10/10 Babies - The sun is showing and the pumpkins are growing

[Hermya321]

Here we go, pull up a deck chair, catch some rays and help yourselves to a mini eggs ice cream.

Link to the stats list.

AbFabT, I'm 19 minutes late but happy birthday! You share it with my mum. We went fir birthday early dinner with my sister and nieces and ds in the glorious sunshine then sat by sea.

Well, it's now Friday so I am officially into my second trimester!! Yay, 13 weeks today. Hoping the remaining nausea will disappear asap. Must sleepso night night all. Got blood results in morning - hoping to join those of you with low risk. Keep things crossed for me.

Abfab - enjoy the next 2 weeks, what a relief to have a break. Happy mums make happy babies - I truely believe that after the problems I had during ds' pg, I finished at 30 weeks and it was the best decision I ever made! He got happy and fat on chocolate cake and laughter (warning: 8lb fat and 3 weeks early!)

Floozie: welcome to the second trimester!

2.5 year old for sale - all she has done all morning is scream, the current tantrum is because i took the lid off a box and she wanted to do it, problem was she didn't say she wanted to until i had already done it.
think this is gonna be one of those days!

Will trade said 2.5yo for a newly 4yo who is making me, yes MAKING me take her to whizz kids. You can also have the DS (5) who is now sulking because he isn't coming.

Trying very hard not to think about this time next year when there are 3 of them! (Although on the upside both kids will be full time school by then so will just be me and Tommy tickle Bean!)

Oooo Happy Birthday Abfab!

Seashells I've been wondering about when to finish for ML. I finally decided to go at 32 weeks, take two weeks annual leave and then start ML. I have to go at 36 weeks anyway in my work place. Plus I figured I might have trouble fitting behind my steering wheel beyond that point.

Thanks SeaShells. What probs did you have last time?

Abfab, I forgot to say last night sorry you've been havin nonsense at work. Hope you have a nice restful time off. Is it something that can be changed when you go back though or is the situation likely to be the same? Oh, and well done you with your toy boy;-). I went wrong somewhere, went totally in the opposite direction!

Xavielli long as yours are not screaming then will happily do you a 2 for 1!

Hermya - I have decided to finish at 37 weeks, with the next 2.5 weeks annual leave, and then on to ML from the due date. I know that if I'm more than 3 days early I'll end up losing the holiday though, but decided to risk it. I'm also going to use up the rest of the annual leave and take one or two days a week off the month before I leave. I think my job will be quite flexible though, as I do a mix of standing up teaching and sitting in front of a desk so I reckon I'll be able to go that late.

How are you meant to decide when to finish though, especially when you've never been 37 weeks pregnant before!?

Jenimoo I don't know, it's so strange isn't it. When I've been thinking about it though, I have the feeling that this is going to be an early baby. I don't know why I feel like this, but I just sort of know that I won't go to 40 weeks. Me and my DH were both early babies and for some reason I know I'll follow suit. I did take some time to think about it though, but I have an hours drive to work each way and I work very long days. Plus the fact that I've got restrictions at work due to health and safety stuff with me being pregnant means that I will slowly loose the will to live and I expect by then I'll be grateful to just watch some crappy TV and cook lots of freexable meals for a bit.

hello everyone! hope you are all well!

DD and I are going for a lovely long weekend in Shaldon in Devon today until monday i am so ecited will just be me and her and then my mother will join us for a little while! cant wait!

Thank you for the comments on my DDs pictures!!

AbFab your photos are amazing. And the wedding dress looks stunning!

xx

I'm planning on going until the end of September. Only work p/t and going to use the rest of my leave to reduce that probably staring soonish.so far I have a week off in may & one in August and had One in April but after all that have 80+ hours to use trying not to build as much flexi too or I'll never use it all!

Hiya
Hope everyone is good today.
Those of you who are talking about when to take your ML do you think I am being unrealistic to plan to work till 38 weeks? I am a secondary school teacher. I totally agree Jennimoo how can you decide when you have never been there before xx

Thanks, floozie - tell your mum Happy Birthday from me!!! I want to live by the sea! Fingers crossed you get good test results.
And thanks for the birthday wishes, Hermya.

Thanks, SeaShells, I agree. I was concerned about the stress getting to my sweet baby, and I just didn't want to subject myself or my baby to that any more. It had also gotten worse and worse at work, so I genuinely was just at the end of my tether. I hope the GP signs me off again in two weeks, as the situation won't get better at work.
What problems did you have during your pregnancy with your DS, or would you rather not say?
floozie, no, I doubt it will be resolved. Personnel/HR are very supportive of me, but I have a bullish manager and there's not a great deal they can do about it. I've been through my union rep too, and though they all are appalled at what is happening in my department, it doesn't seem a great deal can be done about it. Personnel want me back and happy, and want to help, but I think they realise dealing with my manager is a futile business, but they still have to look like they are trying, I guess!
It was Personnel who suggested I go see my GP to get signed off, so I do believe they care and want to make sure I am ok, especially during pregnancy. They also assured me I'd be paid fully, and I shouldn't worry about that.

LOL @ your older man, floozie. I do think age is just a number though.

Thanks, Katy, for your kind comments on my photos. I loved my wedding dress! Don't know what to do with it now though!

