Due in June 2009: The final quarter - packing our bags and remembering to squuueeeeeeezzeeeee!..

[Ineedmorechocolatenow]

Here it is!

Hi blueberrysorbet! Sounds like you are very busy.

Off to bed soon. Hope everyone sleeps well!

Morning all,

went camping this weekend and it didn't quite go to plan, ds2 had temp in night on Thursday and was sick all day Friday so dh said he'd stay home with him on Sat and I'd take ds1 camping, we had a lovely day, went to childrens farm (and had to avoid all the lambs - scarey warning signs all over the place about spontaneous miscariage) and I loved having the 1:1 with him for a change, slept fine, lovely and toasty in the tent and then he woke up at 6.30am and said he didn't feel very well and was sick so we packed up and came straight home - dh was going to join us for the day as ds2 was well but didn't work out, at least it was only 45mins down the road! I was shattered, my brother lent me an air bed with a leak very uncomfortable with bump!

tee and all those asking - you can get arnica from boots, friend of mine is pg with no1 and I got her some bits and bobs... arnica and also some lavender oil, which I'd recommend, good for in bath to help stitches, nappy bin and babies room, lasts ages too. Also some baby shampoo to use as it doesn't sting, I had a canula when in labour with ds1 and the graze afterwards really stung when I used soap, which was all the time seeing as you wash your hands every 5 mins.

I'll also be using cotton wool and water for first few weeks, I find cotton wool gets meconium off better than wipes anyway. ds1 had ezema from wipes, only one he can tollerate even now at nearly 3 are pampers sensitive, haven't used anything else with ds2.

hope you all had lovely weekends and slept well

Good morning Juners!

MrsMc at your DH being "the boss" at the laundry place. I'm happy for you you'll have a washing machine at the new place! It makes a world of difference So nice you'll have friends for 10 days near you. Hope you had a great wkend.

Ineed sorry to hear you're one of the Juners not managing to sleep well... I seem to come and go, one night I sleep great, the next Hope you enjoyed your lunch with your bro for his bday. And no, I didn't manage to watch the movie

Laura you got your DH to work on the garden! So sorry about the night, though! I hope you had a long nap yesterday after being awake for so long!

June 12 times, that's a record for me, lady Also glad you got your DH to work on the patio, many Juners did that this wkend!

Hi blueberry! Wow, you're busy these days! Hope you can get some rest here and there before the LO comes

Hi tee! Insy sorry to hear DS2 was not feeling well and missed the camping wkend. It's nice you got some 1 on 1 time with DS1 (until you had to go back ). Luckily you were very close to home... I didn't know that about lambs!!

I managed to sleep through the night last night, what a miracle! I guess it was because yesterday we did so many things that I was too tired to even wake up to pee We saw the first houses yesterday, we liked only 1 and it was a duplex hahaha... I'll arrange more viewings for this week/wkend and fingers crossed, the right one will come soon. We had another HB session last night, which was very good... I feel like April and May will fly away, don't know why!

Have a lovely morning, everyone! (waves!!!)

tee - if you didn't find Arnica in Boots, I got mine from an independent pharmacy with a natural health leaning. She just sold me the number I needed over the counter so I didn't have to buy a bulk pack of anything. If you ring around they can tell you over the phone if they sell them.

laura - You sound so busy. It's lovely being outside isn't it. Yes, don't touch the weedkiller, it's usually a fine mist so you can easily inhale it or get it on your skin, unless you dress up like a beekeeper! I just took a rose bush out, because dd kept walking past it too closely and I could see her getting injured very soon on the thorns. On hindsight maybe I should have just cut off all the thorns. DD is already picking the daffodils and then giving them to me with a big smile on her face!!! Hard to tell her off!!

loooouise - Window boxes are a wonderful invention I hope you are happy with your compromise. Do you still have friends around York? When are you taking maternity leave from?

Ineed - I'm a bit of a lousy sleeper at the moment. I can't stand being awake at nights when I am so desperate for the sleep.

littlesarah - can't believe your nursery is so disorganised. That is outrageous to be so behind on their accounts.

mrsmcjnr - good news about the apartment move. What date do you move in? I search on the Internet to see what the British sites were saying and it was similar 1 contraction every 8-10 minutes. As dd was a one push baby, and the midwives told me to be careful I didn't give birth in the carpark, I live in terror of being 'caught out'! I have the quick birth information by the telephone in the kitchen already with all the phone numbers!

