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

[DesperateHousewife21]

Possibly our last ante-natal thread ladies!

fab news kk you need to let us know what u's get up to. As i missed mine we are having a pink party after lo's born. Cant wait to hear bout saturday. I feel as if i'm never away from the hospital, it was the same with ds towards the end of his pregnancy. Worth it to know the lo is safe

Aw that sounds so cute viks the stopping and starting with pains is a nightmare isnt it? Think by this point we're all wishing lo's would make an appearance

wwsw know what you mean, be great just to be me again with the added bonus of a gorgeous dd and i wouldnt care if i go in the middle of any footy match lol

memphis when i had the pains last saturday they were registering on the machine but like you my cervix was hard and closed. But my plugs been coming away so who knows

another thing i meant to ask has anyone heard of having to wake lo during the night for a feed even if they aren't looking for it? X

Rule number 1 stac "Do not wake up a sleeping baby"
Another good one I got from a lady in a pharmacy before DD was born. "Whatever you do. Do not put the light on at night." xx

I think the only time you would wake a lo in the night would be if they were a bit poorly - dd was born with jaundice and we were told to wake her if she slept for more than 5 hours - she never did!! I didn't realise janudice made them sleepy - thought we had an angel baby, waking every 4 hours - till it cleared up and she started waking every 2 hours and feeding non-stop all day.

Agree with the lights - little nightlights from Ikea that just give you enough light to see what you are doing were great (goes to add to things to find list). A few friends did a dream feed - basically getting lo up at around 11pm and doing a sleepy feed in the hope she'll sleep through till morning.

Well I have until noon to do jobs - want to clean the bathroom and try to get some of dd's stained nursery clothes clean, dining room could do with a sweep and clean too - wonder when I'll get time for all the reading and knitting I thought I'd do on mat leave? (probably when I stop spending so much time on mn) Then I have MW, then need to go get dd from mil's quite early - am missing footie so that dh can go see it.

GlastonburyGoddess - that sounds right - they probably do teach MWs how to do breech delivery but then they never get a chance to put into practice what they are taught. Sad really!

I'm meeting a girl that DH works with today for lunch. She had a c-section with her first so she's going to talk me through it all.

I'm now emptying my labour bag - removing my aromatherapy massage oils and fairy lights and replacing them with arnica cream and granny pants. . I'm also going to print out my new c-section birth plan today and finalise my suitcase for the 4-5 day stay in hospital.

Seems like a few of us have a busy day ahead of us. I will of course be pausing for the Gilmore Girls at 10.20am . x

stac my SIL had that problem, her baby was so laid back and placid when he was born he would regularly sleep for 6-7 hours at night without a feed, Im pretty sure her HV told her not to wake him and if he was hungry he would wake himself.

emster about what you said about feeling LO's hiccups in your side, Im the same, hes apparently 3/5ths engaged, maybe more now but I only ever feel his hiccups on the right hand side, I put this down to maybe hes turned his head to the right but is still head down if that makes sense?

Ive got some very sad news, my friend who I met on here and added on facebook was a few weeks behind me, at 32 weeks. Her beautiful baby girl was born asleep yesterday, found out this morning and I cried and cried it was her first baby and just cant imagine what she's going through.

dh how awful. Some people have to go through so much, its not fair, my cousin lost a baby at 3 days and went through 7 miscarriages - she has 2 healthy preschoolers now, but I can't imagine that sort of pain. I guess you just have to find a way of dealing with whatever life throws at you. So messy life and love though isn't it - never quite what you plan for.

oh dh thats terrible news .the poor poor girl. cant imagine getting to that far and then something like that happening. dont let it get you worrying again though as it is so rare for these things to happen.god love her .
wwsw and stac yeah it is fab isnt it?! wasnt very enthusiastic or excited when mum rang and told me but im excited this morn! think i was just over tired and prob didnt sound very grateful on the phone! must ring her and be a bit happier today! and like you both i cant wait to have my body back to myself. really fed up at this stage! havent a clue what you do at baby showers so looking forward to it.
wel i've been awake since half 6 .hate when that happens! have hospital now in half an hour and no doubt il be left sitting there for 3 hours fighting to stay awake only to be in and out in less than a minute! cant wait to get home and sleep though.
how are you feeling today memphis?
ooh just remembered there i had a dream last night that chulita had her baby.random i know but im a weirdo when it comes to dreams!xx

DH21 - so sorry to hear about your friend and her beautiful angel

Morning all

Well after my busy day yesterday I think I will have a quieter one today. I was out in the garden til it went dark at 10pm last night! Off for a clary sage bath shortly then will attempt to do a pedicure... weighing an extra 2 stone and having very bony flat feet is not great. And I want to change to colour of my toes from a slightly unhinged looking yellow to a more grown up and mummy-ish coral.

dh I feel hiccups on the side - baby is fully head down and mw couldn't feel anything of his/her head on Monday but s/he is still lying on the left side so I get all the hiccups on that side and kicks on the right side V strange as dd was always locked straight down so I guess that shows how much more room there is this time I'm so so sorry about your friend

violet I'm liking your priorities! Granny pants rule

wonder I always dream fed dd between 10 and 11 which got her through til 2, then 5 then 8. She was a real guzzler and I'm hoping to get dh to do the late night feed so I can go to bed extra early, then later switching to formula for that last feed. I don't know, we shall see how it goes.

Hope everyone has a good day!

Thank you all so much for your kind words, it would mean alot to her to know she has so much support.

mlic yeah I think it prob is different all round the country, tbh I wouldnt want to leave him more than 4 or 5 hours without a feed. Saying that I bet my LO wakes every hour now!

