July 2010: We’re ready to drop; Not long to go until we pop!

[DesperateHousewife21]

Possibly our last ante-natal thread ladies!

stac I dropped off around 2am, but was wide awake at 5.20am

dh your baby is average size as memp says -bang on in the middle.

ahh cool thanks everyone thats good to know! His head is firmly lodged in my pelvis so it wasnt easy for her to measure the head but she was very thorough and explained what everything was and confirmed hes def a boy!

Next time I see him he'll be in my arms

Just to let you know Ive put the pic of his face up, think its the 3rd pic down

mooky the mw's tend to be non committal at this stage With dd mine knew I was contracting when I clearly didn't and she didn't mention it at all.

dh good news! and stac I don't think they can truly be accurate about the size of the baby at this stage, it seems daft that they worry us so much with it when it's so inaccurate.

I'm a sleepwalker and talker too, lucky for my husband he is deaf in one ear but I do frequently freak him out by going off for a wander in the night

Right, I'm going to join norky in the bouncing club but just to relieve some back ache! Have had a horror with dd today who has drawn in biro all over herself, coloured in her nails in felt tip and ruined my gorgeous solid oak kitchen table trying to make it "pretty" with the same felt tips (which I might add she had only had back for half an hour - we don't really do time out on her, but on her toys and stuff!). I was so stressed by tea time I could have cried. Is this normal "omg there's a baby coming" naughtiness or is this one of those bloody phases?

Stand back ladies - I make HUGE babies. DS was 104 centile at birth, and although they haven't said what DD is going to be, her thigh bone at 28 weeks was longer than DS was at birth!!

DS was ridiculously tall for a long time, but at 2.5yo most of his peers have caught up, and he doesn't tower over everyone at nursery, although he is one of the tallest.

He put on weight ridiculously fast when he was fully BFed, but as soon as he started to eat solid food he went all skinny. HV was a bit concerned and we were actually referred to dietician who made me cook everything for him in butter and double cream!

He's fine, but has a really fast metabolism. Unfortunately it's not something he got from his mummy

Gracie - I read that as her thigh length was longer than your DS' whole body at birth (doh!) - baby brain strikes again. Can you imagine how painful carrying around a 3 foot baby would be!

Hi all,

Reads like another busy day on here...feel VERY light and springy today...Have been able to walk and move about more easily than I have in the last 6 weeks!

Tis lovely weather today...have been a bit hot this evening though!

Hope everyone else is ok.

Stac Hope your friend is holding up ok
dh dc1 was on the 50th, and at 10 days over was 7lb13. This one is probably that size already...with three weeks to go. Please come early baby!! Although some people say bigger babies respond better to gravity...as long as the labour isn't 24 hours this time...I suppose that will be good!

Lots going on here today, hope everyone is good. WWSW my DD seems to be in real naughty toddler mode too and I can't work out whether she can sense something is happening or whether I am just more exhausted than usual and have no patience with her. She just ignores me when i tell her not to do something and is really pushing the boundaries.

DH21 great scan photo, you can really see the features. How exciting! Congrats to the other scans too. Stac I wouldn't worry either, I have heard that happen to others too and the babies are just fine. I think the weight predictions are a bit useless, aa friend of mine was told all along that she was going to have a huge 12lber and he was 7.5 lbs nearly 2 weeks late - how wrong can they be??!!!

I'm not joining in with the hot curries, pineapple etc until after next tuesady as my parents are on holiday until then and they are going to look after DD when I go into labour, there are others around if it happens before then, but she hasn't stayed o/n with anyone else before and I don't want to be worrying about her when i'm meant to be focussed on birthing! After that I will def be bouncing on my ball every night and all the rest. I've not heard of the clary sage before - how is that meant to work?

Thanks orange

All the people saying the growth scans are inaccurate, I hope it doesnt happen the other way round so I think Im having an avg sized baby and he turns out to be huge!

Glad everyones scans went well today
Had a call from the mw today to say the consultant wants to see me on 7th july, so Ill be 39+2 by then, they want to talk to me and scan me-no bloody idea why?? and see me on labour ward to see if I can manage to get in and out of the birth pool.
Am hoping baby comes before then to be honest, dont know why they want to scan me and as mw rang whilst I was dozing on the bed I was half asleep so didnt think to ask.

just been to new parents evening at my sons school for finding out the teacher for my youngest son, was agony, they talked for an hour and I was in so much pain I shot out of there when theyd done!

orange glad I'm not the only one! Dd is 4 and so ready for school now

glasto lol at those hard chairs at school! We had the new parents evening at the school dd goes to in September and it was killing me! The reception teacher said I should have asked her for a cushion...but how odd would that have looked?!

dh lovely pic!
i dont get told anything like the things you get told in england! none of this 4/5 or 3/5 engaged stuff or what centile it is or anything.have appointments every week now alternating between hospital and doctor and they're nearly kicking me out the door as quick as i'm in. had doctors today and she literally took my blood pressure,dipped my urine, and wobbled babies head and then said right see u in 2 weeks!was supposed to get iron level results and wanted to ask about my swelling and stuff and literally didnt get the chance!and at hospital next week i'l be waiting 3 hours to be seen and it'l be the same thing again. not feeling very happy with it all when i see what they do with you in england!
woah winge over

