Due April 2009: Episode 23 -There's no business like show business!!!

[SmuttyNuttyTaff]

Here we go

Show business may be good business but can we get on with some birthing business now please!!

Oh Schulte, I am crying with you, I really know what you mean, I don't want mine either on many levels, messing up my nice organised life and costing me money I would rather spend on the other two, but Nutty is right, it just feels like that now, and once the hormones kick in we will feel a lot, lot better and be so proud we have done it.

Schulte, do you want me to ask my DD to do some babysitting for you next time she is down in Richmond?? She is fantastic with little kids and knows where all the parks and so on are, as she was born there.

Schulte, have discussed it with DD and she says as long as she gets to know you properly over the phone etc that will possibly be OK with her. She pointed out she wouldn't be happy going around to someone's house purely on the basis of an internet contact (rightly so, clearly I have trained her all too well!) I might dispatch her down there around the time this LO is born so she might be available then with a following wind.

Boff, that's a lovely offer, thanks. But I might ask PIL to come down next week, and my parents to come here after Easter until the LO is born. It will mean having lots of people kicking around our little house but at least DD will love it. I just wonder how long I will need to keep her away from nursery for. The best thing would actually be if she came down with CP next week, then we could just get it over and done with.

Thank god some of her little friends have already had it so we won't be completely quarantined!

Am starting to come round to the idea now - I'll go for a swim, best make the most of my last couple of days off...

If your DD is down here anyway in the next few weeks and PIL / parents aren't available then I'll definitely come back to your offer though! xxx

Schulte - glad you feel a bit better about it all now xx

You know what, I really love this thread. What an amazingly gorgeous, supportive, wonderful bunch of women you all are. sorry am getting all emotional here but seriously you cant find support & friendship anywhere else quite like this. I'm slightly in awe in a way cos i have looked at other threads and they're not quite the same iyswim. Amazing how close we all are and thank goodness for it too

It really is a truly wonderful thing. xx

must resume smutt after gushy outburst.....

WILLY, EELING, BUMSEX

OK, well the offer's there if you need it Schulte. If you want my personal details email me at boffinmum at hotmail dot co dot uk.

LOL Nutty Typical!

OMG I am soooooo SOB today. I'm literally sitting doing nothing and wheezing like an old woman. Don't know how I'm going to make it into town to see MW. Will have to give myself an hour to do the 10 minute walk!

Boffin - lol

Juw - taxi?

It sounds like some of you are very close!

Lulu, congratulations on your house nearly being finished. Sorry I can't advise you on the tragic woman in your DH's office except to echo what everyone else has said, which is it doesn't sound like he has any bad intentions whatsoever.

Springy, gggggrrrr about the minor dishonesty thing. Nip it in the bud, you have to. Prepare what you are going to say in such a way that is very firm (if gentle) and does not allow any tangential digressions into "proofs" or otherwise of this or that on individual cases. I think it is a big adjustment to proper partnership, for some more than others, and we all have to make it in different ways. (It has taken me a long time to learn to share personal and emotional space with DP in some ways.) The barriers between you and your partner are much more intimate than between you and anyone else and he has to learn to feel safe with telling you stuff that might not make him look great - a little silly, a bit selfish, maybe immature, whatever. You wouldn't put a facemask on in front of some guy you were just dating and you might pretend not to be in if he dropped by while you had one on! He needs to get used to the fact that that kind of thing isn't fair or appropriate any more. (I speak as someone who knows - my DP always used to tease me for answering every innocuous question with "why?" and refused to be seen in my gym kit.)

Sorry that was so epic. I can't bear lies and the situation you are in would drive me mad, but I just think that some guys have to warm up to real intimacy as their best friend relationships might not be quite the same preparation as some girls' are.

I am at work and procrastinating like a bastard, as you can see. I was nearly sick on the way in and now I feel really huge and self conscious. I am wearing a dress that is one of only 2 things I can wear and it is clingy and I don't want to get up. I really don't feel at all up to being looked at. I am not sure how many days I am expected to do in the office this week but I feel like spending the rest of the week in bed. They have very kindly booked a goodbye lunch for me down the road and don't seem to realise what a palaver it is going to be for me to get there! I am not sure how to broach the subject that it will take me a long time to walk and might leave me incapacitated for the week.

sorry to moan, actually I feel very cheerful to be in the last week and there is very little of all this left.

Taxis are the work of the devil (i.e. cost money)!

I shall use the legs I was blessed with, and the poor, squashed, compromised respiratory and circulatory system! It will just take me all day, that's all! It's not like I've got anything better to do at the moment!

Must try to use full stops instead of exclamation marks.

!!!!!

Schulte, that sounds like a horrible situation. Don't worry about your lo - very resilient!