Depending on my work situation, I was planning on working til as late as possible, so my maternity pay lasts longer. My job is local, so getting there is no strain, and it's office based, so I felt I could carry on until quite late. But we'll see - who knows, I could get signed off for the rest of my pregnancy - then I am not sure how they'd work out when I would start maternity pay. I'll cross that bridge as and when.

Sat with my diary working out my leave. I can work 1- 1.5 days a week from 9/8 and still have leave left Have asked for someone to bring the leavechart on Monday (it lives on another site) so I can check when are quiet times to take off too.

Nymph Gosh I've not even looked at mine yet, thats my job next week when I go back to work.

Is anyone else litterally ITCHING to start the process of hoarding items for their LO?

I've been hanging around the cloth nappy sites for a while now and have discovered many items that I am currently coveting.

Ebay is also a very bad idea for me as well. I somehow without realising what I'm doing have managed to put bids on baby items. Strange that isn't it .

Not bought any baby stuff yet. Concentrating on getting house done & going for weekends away . Didnt realise how much ew were going away. 2 in May and one in August so far

Well I got my risk back this morning. It's not fantastic, in that I have fallen into the high risk category as it's 1:164, but it's still a lot better than the average for my age, which is 1:96. I've got a few weeks to think about whether or not to have amnio but I'm almost certainly not going to. I just couldn't bear it if I miscarried after all these years of waiting for another baby. My risks for Edwards and the other chromosomal disorder they test for were both low at 1:4000 and either 1:1400 or 1:14000 - I wasn't fully concentrating. I'd be lying if I said I'm not a bit worried and a bit upset but I'm trying to take a positive view - I am 39, risk factors for everything are higher and besides, last time round I didn't worry at all and had a two month prem baby who was later diagnosed with CP. There's a 1:400 risk of cp for all of us regardless of age but that's never mentioned because there's absolutely nothing they can do about that. I - or rather - ds- was that one in 400. If I lived by risk statistics I'd never have tried to get pg again - one in eight babies are prem, I'm more at risk of having a prem because I've already had one, one in 10 babies born before 32 weeks will have cp - ds was born at 31+4 etc etc... sometimes I think being pregnant in pre-scan and testing days might have been less stressful!

Anyway, hope you enjoy the continuing lovely weather. I think I need to go out and get some sun and just chill out a bit (and eat -still feeling sick, grrr).

floozie - sorry your results are stressing you out Although I like to know all the stats I think it would be better not to have to option to know in terms of our sanity. A couple we know who have just had their first LO (on Saturday!) didn't read anything, and when they go to their NCT class and heard about some of the troubles the others had been having they were very shocked, as just didn't know any of those things happen (e.g. one person had a stitch in her cervix etc).

Ignorance is bliss I guess!

Floozie- I was so much less stressed last time when I knew nothing! Spending years reading MN probably hasn't helped but I am probably more assertive for it

Still need my bloods doing and am narky about it as I don't know what they are for . They just say ante-natal and I am not having them if they are for genetic stuff so not sure what to do.

nymph - they will not take bloods for genetic stuff without talking to you about it first to make sure you understand what it is you're doing. It sounds like they would be taking the normal bloods - looking for things like iron levels, platelets, blood type etc (although i had mine at 8 weeks) this is all essential information for your care too.

In my experience the genetic blood test is always only arranged if specifically requested by the mother.

floozie, sorry to hear the stressful results. My own risk is ten times less than yours, but that still feels horribly high to me. I AM concerned, but I guess you cope. I'm also only on my first, at 36, and we'd love a few (thinking three) so it's possible I'll be 39 and having a baby, and increasing my/their risks. But age aside, anything can happen. Gosh, I don't think that was especially helpful, I was just trying to say I share your concerns, and think I will do again and again if we are lucky enough to get pregnant a second and third time, especially the older we get.

1:400 for CP sounds crazily high. You are right - we just don't hear about this at all. It's all just DS. I'd never even heard of Edwards' Syndrome.

Don't trust them though as my MW put I agreed to these before mentioning in them to me. May just wait til I go to the hospital in 2 weeks and I can speak to my new people.

nymph - I had to sign to say it was OK to test me for HIV etc when I had my bloods done, and here they have to give you an envelope and send you to the hospital blood clinic so I could see all the tests they were doing. If I were you I'd ask for exactly what they are testing, but I expect it's the Rubella immunity, iron, etc.

Good Luck being assertive with them!

My midwife was actually very good with me, she explained each of the tests and asked if I would agree to them and explained why they were going to do them.

Although I did take exception at the Syphillis one.

nymph you should have been given a leaflet or something which explains what all the tests are - but given your antenatal care so far I guess we're not too surprised that that hasn't happened, eh?!

belated happy birthday abfab! Great pic! Sorry about work stuff and glad you got signed off. You wouldn't believe it, I am spending today collating paperwork with my colleague for a course that can't begin in October because I'll be off on mat leave and I just cannot, cannot bring myself to tell her as all this business about applying to begin the course was decided long before I got pregnant (like, it's been an ongoing saga for years trying to get it approved see...) and I feel eeeevil. Bah. I have to tell her before hometime, the stress of lying is really getting too much.

Sorry about the results floozie remember there are an awful lot of false positives for these tests. Can you have the quadruple test before thinking about amnio or CVS?

Has anyone heard anything about tinywelsh

Sorry - long post!
xx