Pizza Hut got an earful today for not putting any in my Coke...

and worst of all DH is being driven slowly mad by the sound of me crunching away all day..

Right, I've finally caught up.

Springy at your AIBU thread. I really don't think that SM was posting for any reason other than to inflame the situation and play devils advocate.

Anybody for banana loaf? I have one that is fresh out of the oven about half an hour ago.

DD is continuing to give us the run around at the moment so I'm hoping that this is just 'baby anxiety' as it's driving me nuts and it's wearing me out. As much as I love having a cuddle with her at 3am, I'd much rather not be woken up when me sleep is terrible as it is. Thankfully, she seems to be behaving when she isn't just with me and DH so I'm not worried about her giving the CM a hard time.

Another question for you all - does your DH/P regard your mat leave as a long 'holiday' and have insane jealousy about it? I really don't want to come on here and slag off my DH but some things that he is doing/saying are starting to really get to me. The only reason that I haven't come on here and ranted sooner is because he realised that I genuinely felt ill this morning because of lack of sleep and took DD to the CM so that I could go back to bed straightaway.

Mathsmummy - good job you dont have sensitive teeth

Spent ages trying to catch up!

Swalisan, yes, my DH does regard my mat leave as a holiday and is quite jealous, despite my continued, and strident assertions to the contrary. He keeps on giving me tasks to do 'seeing as you're on holiday' Hmmmmmmmmm, he has however been tolerating my insomnia induced irritability quite well. It is bloody irritating though isn't it?

Sorry for everyone who's been having a hard time with jobs/ nosey DH's / abusive MNers and pregnancy pain and a HUGE congratulations to the New arrivals, lovely names too for all five of them.

NHS people, if someone is in ITU for several days, does this mean They Nearly Died, or is this a precaution??

Huge rant alert...

Please feel free to not read any of this. It helps to have written it down even if no-one is listening!

I know that I am normally very lucky that DH begrudgingly does some housework and coped very well during the first 20 weeks of this pregnancy with me continually throwing up. I also know that most women have to do all of the housework all of the time. BUT, I find it hard to cope with his view that I have all the time in the world to do all of the housework by myself with a very demanding toddler running around.

He doesn't seem to understand that I need some time to rest because growing a baby is hard work. And, I find it really hard that he hasn't looked after DD all by himself for a whole day and really wouldn't want to cope by himself but doesn't seem to think that it is a hard thing to ask me to do. I am shattered at the moment and her behaviour is really quite hard to deal with at times. He comes out with comments that I have a morning off tomorrow (DD is with the CM) and how lucky I am. I would feel really lucky if there wasn't tonnes of housework to do and I didn't have a baby to grow and pg insomnia to deal with. He is such a procrastinator which winds me up loads as I can't sit around looking at housework and be able to relax.

He keeps going on about how he never has any time to do what he wants but most evenings he sits there for at least 3 hours watching TV, playing on the laptop etc etc. I know that he works hard and works long hours sometimes but he doesn't seem to appreciate that I end up 'working' long hours as a 'housewife'. He wanted to put 'housewife' down as my occupation on a form the other day even though I'm just on mat leave. I think that really he likes the idea of having his wife at home cooking him meals and looking after his child. But, he goes on about how I earn hardly any money and have life easy because I only work three days a week

Yesterday evening, he told me to sit down as I had been busy all day (at least he had noticed!) but there was no offer of doing the washing up/making sandwiches so that I didn't have to. I'm already constantly behind with the housework because I feel so burnt out and procrastinating over doing some simple tasks isn't going to help or let me have a rest when DD is in with the CM.

If I could just have 30 mins help to blitz the place it would transform the flat and make me feel loads better but there is no point asking for this to happen as I know that DH will just moan loads, then do it begrudgingly but be in a huff for the rest of the day. I keep trying to persuade him with sex but it doesn't seem to help

Boff, it would depend on the hospital as to what criteria you need to get a place in ITU. Where I am, it almost always means that you need ventilating or to be kept sedated for adequate pain relief. I do work for a large teaching hospital though, and I know that other hospital consider people to need ITU for lesser problems. I would be very worried about anybody in ITU though - it's not a good place to need to be IYSWIM?

Oh Swali I don't know what to say. It does sounds a bit like he is being somewhat unreconstructed, to say the least.

I think there's only two ways to go with things like this - get him to change (nigh on impossible IME) or get a doula in pre-natally to give you a break and help make the house nice.

Maybe some of the others will have more suggestions? This is why we should be living in our commune, btw!!

Swali, I was thinking about Barbarelly. How close did she come to leaving our happy band???

I would hope not close at all, Boff. I have been wondering about her and why she was in ITU for so long. I kept trying to think that at least she was in the best place. I would imagine that she was in there for pain relief as she probably needed some considerable surgery to preserve her bladder after her CS mishap. Rupturing your bladder is no small matter and I'd imagine that she needed a lot of monitoring to ensure that they had done a good job of putting her back together. I'm sure that she will let us know how well they looked after her when she has a chance.

OK then, but it was still something I didn't like to hear. When I think of ITU I think of near fatal car crashes and the like.

Sorry, back to my large rant...

What is causing me the most worry is how DH is behaving at night time. When DD was born he had just come back from Iraq and I assumed that he was suffering from a bit of PTSD as he was having big problems with night terrors when DD was up in the night.

I'm not so sure that it had anything to do with Iraq now. With DD getting up at night atm, I'm beginning to realise that it is going to be a very lonely time when DC2 is born because DH behaving similarly now to when DD was born. I'd like the odd bit of moral support, at least during the day, but I don't know if I'm going to get the support that I need during the endless months of night feeding. Last time I scored really high on my PND questionnaire because of sleep deprivation and that was without a toddler to run around after. It's not going to be any better this time, is it?

