March 06 The Arrivals!

[Frizbe]

Hi ladies, have created this to start our postnatal thread, so fire away!

Rom, glad your having lots of fun with your little one they're great at this age

Jackstini, the pox, argh, actually they're better getting it now, when they don't/can't scratch too much, dd1's not had it and there is only her and one other friend who didn't get it?? argh! she will be a mare if she does get it now that she's older, she's going to be so whingey

LL, how were your hols?

Uni, what are you doing??

Munz, have you made it home yet?

Thanks to all of your for being so kind about the funeral, really appreciate it.

Funeral wasn't too bad (one very funny hymn which couldn't possibly have been chosen by the family.....and dh kept whispering he's going to mention BMX bandit any moment now...for those of you who saw mitchell and web) it was nice, until the end when my auntie broke down and I thought the rest of us were going to follow suit too, but most managed to hold it together in that british way..... although my dad was rubbish with my mum, who did break down afterwards outside, he stood and looked at her like she was an alien, so I had to leap in and provide lots of cuddles.....
Cousin managed ok, but I think she's all cried out at the moment, and shes always one for putting on a good face her little one is still undergoing lots of tests, and it sounds like he's not been feeding too well so fingers still very x'd for them.
Nearly had to slap a random old family friend who mum was talking to as well, as turns out she works with the disabled, and in close ear shot of my cousin, she said, 'oh hydrocephalous, we have a few of those, prone to epilepsy(SP).....

friz- glad you got through a difficult day Ok.

I'm back- not been on line much for a couple of days. had a cold, been a bit couch potato in the evenings, busy in teh days. Boys 3rd tooth is STILL iminant, hurts him too and hes been very grumpy and needed lots of whole hearted attention so I can;t get away with MN during the day.
We went to a poetry gig today, a lunch time free event at teh libary- John Hegley- nice to be able to do something cultural with boy in tow. He was actully fine during teh gig, sat on daddy's lap and layed with a muslin and dads fingers, I think he quite liked the rythum of teh poems and the bits of music ( guitar and recorder).
Dh is upstaairs tackling a mountain of ironing, my parents are out so no answering their phone. Tomorrow is a big day at teh cricket club so an early night is planned to give me the best chance of getting enough sleep between boys frequent wakings.
Hes off his grub at the mo, so wakes hungrey in teh night, has a short feed falls asleep and is awake again in 2 hours, bluergh. tiredness fights with hunger and tiredness tends to win in teh short term.
However- hallejuah he has been accepting a few mouthfulls of fromage frais at tea time and teh odd crumb of biscuit or cake for the last few days, and today had some banana . Thankfully I'm not puritanital about organic lovingly home prepared purees etc or I'd be weeping in my boots by now.

Uni, 3rd tooth, wow boys doing well, the one dd2 cracked that time went down again and hasn't been seen since ? must be about to happen sometime soon, dd1 had two by now!
Sorry to hear boy been off food a bit and your off colour too, why is it, you can always lob in a fromage frais eh? its a sure fire thing, they're only really ill if they reject one of those

Horrible news on cousins lo, turns out to be a toxoplasmosis infection passed from mum to ds ... she doesn't have a clue as to how infected, as no pets and doesn't garden...very clean young lady too, the sort to always wash everything, got food hygine cert etc....can only think obtained whilst eating out? not sure she's aware of the consequences yet....according to web, treatment of drugs for 1st year of infancy, then almost certain brain damage/mental retardment

Oh Friz...don't know what to say, I'm just so sorry to hear that. Your cousin must be devestated. Will be praying for you all.

Having a rough time here (although not so rough in the light of what you are going through Friz) with our lad not eating or sleeping either...doesn't even want boob much. Hmmmm, what you say Uni is so true - tiredness fights with hunger and feed each other in a vicious cycle...too tired to eat, too hungry to sleep.
Also seems to be allergic to our washable nappies. We are trying fleece liners to see if that helps, but otherwise its back to disposable as am not willing to shell out another small fortune for a different type in case he reacts to them as well Sigh.

On the up-side, had a lovely picnic tea at Elvaston Castle this arvo with a friend whilst DH did some of his homework. It was the friend who has made some unkind comments about DD, but today she told m how lovely my kids are, so that was nice. Made me think she probably only says things (ie that my DD 'provokes' hers, and that makes her DD bite my DD) because she is defensive about her own DD (who doesn't speak at all yet, at 18 months). So anyway, it was a nice afternoon.