This week have dd's brother (well, half brother) staying, and dp here this week - he finally was able to travel on Friday. Then we go down to London next week to collect a bunch of baby stuff etc and the following week I have my aunt staying for five days. So I am ecstatic to have company until the 22nd April, by which time I will be 34 weeks and will start to feel like it is getting closer, because at the moment weeks go by slow slow slowly!

oh re arnica - I think some of the chains sold it, but not in very strong doses which is why I got it at the indie pharmie/health place.

Morning all. We got back from a weekend in London late last night - second time around wedding of a friend (not much fun) and seeing 3 of my sisters and their OHs and LOs yesterday (great fun). First day of the hols and the house is a pigsty, so am going to pace myself and tackle downstairs today and will therefore have to avoid MN and other evil distractions. Have good days all

ps Tee where's the 40+ thread gone, I've lost it!! thanks x

ermintrude here you go

got it, thanks Tee!

Gosh is it really only 11am? In need of a break already! I'm joining the club of people with dizzy spells and hot flushes today, just did a bit of tidying up this morning quickly before work, had a stressfull phone call with BT and not been feeling too great since.

Insy sorry your weekend didn't quite go as planned What's that with the lambs?

Naat Have fun looking at houses, we used the "rightmove" a lot when we were looking.

erm What did you wear for the wedding?
I need to find something for the one we're going to at the end of the month.

info on lambing and pregnancy hence I was worried

Morning all hope everyone is having a good day so far

I didn't sleep well last night, kept dreaming I was watching shaopping channels and learning how to plant rose bushes...think there was too much garden talk yesterday

I know I have asked about pelvic floor exercises before but I am getting very paranoid I'm not doing them right and I also forget sometimes to do them. Was wondering is there any way of knowing your doing them right without 'inserting something'?
I do squeeze and lift and try not to tense any other muscles but just worried. Also how often do you guys do the exercises?

Work going alright so far, bit boring but only 4 days left after this one

Insy interesting info, I had no idea...

June I'm with you on the need of a break already Nesting has kicked in fully now and I just spent the last 2 hours clearing things, tidying up DH's wardrobe and my wardrobe as well! I hadn't done that in a while Sorry you had to deal with BT on the phone this morning... those phone calls can be really stressful We're using rightmove, yes, it's a good website.

Ermin so nice you could see your sisters and their LOs. Good luck tackling downstairs and avoiding MN

I need a nap! hahaha

insy - Sorry to hear about your aborted camping trip! Nice you had some 1:1 time with ds, hope he gets well soon!

looouise - Glad you've found a compromise with the parentals, whereabouts how they? If you are getting bored up here we could always go for a coffee!

daisy - Thanks for the arnica advice! The quicker the healing the better I say, must get some asap.

We had a nice weekend up north (although little work was done) and now I'm looking forward to dd's birthday on Friday (party Saturday). Got her some Sylvanian family bits yesterday and going to let her choose a new summer dress come Friday. Think we shall also check out the science festival as it has just started here.

Ordered a hot milk nursing bra and of course it arrived on Saturday while we were away so have to traipse out to collect it at the edge of town, thank god dh is driving!

Hope everyone else is well, despite the fact it is Monday morning!

laura - lots of ways to do exercises I think. Squeeze and hold on for a few secs, plus quick squeezes, plus squeeze in three parts (ermintrude described this well a wee while ago), my yoga video describes it like a life going up three floors , it's basically doing it in stages which I find quite hard. Think it's probably best to do them daily but my practice has always been extremely sporadic!

laura - they are the same muscles you use to stop your self mid wee, its not recommended you do that during pregnancy but my mw said to try it just to check you are exercising the right muscles and littlesarah is right do them loads of different ways, especially standing up as thats apparently when you get most problems with stress incontenence

naat I had no idea either and was quite worried after reading signs, especially as we were camping across the road and it said to avoid clothing and boots etc that had been in contact - anyway baby kiccking for england today so not worried now

Afternoon all

laura, next time you go for a wee, try stopping mid flow. Same with wind Should give you a good idea which bits you should be using. So long as you are doing something, it's got to be better than nothing!

rightmove is on my favourites, we're not thinking of moving [nosey cow emoticon]

Good luck with the cleaning ladies

Dh has finally booked his driving test for 26th May, so lets hope baby doesn't come early!