Hi Ladies,
Not much to report this end. The house is slowly returning to normal after all the work we have had done. Mom and Dad are coming down this weekend and I usually go into overdrive cleaning before they come but im soooo tired i just cant get it all done. I am suffering really badly with hayfeaver at the moment, the doc wont sanction anything to take she basically said its at ur own risk........nice! so im trying to cope but really not doing very well.
norky I read gracies post the same as u, i thought OMG thats horrendous!!! what a wally i am!
Went to MW today, saw the same one as last time she is so brisk and blunt. My lo is lying back to back(cant remember the proper phrase) I asked the mw the consequences if lo stayed in that position and she simply said 'a longer more painfull labour' Thanks then!! I know there is plenty of time for lo to move but thats not very helpfull of her.
Having said that there has been sooo much movement tonight its been crazy!
Right im off to bed for another hayfeaver full sleepless night.....cant wait!!!!
xx

vik you poor thing! My gp has given me opticrom eyedrops and Avamys nasal spray. Working like a charm and perfectly safe. Don't worry about the cleaning, your mum will probably want to do stuff to help you so you can point her in the direction of the hoover! This week my mum has been bathing dd and getting her to bed for me coz I've been so shattered.

Hope you can get baby to turn...would the techniques on Spinning Babies work? here

deelite working my way through thread so sorry if someone else says this but you do need to get a new matress. We've gone eBay for everything but have got new matresses. Old matresses are an identified cause if SIDS so that's one you just don't want to risk.

Pregnancy insomnia has finally caught up with me. been waking up at 5am for the last few days and with work being so busy and me rarely getting out of the office before 7pm I'm really starting to feel it.

It's so hard to keep positive when you're feeling so exhausted. I"m reading Ina May's Guide to Childbirth, which is inspiring, but also daunting and the labour advice from people has started to flow thick and fast now - I don't know how I managed to avoid it for so long. I know it's meant well, but I wish people would realise that their own subjective experience isn't a universal thing. One nice thing about this book is that all the birth stories are so diverse. Most other women (and men...) who want to talk about their experiences seem to preface every statement with 'you'll want this...' or 'you'll find it'll be like this...' I wouldn't mind if they said 'this is how it was for me...' but no one ever seems to say that.

I can't be the only person in the world who's noticed that person A over there had a four hour labour and a minor tear and had the worst experience ever and needed counselling to get over it, whilst person B over there had a 48 hour labour, 4th degree tears and a retained placenta but still said it was the most wonderful experience of their life. So why are people so adamant that my experience will be the same as theirs?

Sorry - rant over.

Re: Centiles, my LO is about 60% on everything apart from the head which is way up at 97%. DH never can find a hat to fit him, so I know exactly were Lo gets that from...

DH21 My little one is on the 50th centile chart too - means their size is completely average. Or as I like to call it....a perfect size

I had my scan yesterday and LO is extended breech meaning that bum is in pelvis, head is in ribcage and feet are up at the ears. A lovely midwide talked us through our options yesterday then we met with the consultant. Neither of them were confident that LO would move and both were recommending ELCS at 39+5. I was adamant about wanting a natural birth so am booked in for an ECV (manual turning of baby) on Monday morning. Not looking forward to this at all but I'll try anything!

Hope everyone else is well and we're not suffering too much in this heat! x

violet my lo is extended breech too, but they can turn any time, even if you go over, even up to you going into labour. I'm going to refuse an elective until I'm In labour.

Also the evc is about 50% successful.

violetbubbles have you looked into moxibustion for turning babies? It seems to have a good success rate.
I had to go and have LO's heart monitored again yesterday and ended up there for hours. The machines were all reading the rate at 235ish bpm I was steeling myself for an emcs but they did 4 scans with different machines and it turned out that because it's got an ectopic beat the machines were doubling the heartrate cos they didn't know what to do. The MW there was so calm and lovely that DH didn't even realise there was anything wrong. Anyway, I have to do a kickchart thing to check that it's still wriggling away - although wriggling is one thing this LO has no problem with
This LO is either transverse or head down, it likes to curl up so goes transverse and then stretches out and is head down. It seriously can change from one hour to the next so I hope in the next few weeks it picks LOA and stays there!

Thanks kk thats a shame about you not getting the time you want with the docs, must be very annoying not being able to have a talk. I always say "I just wanted to ask..." if they try and rush me.

violet I like your way of thinking about the perfect size . I hope they manage to manually turn the baby for you, fingers crossed.

What is everyone up to today? Ive got Desperate Housewives and a film on the sky planner so thats pretty much my day sorted!
We picked up our new car yesterday which I havent driven yet so am going to take it to tesco to give it a spin, on my own!

mlic my god, what an absolute twat! I would have been screaming at the tv!

chulita erk, that's a bit scary. Thank goodness for a calm midwife, she sounds excellent.

kk that would drive me mad constantly being rushed out. Mind you as soon as I get into the mw's room I forget what I'm supposed to ask. It's occurred to me that I haven't discussed my birth plan yet, and I want to have a physiological 3rd stage and be in the birthing unit rather than delivery suite (it's a less medicalised unit within the maternity hosp with bean bags, balls etc). I must write it on my forehead for Monday or I'm going to forget again!

dh enjoy your new car! I'm just going to do a bit of yoga, then wash my hair. Dd has her first settling session at primary school this afternoon so will drive her there but then waddle walk to collect her later. Dh is home tonight thank god!

Just to clear up - lo's thigh bone is measuring bigger than ds's thigh bone; not longer than complete ds!!

funnily enough it doesn't feel as big as ds, but I guess it's just sitting more comfortably (ds was always up under my ribs).

Staying at my sisters and all our kids have suddenly got snotty colds. Praying it's not the start of the chicken pox as a few kids at her church have got it. Really can't handle stress of pox on top of pre-eclampsia and unresponsive baby and moving house! I feel like I've hardly had a chance to think about life after the birth, which is probably why I haven't got around to buying anything yet!!