Due May 2009 Hairy Mary!... We're on the final stretch!

[Belgianchocolates]

Thought I'd better start the new thread before it was too late. Here we go!

I know this is a weird question too...but is it kinda clear(ish) and smells kinda sweet?

I don't think you would have peed yourself lol Mine went in a gush and I leaked constantly until I had DD, however I found out later that it was my fore-waters or something that went so they ended up having to 'break my waters' as well...so who knows!

I think they can also give you steroids to stop labor if it is to early...

These are just all things I heard but I am sure MW will have more answers than me...atleast I hope she does!

Told DH about you and were thinking of you!

Spangle Gosh it is all happening. I should imagine you'll have to go to hospital at some point tonight to be checked over, good luck! Last time with DD I had some waters go before I was actually due and when I got checked over at hospital I was told it was my back waters or something and that the water that needed to be there still, was still there, if that makes any sense at all lol I was sent home and it was at least another 4 weeks till DD did arrive. Let us know how you get on!
When DP phoned Stoke earlier he spoke to a male midwife, again, twice he's rung them and twice he's spoken to a male midwife, do you still call them midwifes? Anyways...he said they'e moving to the brand new building the middle of April, so hopefuly i'll get to see it. I've never seen a male midwife, and I've been on every maternity ward in our area lol XXX

Spangle I'm back at home now. What they will do depends a bit on how far you are.
If you keep leaking and your pad is definitely wet after an hour, you'll obviously be asked to go in. They'll monitor you, and a doctor will perform a speculum to see if they can see any water come from your vagina and take a swab from your cervix to make sure there's no infeciton living there, because of course your baby will be open to infection now. After that more than likely you'll be admitted.
They'll definitely start you on a course of abx to prevent infection and steroids to mature the lungs (not to stop labour). They wont induce you until you reach term, however more often than not once your waters have gone you wont get that far. Depending on how far you are they'll either try and stop the labour if you start having tightenings or just let it progress naturally. Or if you start having tightenings they might stop it long enough to make sure you've got the steroids in your system and then let it progress.

Gotta go now. My mum's on the phone. Hope this is helpful

Had a scan this morning - now 33+5 and babies are estimated at 5lb 3oz each (just thought I'd make you feel a bit better everyone, can you imagine how big and heavy I am LOL) and they have both turned head down!! So excited, I had completely given up on them turning at all, but I suppose nature knows what she's doing. Now of course, I'm worried that if there was room for them to turn, there's room to turn back...

Febes that is very thoughtful of you. Let me see how I'm feeling by the end of this week (I have a few local trips planned and if I survive those then I will feel more comfortable about planning something.) In the meantime I'll get the facebook thing sorted so that I can see other meet up olans.

Fi that sounds like a fantastic idea to me - moving house costs so much money and particularly as moving right now means losing money too. Some friends of mine have 3 children in a 2 bed flat with no outside space - they make great use of parks and playgrounds and manage perfectly in the flat which they love.

divedaisy if your friend want's to buy you something from the states that you can't get here, I would think there might be lovely changing bags she could get? A great tip I heard for discreet bf is to keep wearing bump bands to cover your tummy whilst your top is up.

emmabe YUM at your mexican food! I love cooking but I'm starting to find it very tiring to stand in the kitchen so I need recipes that take less than 45 mins!

Louby my DH was terribly reluctant about all of our classes, but always learned something from each one and was quite enthusiastic on the way home. Just keep pushing him, he'll be alright afterwards.

Cote I have numb tummy too - level with belly button. I'm assuming that in the same way as the horrid hair that appeared on my belly in the first trimester is now almost unnoticeable becuase its spread over a much larger area of stretched skin, the nerve endings have become more dispersed too?

Spangle - good luck, we are holding out for news...

Blimey Spangle, hope everything is ok! Keep us posted.

I LOVE SUPERNOODLES! On toast! Mmmmm!

Dandy, sadly, I have heard of the Hooters Bars. Not that I have been in them. I think I walked past one and tutted loudly in disgust, or something

Saw my midwife today for the 32 week check up - ooh she's so nice - I've even got the HiPG form now! Hallelujah! LO is measuring at 31 cm, which she's happy with, and she had a good poke about, and LO kicked back, and we heard a nice strong heartbeat. Bit of protein in my wee, but only a trace, and it doesn't feel / smell wee infection-y, so just need to keep an eye on it. Had my chat with her in one of the labour ward rooms which was a bit scary!