Hope you are all enjoying the weekend

Astro glad to hear you had a good day and friend was nice today
Is ds teething? sounds very much like it? have you tried the nelsons teething powders, they seem to cheer up grumpy girls here, although that been said,dd2 hasn't cracked any through yet....

Astro- re nappies. Have you tried a few extra rinses to get rid of all residual detergent. I was surprised how suddsy the extra rinses were when i did it the other day, will be doing it more often.
Flease liners are easy to make/ aquire and worth trying, I got 1/2 meter of thin flease for a pound or so. What make and model do you use?
Boy slept surprisingly well considering I had to do 2 feeds at bedtime coz he feel asleep and had a 10 minute nap inbetween, he refused to wake for a dream feed at 10.30 and went till 1.30 before he woke! 6 hours. Dh got up with him at 7 so I could have another hours sleep, bliss. I did discover that it lets dh watch match of teh day repeat

Uni, glad you got some rest. Its great when the DH gets up with the LO isn't it? My DH did for me this morning too

We use weenees nappies - they are sort of a prefold type system, but with microfibre cloth inserts. We are trying a few alternatives. Have now borrowed some cotton bottoms prefolds from a friend to see if his bum prefers the cotton over the microfibre, and are also trying fleee liners, and washing without any detergent at all. Overall he seems a bit better...but now we don't know which change has caused the improvement!

oh you lucky girls, my dh has been working all weekend again away for the last two days, he's just got back (is in bath!) and then is off to work again tomorrow early am its getting to the stage where I'll forget what he looks like soon.....luckily he's off next weekend, so hurrah, some family time again, the end is nigh!!

Hello, we're back from sunny Spain!!
Just caught up with the thread so hugs and smiles to all depending on your mood!
Friz - I know a bit about toxoplasmosis thru my past life as a city farmer and some people are much more resistant than others. For instance I could probably do a whole lambing season and be fine but someone else could just stroke a newborn lamb and become infected. It will be important for your cousin not to blame herself but guess that this will be easier said than done.

So....our holiday was good altho with the mastitis clearing and then the obligatory thrush appearing I got a bit down in the dumps. I was just starting to enjoy myself when it was time to come home. Only got in the jacuzzi and sauna on the last morning!
Tilly LOVED the pool, not so keen on the beach and coped very well with sharing a huge bed with her best buddy!! Dry each night too.
We flew back yesterday and BMIbaby had kindly left both our car seats in Malaga along with lots of other bags 'cos the plane was too heavy!!! Der! No staff at Manchester ("because it's a Saturday!") but a very kind man from BMI found us two seats from somewhere and we eventually left after 2 hours with 3 very tired and hungry kids (it was 8pm Spanish time by then).
Not impressed and won't get the seats til Tues now.
Ooh BTW Kiah sucked on a cucumber stick at a birthday party today!! Think I've started weaning her...

Friz - well if it helps, my DH only got up (I think) because I shouted and cried at him last night! (Could be worth a try )

Yay! LL is back! Glad you had fun, bummer about the car seats though - will they pay for you to hires some, or can you get buy without until then?

DS ate...wait for it...a slice of pizza and a peach last night. He loved it. We had to hose him down afterwards. Tonight he had a piece of buttered toast and a bit of banana, and we shoved yoghurt in when he forgot to close his mouth! I'd love him to go back to that 'little bird' feeding, but at least hes eating something now.

Uni, a nappy question - do you use paper liners as well as your fleece ones? And if not, how do you get rid of the poo on the fleece? (sorry!) You have tots bots, is that right?

at the pizza Astro, typcial boy eh!
LL, what I reckon is cause she's allergic to cats, it could have made reaction worse? trouble is she had no symptoms during preg? nothing showed on early scans? and it turns out you can have it 6mths before and it can still affect baby why oh why don't they screen for it here
Glad you had a fab hols in the end although big at BMI Baby for leaving your seats, how stupid of them, did the staff there not think at all....I reckon you should get some free flights out of this (stonking grrr letter and threats of THE SUN should do the trick...)