Im off to see my friend this morning, then have to go to the council offices (boring) then going to come home, have lunch and watch the footie! (not usually a footy fan but what the hell!)

I walked around so much yesterday while shopping my groin really hurts today, I think exercise is def bad for me!

That's so terrible for your friend. I can't imagine what she going through.

With regards to night feeding, with DS (and I intend to do the same again) I expressed last thing at night before I went to bed (9.30/10ish) and DH gave it to him in a bottle at 11pm just before he came to bed. Didn't pick him up or anything. Just stuck a bottle in his mouth and he would chug it down without waking.

I also used to express at about 2.30/3am for the first few weeks and DH gave it him again (much quicker than BFing and DS didn't wake). Then I BFed all throughout the day.

DS slept from 7-7 from about 3 weeks old, so this method worked really well for us.

Is anyone taking raspberry leaf tea or tablets?

I started this week (37 weeks) with six 400g tablets a day (two with each meal) and three cups of tea. I've now been googling and am afraid that this is excessive. It's hard to get consistent advice though.

kk still feeling quite a bit of pain but im just trying to deal with it so it doesnt consume me trying to think positive and think even if 1 get to edd its 16 days i just cant bear thought of if i go over i could be pregnant in 30 days
dh your poor friend it makes me realise how lucky we are to be able to carry our babies.
i had 2 vivid dreams last night, one was that the baby got delivered to the door by a carnival float dropping him off! and the other one was that we was born wearing an outfit from pumpkin patch with thick brown hair, ive had so many dreams that he has brown hair i think if he comes out blonde or ginger i will be shocked and say no i ordered one with brown hair!
so warm already i think i may go for a wander around the shops i wanted to wash the dog but dh wont let me lift him into bath alone!

kkfairybrains LO's still cooking! DH can't wait though, apparently pregnancy doesn't agree with him!

DH is that the lady from the August thread?

chulita yeah she may well be as she was a few weeks behind me. I cant remember what her MN name is though as I talk to her through facebook now. Its so very sad

memphis imagine your LO being delivered by a carnival float! That would be some delivery lol. Pumpkin patch is so sweet!

DH if it is the same lady on the August thread we're planning to buy her a gift to remember her little girl if you're interested. Her MN name is CazEm, don't know if that jogs your memory, her little girl is called Belle.

cant stop thinking about that poor girl .
all this talk of dream feeds is leaving me scared and confused! how do you do it when they're asleep? how do you get their wind up?
just back from hospital and evrything is fine.head engaged but dunno if its fully engaged or not cos they dont tell you these things here . i got splints to wear on my hands for the carpal tunnel and they're not the easiest thing to type in!back in 2 weeks if im stil here! il be 3 days overdue then! i asked did she think she'd see me in 2 weeks and she said she didnt know its very hard to predict.they dont give much away!
memphis that must be horrible.im in bad enough form with the odd pain and twinge so cant imagine how you must feel x

We didn't do a dreamfeed with DD, for the first few weeks she was never asleep longer than about 20 mins anyway so it wouldn't have worked. We really struggled with sleeping though so maybe it would've been a good idea! Some babies don't need winding, DD didn't, she'd guzzle her feed and then be fine afterwards.
That's great that your LO's engaged kkfairy Hopefully you won't have to go back in 2 weeks (unless you want to show your baby off!)
memphis sorry your still suffering, do baths help?

KK for some reason he didn't seem to need as much winding at night - maybe because he was more relaxed and less guzzly?

A couple of times he wriggled a bit and DH rubbed his tummy until some gas came up, but usually it came up by itself in a much more relaxed way. When I BFed in the day he used to howl and squirm for ages before bringing up giant belches, but I'm sure thats because the greedy little man just couldn't get it as fast as he liked and ended up swallowing loads of air

Also, as far as the 'never wake a sleeping baby' thing goes, that is fine, if you have no life/routine/work/socialising and are able to sleep when baby does and don't care if you end up nocturnal.

Thing is, if baby is asleep at 4 and still hasn't woken up by 5 I will wake it up. Otherwise it's going to wake up around 7 or 8 and decide that it's awake for the evening, or worse, go back to sleep but decide it's morning at 2 am!!

It's up to you, and in those first few days I absolutely slept when baby did and tried not to wake him up, but personally, I wouldn't let that go on for very long.

I value my evenings/nights too much. It's no good having baby sleep all through toddler group and then awake all night when you have nothing to entertain it!

Ok, clary sage bath in the morning whilst lovely has left me good for nothing! Sooooo relaxed now. But at least my hair is clean, bikini line tidied and toenails a much more grown up colour My hair needs dyeing so might see if mum can do it later this week. Sorry for being so vain, it's just I know that for a good few weeks after birth I really won't want to bother - spare time is for sleeping then!

kk the only time dd would burp was in her sleep! She was such a nightmare. Infacol did nothing, but gripe water ALWAYS brought it up! Must get some more - still use it with dd when she has tummy ache and also I have a good glug if I'm a bit windy

gracie did ds wake you at 2:30/3 and you fed and expressed at the same time or did you wake before him, express and then go back to sleep? Sorry am probably being a bit dim I never got on with expressing but I really want to this time so just looking for tips as to best time to do it.

I completely agree gracie, the first week or so fine, sleep when you can and you both recover from the birth. But I also value my evenings and really want baby to slot into dd's routine as soon as possible, so a good bedtime routine (even if bed is the carrycot in the front room to start with). I feel like I did alot wrong with dd, she never really had a bedtime routine, was in our room far too long, didn't try her with a bottle of ebm til she was 8 weeks...I just struggled to keep going but I feel much better prepared this time.

Need to get over the nemesis of expressing!