Juw - !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ginger - hope you manage to have a nice lunch and that its not too traumatic xx

Clairey, I wouldn't be happy if they did put it back in! But argh, the weird alien thing emerging from my fanjo! Argh! & so on.

Puzzle, your response to feeling DD's head was excellent Definitely nothing to about

Ju, the best laid plans... Just explain to him what you've just said & give him a cuddle - he'll see the funny side of your night of French toast panic.

Schulte, don't be sad about the new baby You're sleep-deprived & stressed out, which doesn't help. Everything will be fine. & you're giving her a new playmate, & someone she can confide in & receive support from, no matter what in the future.

Nutty, I know exactly what you mean about this thread - it's really not the same anywhere else. We're all real friends & care about each other - & have a right laugh, too! It's lovely

ginger, I think you've summed it up really well there & also alerted me to something that may help to explain it - he doesn't have a best friend. Not really. He called his awful ex his 'best friend' but they don't really talk. Sometimes they do, & when he's back in his home town (& I'm not there ) he'll meet up with her, but they're certainly not close in the slightest. & he has mates at uni, but I don't think that he'd ever go out of his way to see them if they weren't all thrown together every day. Even for a bloke, he's severely lacking in what we would call 'friends' - he just has lots of acquaintances. That really may be part of the issue, you're right.

As for the lunch, just tell them that you can't walk that far! Or insist that they give you the extra time off work in the middle of the day to get there at your own pace

DH has just gone off to uni, but is rather twitchy about this whole baby thing. He spent ages last night staring at me whilst I was trying to sleep (normally he's asleep within literally 2 or 3 minutes, so I was definitely aware of his mood!) & asking things like 'if your waters break in the night, am I likely to get woken by a wet leg?'?! I don't know what that question was about. I don't even think it was out of disgust - my best guess is that he somehow thinks that I would get up & go & have this baby & not bother waking him until afterwards

I'm also feeling really quite nesty today & am about to wash the sofa covers. I don't know what's happened to my brain to make that something I want to do

LO's still quiet, but has just had the hiccoughs, so I know he's okay. He'd really better be intending to come out soon & not just piss about on the precipice of life for the next 4 weeks.

I am very at all the head-feeling etc that is going on. Sorry to ask laboriously stupid and mechanical questions but are you actually feeling the sac inside the cervix? Or prodding from outside the cervix? Does the baby prod you back?

I am loving the robust and puppyish feel of lo at the moment, (s)he feels so solid and somehow... cheerful. I know that is ridiculous.

?

Springy - that is so bizarre it's almost funny. Amongst all the things he could be worried about your DH is thinking he might get woken by a wet leg.

uuurrrgh at touching the head (I even get a bit urgh at the thought of a bloody gooey baby on my chest but realise I wont care one bit once it actually happens!!!)

Ginger - 3.5 more days!!! hang in there!!!!

Schultes, glad you are feeling better and DD will love having time with you for the next couple of weeks - maybe do lots of stuff with her for the baby - like big sister things (helping you buy last minute things or making up the bed etc) so she can get excited about it too!

Nutty, we are loverly....

morning, it is still... just

had my cons. appointment this morning with not much to report.

Nutty- I couldn't get my emails to go to you . Jut wanted to say thank you and you're a sweety and don't make me cry like that again alright?

Sarah, it's the sac inside the cervix - you put your finger up your fanjo & find your cervix (which is soft & ring shaped - the hole in the middle of the 'ring' is the dilation) & if the head's engaged, you can feel it sitting just inside that ring. If you prod it, the baby sometimes moves away, & usually gives your ribs a good kicking for disturbing it

& yes, LuLu. A wet leg. I really have no idea - I just opened my eyes & looked at him in confusion & said '...what?' & he repeated the question like it was perfectly normal. It's genuinely a mystery

Schulte - I can totally relate to your frustration, but as Purple and others have said she will love having some extra mummy time. Take her places, do things together. It will feel special.

That's what I have been trying to do with my DD. As we haven't lived at home for ages now we are all out of our usual routine, which makes me feel very sorry for her. She's barely seen children her own age and spends a ridiculous amount of time with mummy in exciting places like builders merchants and Ikea. But they are remarkably resiliant little things. She will get over it.

And if you get a good nights sleep tonight you can wake up feeling fresh tomorrow and make a list of fun things to do with DD. I took mine to Kew Gardens when she had CP this time last year. She crawled all over the Henry Moore sculptures .

BB - before I had DD I was a bit 'bleurgh' about the thought of a gooey baby too (was a little bit repulsed when I had to cuddle newborn nephew complete with lots of goo), but it didn't seem to matter so much when I found myself in a birthing pool chock-full of floating goo. I had thought I might want the baby cleaned and handed back to me but actually they had a hard time prising the her out of my arms to find out the gender.