Boff, TBH, I don't know enough about major abdo surgery or obstetric emergencies to know if it was typical in Barb's case to end up on ITU. The main thing is, she is in HDU now so she is recovering and her babies are all together.

Swali - Yes re: the mat leave = huge holiday! I have to say DH is brilliant usually - does a lot of the cleaning and I do the cooking, both do washing etc. But I do think he feels that now I am at home full-time that I will be able to do much more of the houseworky stuff (I am a slattern and have no natural inclination to tidiness or cleanliness whatsoever). I have been trying to do more hoovering and keeping the kitchen clean and so on, partly cos I'm pretty bored, but I do get wound up if I feel that he has been expecting me to do any of this in my current condition. When I feel like this, I just try to point out how knackered I am, how 5 minutes of cleaning leaves me exhausted for 15 minutes etc. He usually understands. The only other thing that winds me up is that if I don't make dinner (e.g. like tonight, cos of The Huff), he doesn't offer to do it - just goes for half a loaf of toast instead. I imagine once we have PFB all forms of cleaning will go to the dogs until we have visitors.

We have bought a new small freezer especially for pre-natal-stocking-up-with-supplies-of-wholesome-food. I am quite excited at the thought of some major bulk cooking. Normal freezer generally appears to be full of frozen pizzas and chips, plus lots of mystery bags, random frozen egg whites, half-bags of frozen peas etc, so there was never going to be enough space for stockpiling!

Right, I'm going now to do a little more housework before I go to bed to toss and turn for a few hours. DH will be home soon and I don't want him to be upset about me ranting about him on here. I love him dearly and can see a lot of his point of view. I am just so damn tired all the time and it would be wonderful to feel that we were working as a couple, not having a competition about who contributes most or is the most tired

mathsmummy, I couldn't stop crunching ice with DS1, I always thought it was because it was August 1999 and SO hot and clammy....!

With DS2 it was rubber, like school black pumps rubber, I would duck into Woolworths while out and sniff the pumps! Back home I had a new cheapy rubber bath mat I just sniffed all the time. I thought I had got away with that this time until DS2 came home needing new pumps, I got him a pair, sniffed them and....mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....I nearly made him keep them at home! Just thinking about it now......mmmmmmmmmmm

Boff, I know at my place that often an ICU admission is almost a planned thing in the initial days following major surgery, for more intensive monitoring/ care/ the really good drugs - i.e. not always the car crash people. Also, might depend on the size of her hospital - until recently we didn't have a medical HDU so there was no inbetween option - it was general ward or ICU, so if there were beds available in ICU, they might be used for the more critical patients who would otherwise have stayed on a general ward.

Also CS is a comparatively routine operation these days. Why would her bladder end up being mangled in the process? Is that usual?? Do we think it might be related to the triplets thing?

Swali, if it's any comfort my DH is pretty great around the house, but if there's one thing that annoys me it's the tiredness competition thing (which I think I have now managed to sort him out on after nearly 12 years of marriage) and also his blardy self-inflicted headaches that come about largely as a result of his superfluous scurrying and also forgetting to eat. He made so much fuss about these that I made him go for a brain scan, calling his bluff!!

Swaliswan - yikes poor you, it does seem like he has a backdated view on "housewife" i.e women look after the house cook clean and look after the kids with a massive smile plastered to their face all day. Not much in the way of advice really, but i think oyu may have to endure his grump just to get the help you need, and you do need a break. Pregnacy is hard enough on its own without running after a toddler.

suprised the nookie didn't work

Swaliswan - I don't think other people always understand how uncomfortable and tiring pregnancy is in the later stages, do they? This time my bump is quite high and I can't bend properly. I also usually enjoy walking a lot, which I can't now do and I am looking forward to going on long walks again when the baby is here (even if it is with a push chair! ) I find that if I can get an hour of sleep around lunch time then I feel much better for the rest of the day.

The director of midwives is still being funny about me having the baby at home. The Day Assessment Unit are not currently concerned about the baby's growth, my psychiatrist supports my wish for a home birth, and yet she is still being a bit funny with me. She said to me on the phone 'I still think that because of your medication...' to this I replied that my psychiatrist had said that the medication should pose no extra risk to the baby (and she specialises in the care of pregnant women) and that unless there was a clear clinical reason why I should be in hospital then I would be having the baby at home. She is visiting on Thursday, so I will see how that goes. I think maybe she is worried I will 'flip' when I go into labour or something I mean, although she is an experienced midwife she will not necessarily be very informed about mental health issues will she?

Has anyone else had a show? I think I have now - I remember having the same thing in my other two pregnancies but I didn't go into labour until 2-3 weeks afterwards....

Hormones seem to be getting the better of me too. I had dd2's parent's evening today (in reception). Before I went in I was looking at her books which the teacher leaves outside the door for parents. In one picture, she had written 'I am sad when I miss my daddy' and I was wiping away tears and trying to regain my usually stoic composure!!

Right, I'm off to read this thread and catch up!

Electra - "although she is an experienced midwife she will not necessarily be very informed about mental health issues will she?" you have hit the nail on the head i think, and she probably is worried about worst case scenario and probably feeling that if you were to "flip" (not saying you will at all) that she would be inadequetly prepared to deal with the situation. Whereas you and your pshyc feel quite confident shes probably a bit scared. Could you request that a more experienced MW with experience of dealing with your condition be present, even your pshyc if she does that sort of thing (a doula prehaps) so that your current MW could feel a bit more confident? if not maybe just change MW altogether?

it would help you to have a more confident MW too as this one sounds like she would whip you into hospital at the slightest thing, which you obviously do not want. xx