Had a busy ad-hoc clinic this afternoon. Did a very good job talking about growth hormone to a Vietnamese family. Ok, so I had an interpreter, but still.

Ho hum. Best go home now and brave the no seats on the bus scenario. Bloody South London.

Btw, had an email from Polony last night - she is fine, has just been very busy - she's chuffed that people have been thinking of her!

Thanks for the messages everyone, it means a lot & is really helping me not to panic quite so much!

emmabemma yes thankfully it's clear/pale straw coloured and doesn't smell of much, certainly not of wee.

Belgian - I'm 35+4 so I guess just on the cusp of being early vs too early? MW has asked me to go in for 6.30pm for monitoring, but didn't seem to think they'd keep me in I'm going to put my bag in the car anyway, just in case, as it's half an hour drive to the hospital.

1stMrsF Does that mean you're going to go for a vaginal delivery now both are head down? That sounds very exciting.

Spangle how are things? Hope everything is OK. We're all thinking of you

Good luck spangle I'll be thinking of you.

I've been asleep all afternoon, I'm so tired! When I sat up I had a terrible pain in my lower tummy which I made me scared until I worked out it was probably just a full bladder. I think I am ready waaaaaaaay too much into what the diabetes nurse said. I'm quite happy to cross my legs for a few weeks.

x-post spangle Good idea to keep a bag in your car. Yes, you're right, it's early, but only just about too early. 35-36 weekers tend to do brilliantly. If it is your waters and it takes a little while to go into labour you'll easily be 36 weeks and more often than not those babies don't even go to SCBU. Good luck in hospital.

dandy sausagen Thanks for letting us know that Polony is OK. I was wondering how she was.
Dandy, my son's head did the same thing on scan. I actually had a special rescan just for his head. The birth was fine though. I think his head is still on the larger side
Hope your meeting with the VBAC Mw will go OK.

dd is sulking. ds is at a friend's because they'll take him to beaver, because there's less than an hour between coming home from dd's gymnastics and ds's beavers and it makes life easier + we all get to eat properly. Anyway she's sulking because she's missing her big brother. Hasn't said a word since we came home. Only nods and grunts. Poor thing...

I have this bad feeling I took too much Kapake today. After I took some after my lunch I suddenly had this feeling I had taken some before my lunch too, but I wasn't sure. I was quite sleepy for a while and completely pain free too for a few hours, something that never happens. Baby has been very active this afternoon though, so I'm sure it's OK. Maybe I need to start putting my meds in one of those boxes, like elderly people do, lol.

All this worry with spangle's waters have made me completely distracted from what I should be doing too. I'm drinking some coke now to stay awake and then for once I'll do something useful after the dcs have gone to bed.

spangle Hope you're well although I imagine you're on your way to/at the hospital already. Just wanted to say that my waters went at 35w with DD, my labour was stopped at the hospital but they gave me steroid injections into my back (which I promise are not sore)so that her lungs would mature. I was admitted and they induced me at 37w after keeping me on strict bed rest before that. She was 100% fighting fit and well, but had a course of antibiotics once she was out to be on the safe side because my waters had been gone for so long.

I go to the park with DD2 and look what happens

spangle - hope everything's ok (I think you'll be in the hospital now) - thinking of you.

I'm glad to hear Polony's ok, I had been worrying .

llareggub - hope everything's ok with you too!

People with hens . I go through loads of eggs, cooking and baking. Our garden is too small, too much of a dog toilet (not for long, it's being relaid and fenced off) and our neighbours are too miserable and cantankerous. Plus, the guinea pigs would be jealous

dandy at your scan and baby with hair (both DDs had a full head of hair, DD1 blonde & curly, DD2 mad spiky black hair (and she had a hairy back like a little wolf-baby [soppy emoticon]) so I hope this one keeps up the tradition).

And finally MrsF at the weight you will be carrying with your incredibly healthy sounding twins but at them being heads down.

Oooooh it's all getting exciting and close!!!!

Belgian - yes, I hope I will be able to go for a VB. The hospital have told me all along that they will encourage me to do that if the babies are both presenting head down and if there are no other problems, well my pregnancy has been very uneventful, with normal blood pressure etc. throughout, so it's looking good.