LL - I agree with Friz re the car seats - how thick are they that they did not realise you would need them to get home. Complete t*s. You should definately kick off and see what they do
Uni - we are having the waking every 2 hours at the mo - dd was really grizzly last 2 nights and then dh spotted signs of first tooth yesterday. Another vote for tooth powders - have got the Boots ones and they work a treat.
Friz about the toxioplasmosis - you are right we should screen for it. Never knew you could have it 6 months before getting pregnant and it still affect your baby . My heart goea yout to your cousin, will be praying for a miracle on that one. Thinking of your whole family in fact and hoping things can only get better for them.
Astro - glad you had a good weekend - am not far from Elvaston castle - is it good? Lol at the pizza - that made me smile on a rough Monday morning

LL boy is quite keen on sucking cucumber too, he mangled a Cuc ring at lunchtime today. gougeing chunkjsout with his bottom teeth which i guess he ate as I didn;t find them in teh high chair. Dh recoms he like it as much as teether as as food.
Astro- i don;t use paper liners, have tried them and found them very messy to deal with, cleaner nappy but muckyer baby. I may try again when his pooh is ,more solid.Flese liners i "pull " the lumpy stuff off with toliet paper and then just wash with nappies. I havn;t yet found a paper liner that I'm 100% happy about flushing either, they all seem rather solid paper, quite a few of our rural friends and relations are on septic tanks and flushing anothing more solid than toilet paper is a bad idea with a tank. Actullly its a bad idea with any toilet, increases the likelyhood of blocked drain massively and having had one of those in a previous house I dont; fancey it again.
Had a coil fitted this am, Dr got me worried by saying a few times, " you are being VERY relaxed about this let us know if its uncomfy" really wasn't any worse than a smear test and teh worst bit was teh stretch you open thing. Is it surposed to hurt?

Pizza!!! Am feeling a right old meanie denying Kiah such pleasures but then she is the youngest baby on the thread eh? Today she sucked carrot, broccoli and a CHIP as we were out for a girlie/toddler lunch.
Sarah, don't know much about coils sorry - we are finding that general grumpiness is a good contraceptive and also we forgot to pack any condoms for our hols LOL.
We still have the car seats from the airport to use until ours return so am waiting to write letter until we are in possession once more. Apparently BMIbaby has a policy which states that they don't give a flying f**k about left luggage whether it's a car seat ot not so I will suggesting that in light of the new law this is rather short sighted. Trouble is they don't seem to have any staff at airports so I guess they will just blame the Spanish baggage handlers...
Astro at the crying - know where you're coming from. When do you see the GP?

Oh Astro I use fleece liners too but am still dealing with liquid poo so just chuck the lot in the bucket - does weaned poo not just 'flop' off?
Why do you think he has just started to react to the nappies when you've been using them for so long?

Yeah, weird sin't it re the nappies. A friend who is a GP said that sometimes with allergies it sort of build up until you 'suddenly' get a reaction. BUT used the fleece liners today and seems to be helping. They feel completey dry don't they!? So, now I think maybe its just because he is weeing more and we are not changing more, so he was just getting too wet. Thats what I'm hoping anyway. Weaned poo is only sometimes better - I guess when he is eating more it will be much better and will just get shaken into toilet, but at the mo we use a Cotton Bottoms paper liner n the top. Interesting what you say about a 'messier boy' though Uni, I will def try without and see how I go.

I still haven't phoned the gp . Partly have not got round to it, partly because the receptionist at the gp is always really rude and makes me feel like i should grovel in order to get an appointment as they have this weird syetem where they like to only give appointment on the day. It drives me mad. but I will ring tomorrow and try and go wednesday whilst dd is at nursery.

Yeah could be he is just wetter then eh?
I keep meaning to ring the HV for a chat but TBH I need to do it when I'm feeling crap to be able to explain how I feel at the time. When I'm 'normal' I find it rather laughable that I lay awake for hours thinking that my whole family would be better off without me and that DP could then find himself a 'proper' mother for his kids!! Now I can see that the whole thing would collapse without me - even the potty wouldn't get emptied and who would peg out the nappies so beautifully?
Don't be put off by the receptionist tho as it's none of her business why you want to see your doctor. Be strong woman!!!

I will be strong tomorrow.

And I know what you mean. The other night I got up at 2 amd and sat downstairs and sobbed and wrote in a diary about how alone I felt, how distant I feel from DH, how I feel so sorry for the kids that I am their Mum and need to apologise to them every night, how I feel like giving up etc etc, but reading it back in the light of (a good) day, it seems like a different person! Its weird huh?