I'm trying again tomorrow to see the gd midwife, we'll see if she can be bothered to see me this time

Hope everyone is enjoying the sun!

thanks juners for your replies re: pelvic floor...I am sitting at my desk doing them lol

Just wondering when are you guys going to set up cribs/cots/prams etc? I have been asking DH if we could set up our crib just so I can see what it looks like and he said no as he's superstitious I have also had my pram now for around 2 months and I still haven't seen it fully assembled

oh 4 working days left and counting can you tell i'm desp to finish now

laura We've already got the cot/pram/moses basket set up, albeit all in the spare room at the moment.
We've also got our quiny zap pram/car seat in the living room (just cause no one's really bothered to take it up and its kinda nice to look at it and go "awww" and practise folding/unfolding it every now and then.)
The car seat base is already set up too.
We're not superstitious though.

I'm glad we did do all this otherwise we wouldn't have noticed the original pram was too big, we wouldn't know what bedding to get or wouldn't have noticed the cot was put together wrong and we've got to do it again.

Is there anywhere else you can store the stuff?

I've got to agree with june. Thoroughly impractical to leave till the last minute. Use your time off to slowly go through things and figure out how they work etc. I didn't use the pram before dd came along, and found it hard to work out when I was so tired. You want to practise hooking and unhooking things, use your bottle steriliser in case you have to suddenly use it if you are unwell and breastfeeding not working out. Have a read through various instruction booklets and learn how they all work, as it can be very hard to focus/learn when you are tired with a young one.

We have the nursery set up just waiting on the cotbed to arrive in May.
We have a secondhand crib that my brother gave us which I am desperate to put up so I suppose I could set it up in the nursery for now, was given a crib bale for a Christmas present and also desp to see what that looks like with the crib all set up.

My pram is over at IL's house so got no chance of getting that back anytime soon to try it out...they didn't even let me get the instruction manuel out of the box

Think I'll have a wee look at how to set up crib tonight when DH is working late

Hi All

laura I do them as I think of it!

We are buying our cot this weekend and DH is going to set it up next week when he is off over Easter.

Hi, thanks for all your lovely welcomes although I will have to get used to how fast this thread runs !!!

Had a quick question about hospital bags to ask you girlies. I'm going in for a c-section so will have to stay in about 2/3 nights therefore requiring more nighties and babygrows etc.. Just wondered if I would seem really silly taking in a suitcase on wheels instead of the standard hospital bag ? I think by the time I've packed the bag of nappies, clothes etc.. i'm not going to get it all in but feel I will look very diva-ish strolling in with my leopard print case

welsh can't remember if I welcomed you...but here's a belated welcome

Re hospital bags - I'm going for a natural delivery (hopefully) and I started to pack my bag the other night...or should I say bags
I have a large holdall bag with wheels on it and that only took my things, I have a smaller bag for baby's things and DH will be taking a bag, scared I'll look silly going in with all these bags but it's the only way of getting everything i need to the hospital so I think if you can get it into 1 suitcase then that should be fine

Lauraloo- your post just reminded me of struggling into hospital last time- Large bag for me, one for baby. fully inflated birthing ball, cd playerkitchen sink. we just took my bag in initally then dh had to struggle through the car park with all the other stuff (at once) as it was midnight and the doors were locked!!!

As for the setting up I had all the stuff own from the loft and I've washed it and recovered it in plastic bags and sealed so all that needs to be done is to undo the bags, This is more for my sanity tho' as the whoe time it was down the dd's wanted to use it for their babies agggrrhhh lovely clean washed and ironed stuff covered in toddler bogeys

Picked up some more neutral new baby stuff from a car boot sale yesterday. A gorgeous newborn at next outfit for £1.50 and loads of vests and b gros for not much more, all washed ironed and put away ready for the big day ( I got some tiny baby stuff too as it was there, and it seemed silly not too, although getting it home I did think umm 3rd baby maybe i'm being a bit optimistic here )

Having a bit of a panic about the best place to get a tens machine from, I was going to borrow my sis's again but last time it kept dropping to 1 (power level) everytime I wanted a boost. Apparently it's still doing that - other dsis thought she just hadn't put new batteries in. Want to avoid all thoughts of chucking it out of the window this time!!!!!

insy- forgot to say sorry your trip didn't go to plan ( at least it's the holidays so they're not missing pre-school etc!!!)

Mrsmc- My dh used to support Betis (Seville based) He refuses to watch football in this country as it's not "civilised"!!!!! Oh and I remember being in Gib for dd1 and just wanting boots ( or even supedrug soooo badly!)