However, it does put me in something of a dilemma as I know the hospital's preference is for highly medicalised VBs for twins with epdidural as standard, which I'm not sure I agree with, so need to do some more reading and thinking and be fully prepared for 'discussion' with consultant next week - we will decide on birth plan then.

Grumpy. You don't need all that much space for hens you know. We've got anEglu, but we only lock them onto the run when we're away on our hols otherwise they're out and about in the garden and locked in their house at night. Our first 2 chickens were taken by a fox last year, so we've learnt the hard way to keep them locked in when away.

dandy I had a scan with my dd at 34 weeks to check where the placenta was. During the scan they pointed out her hair to me, so I was convinced she'd be born with lovely thick hair... she was nearly bald and stayed that way for her whole 1st year. Honestly put a n/b and 1st b'day picture next to eachother and her hair is exactly the same length.

1stMrsF I know what you mean about twin VB's being more medicalised, however they make you have an epidural. That sounds a bit . In my unit you labour in a normal room and then are transfered to theatre for the 2nd stage. Not very woman friendly really. Do read and tell them what you want once you know a bit more. A lot of drs are willing to come to some sort of compromise.

Oh and someone mentioned birth plans. I'm lucky enough to live in an area where they take the birth plan side of the green notes quite serious, so at 35-36 weeks you generally get a home visit to discuss your birth plan. My cmw is coming this weekend. I wonder what she'll say when I tell her I want a physiological 3rd stage. I haven't mentioned that bit to her yet...

Hi Ladies, Its all happening today, hope your ok Spangle.

I am getting really bad acid at moment and lots and lots of period pains over last 3 days. Is anyone else experiencing the same?? Is this "normal" so to speak?

Ohhhhhh good luck Spangle!

Great news 1stMrsF- My sister's friend had twin boys who were both well over 7 pounds.

I had a day off today as I didn't sleep very well last night. I felt a bit bad as I wasn't really sick but I drop DD off to the CM and then came home and slept for a while and then sorted through all DD clothes and dug out all the tiny stuff. I also started packing my hospital bag. Getting pretty excited!!

Vaginally delivering twins

Good luck with it, 1stMrsF. And thanks for putting my anxiety re birth into perspective

Wow, I thought I'd only missed 2 or 3 days - didn't realise that that would be 14 pages... have only skimmed to catch up so apologies if I've missed things.

Spangle, hope everything is ok; looking forward to hearing your news.

llare, will email you re the FB group - again, I'm not a hugely frequent MNetter (but just wait until I start my mat leave....) so I hope it's ok for me to join. I'm better on FB than MN, honest!

bekka, have had increasing acid over the last couple of weeks and yes some infrequent period type pains over the last day or two but not lots and lots like you mention. No idea what they are and as they went away with no change to bump's activity I pretended it hadn't happened. I'm so grown up!!

Hope to be back on later when have read more but need an early night as have an all day meeting at work tomorrow.

Spangle v v exciting! Can't wait to hear more.

Emma everyone has already said it, but I'm sure all will be fine. I remember being sent to a total panic when the drs receptionist refused to give me some blood results (non pg related) over the phone and said the dr had demanded to see me. It transpired that one test was a on the high side of average, and he just wanted a brief chat about it. Enjoy dinner tomorrow btw.

1stMrsF great weight. Can't imagine what it's like carrying twice what I am though - fair play!

Llare did you feel better after a wee?

I am sooooo hacked off today. Normally am quite upbeat, but this mornings visit to the consultant to discuss mode of delivery ended up in me in floods of tears . Each time I think about it I wasnt to cry again (pg hormones finally kicking in I think). There was absolutely no movement from the hospital in terms of "I must lie on a bed and be continuously monitored if I'm going for a VBAC". Sod that. It was a total standoff. Thankfully dh was with me for emotional support, but all I can do now is wait for labour, hope I can stay at home for as long as possible, then refuse CFM when I get admitted. Is it really that reckless of me? Rant over - thanks for reading!

Sunshine out this evening and just eaten a whole bar of green & blacks myself so feeling a bit better

dandy my dd wasn't exactly bald, but there wasn't much of it. I've uploaded a picture to my profile to show what I mean. I'd have thought that with another 6 weeks of growth she'd have lots of it though.

bekkaboo Those period type pains sound like they might be braxton hicks, if they're just on and off. Heartburn (acid) is incredibly common in pregnancy, especially at the end. I'm sure you'll find that most of us on here drink/chew gaviscon like there's no tomorrow.