I've been finding that a lot of people I've talked to have said things like "well of course you feel down with a new baby and toddler and new country blah blah" which doesn't actually help I've got to say. Whe I explain that I am having very unusual (for me) and exagerated emotions in response to these difficult things people seem to get a better understanding of where I am at. Does that make sense to you?

(sorry for the tangent everyone else!)

Astro, its good that you are writing it down tho, as it helps to get a perspective, its also good that your going to ring docs and go, its all steps in the right direction, if it helps, my friend who is going through the same thing, has had a perscreption for the last month, will be reviewed this week, but she says just the tablets have helped her so much to right her thinking, whilst another friend who went throught the same with her 1st, has said she took the pills for a few months and that was all that was needed to get her brain back on the right track, she came off them with no further probs or councilling. HTH's
I'm wondering if your cow of a docs receptioninst used to work for me! had someone leave an office once, who went to work at a docs in derby and she was horrible and its not very often I say that about someone.....

LL lol at your methods of contreception I found that a fit of the giggles the other night (I'd had a glass or two of wine as weaning off the boob now) was enough to not only put dh off that evening, but he hardly spoke to me last night either oopse.......
Sorry to hear your feeling rubbish in places too

Uni I think its supposed to be uncomfy whilst they're fitting it, but not painful, maybe his last patient was a screamer?

Jackstini, thanks for your kind thoughts

Right girls off to Yoga with creche, hurrah!

Hello all.
Friz, how was the yoga - are you a bendy size 6 now?
Astro I totally understand what you are going through and remember last time that the thing that annoyed me most was when my friends said 'oh but I don't think you're depressed'! As if they could have any idea how I felt sometimes!! I have to take Kiah to the docs about her rash (not cleared so not impetigo?) so think I will mention my feelings again. I did do this with the female doc at our practise and she arranged a follow up visit but since then her partner (also practise doc) has got terminal cancer and she has been off so I haven't seen her. I feel guilty talking about my probs when she must be having a much worse time.

Well my maternity leave officially finished today so have to think about some childcare etc. Tilly was a day a week at nursery by now but Kiah is a complete mummy's girl so will have to start leaving her with my Mum a bit.

She had banana at brekkie and actually ate some so an hour later did an orange slimy poo!! I was a bit upset at the end of bf poos! OMG think I may be getting broody! Anyone else feeling like this? Please help me through it, I know it will pass soon...

By the way we still haven't got our car seats! The courier company delivered our friend's bag today but have no record of our missing seats. BMIbaby apparently don't even have staff to answer the phones.....

at BMIBaby....I hope they turn up soon....
LL am certainly not a bendy size 6 yet! in fact very much doubt I ever will be
lol at Banana poo, did it have the little black bits in it too
Make sure you mention how you feel to the doc today hon, hope Kiahs rash gets sorted soon.
Astro how did you get on?
Hi Munz, Uni, Caddy, Jackstini, Rom how you all doing?
Have woken up with plague...well it came on last night actually, doing a nice variation between hot n cold at the mo, but can't stop, as two little un's to look after, sigh......dd1's last swim with me today, before she goes upto big group , she's also starting pre school a month early at nursery, as they tried her in their yest and she loved it! 5 of her friends are moving at the same time, so its a good time to go up a group as well too school next yikes!

hiya all, just a quick note b4 our P&T group. boy did v v well last night - v pleased althou will prob not be good again! lol.

will come back on tonight - what do u all reocn to starting off a new thread (will dot he stats tonight as well) I've noticed we're the only ones I think still on our origional thread! lol.

boy's 7 months today anyhow will talk more tonight once he's down for the night and I can concentrate properly!

Lol Munz, so we are! go for it with the new thread and well done to Joey

Hi all, just a quick update - went to the GP who was very nice. She said 'If your child was ill you would move heaven and earth to get them better, and your whole family life would be adjusted to do the things that might make her/him better. You need to do the same for yourself." I found that v helpful. I just need to make DH reslise it now! He really is lovely, and he does care, but he seems to be hoping that all he needs to do is ask me how I am for a few days and I'll be better! Men! Anyway, I am trying to think of a couple of things I would like to do once a week/fortnight for ME and then think of ways to be able to do those things. Ideas??

So far I'd like to do some excersize (netball, basketball or join the gym?) and a hobby/craft maybe scrapbooking as I used to do it back in Sydney.

Anyway, sorry, me me me and now the lad is crying before I've even asked how all of you are going...