June 2008: Nine months in, nine months out

[Essie3]

Here's to the next nine months!

Ali, if last night was a one off which it probably was I'll be joining you on the cc route when we have an empty house.

Ali - I don't enjoy the ironing - but it's part of my job so to be able to get on with it uninterrupted deserves a !!

You Ali, and Deb, and Sponge on the moral support list now!

Sponge sounds good, right? Because maybe it's hard to confirm a heartbeat because Spongelet is the size of a peppercorn, but nothing else is moving to be mistaken for a heartbeat, so surely that's a good sign that there is a heartbeat there? This week's wait will be awful!

Sorry, another moment of rambling. My eyes filled with tears at the thought of a baby's heart beating so early on, under two months. Just the whole biology of it. It's truly amazing, isn't it?

I've been out for the past few hours as soon as I came in I switched on the computer so see if there was any news from Sponge. So pleased it's good news and yes, Essie, it's a little miracle isn't it?

Ali and Deb I may need to join you on sleep training as I am becoming too tired to function at my usual C-?- (did anyone else have tutors that use that marking scheme? DH and I use it regularly!). The only problem is that I'm too befuddled to know what I want to do to achieve my aim of a baby who sleeps at night in her own bed. So I will see what you decide and copy

Every room in our house has heaps of DH's work papers in it and he is pacing round the place practicing submissions . I know he's busy and stressed but I would really like it if the heaps were confined to his study.

that is great news sponge - I know this will be a long week but every scan is a little hurdle.

ali/essie/rolf/deb/amber sorry for those having continuing sleeping problems - had bad night here .came back just before midnight (e had been fine for the babysitter) , went in to check no edie who of course opened her eyes and started to grin the minute I was tehre... then took 2 1/2 hours to resettle her. Well I say resettle her but nothing really worked (milk, calpol, cuddles) .. in end got her semi calm (good luck to all those cc..the trouble is with that is I couldnt sleep) and she did drop off but I feel like shit as didnt get to sleep til some time after that.

re sleep association as I said before edie likes to be cuddled -she can be put down almost asleep but I've not had much luck outside the car/pushchair in getting her to sleep (as we speak she is protesting in her cot). Given all the change about to happen with her I am minded to be careful about not letting her sleep on me (cuddle only ) but let the association die out in time (she is better than she was).

essie/ali re milk feeds - edie has dropped herself to 3 a day .. I know that is recommended but it is was accidental as she lost intereste in first her teatime feed then her midmorning feed. that said if she is not eating much like yestrday I do restate extra feeds.

Re Milk feeds - Luke still has just as much milk as he ever has - should I be reducing his milk intake?

Don't know, Amber! Possibly not? The reading matter all says that their main nutrition should be from milk, yet I was told that dropping feeds now is normal. Is he eating loads?
Mind you, here it's more of an issue because Iestyn won't take a bottle, so I was being reassured that he won't fade away.

Hi guys, thank you for all your lovely messages. I sent the text from the hospital waiting room before we'd had our proper chat with the consultant and unfortunately she slightly rained on our parade. Conversation went something like this:

Doctor - it's still too early to say for definite what we saw, but we can definitely see the fetal pole and fetal echo

Me - what about the heartbeat

Doctor - we saw somthing that looked like a pulse but we can't be sure what it was, it could be your pulse it could be the heartbeat

Me - it looked like the heartbeat to me, it looked like the one we saw on Alex's scan

Doctor - if it was it's too slow to be a healthy heartbeat and you will have a miscarriage

Me - Oh -

Why did she have to tell me that? I could have just gone away thinking it was the HB and been in blissful ignorance. It wouldn't have made it any harder if we lose the baby . Why do doctors have to be so f*cking brutal .

Don't know how I'm going to get through this week .

Sorry. I know I should try and stay positive, but when you've had bad news as often as we have it's hard not to fear the worst .

sponge oh no - what a crap place to leave you in for the week! I hope it's all okay and you're just going to have a very long week while you wait for the next scan. Hugs and more cotton wool!

fuck me who teaches these people bed side manner sponge am on your behalf... fwiw having had 2 scans at the point you did which were bad news it is really obvious (or was to the scanning people) that there was nothing there -they weren't telling me to come back next week.

lots of nice vibes coming your way... put the gavin and stacey on

Right better wake up the amazing sleeping daughter..

amber if he wants milk I'd not worry about it - he needs it - edie just really didn't want it and started turning her head away hence dropped the feeds.

sponge echo what poppy said - there was absolutely no need for the Dr to be so blunt with you, am on your behalf. I have all my fingers and toes crossed for you and spongelet

amber I've been wondering the same thing about feeds. Alexander is still on 5 big bottles a day and is showing no sign of wanting to drop any of these. His eating as such is varied, sometimes he eats all his meals and sometimes barely nothing. I'm just planning to go with it for now

ali/any others with sleep issues, I sympathise, I really do. A's sleep patterns are all over the place. The past week has been horrendous and I am exhausted. I ache all over from the constant waking and soothing. Last night bizarrely he slept for 5/6 hours without waking, but I'm taking this as a one-off.

essie I've been feeling similar to you on the bf thing. Up until the last 4 nights, A was still feeding a bit in the night. He is uninterested any time when he's awake, and will just look in amazement at my boob if his eyes are open, then grab at it with his fingers or bite it. The last 4 nights, he hasn't fed at all, and so I'm taking this as presumably the end of bf. This makes me a bit . Really I know I should be pleased that he no longer needs the night feeds, but it is hard to get too excited when he still wakes so much regardless

Has whinegums gone on her Madrid trip yet?

Sorry haven't been able to read the rest of posts yet and so haven't responded to anyone else

Oh Sponge, what an awful thing to be told. I am and for you and your family.

Ok ladies, I am 7 minutes into controlled crying. Decided to go for it by myself. I will keep you posted...

It's not been a nice feeling waiting for it. Realized that it is like dumping a boyfriend. You have made your mind up but the other person doesn't realize that you are about to break all trust.

It's just gone alot quieter!!!

I think he just went to sleep in 11 minutes .

Now what do I do?

I just went and peeked and he is face down diagonally across the bottom of his cot , but he is asleep .

I feel all wobbly and crap now. Not sure why. Think I will ring my Mum. Will be back later.

Sponge - what a crappy thing for her to say. I would try to ignore that 'sage' piece of wisdom and just wait to see what the next scan brings. Everything here will remain crossed for you.

Ali - now you get to sit down with your feet up and feel smug that the rest of us are still chasing lo's around the carpet and will still be doing so at 9. Although dh is away tonight so if not for Jamie I would have no one to talk it. Even if 'talking' consists mainly of saying -
'no, don't play with wires'
'no, don't stand up there you'll bang your head'
'no,don't touch the radiator'

well you get the general message!

LOL Sybil. I have made a celebratory G&T, and my dinner is cooking (chicken pie - yum). I am expecting him to wake up in the next 10 mins though as this is what normally happens 40mins in.

Yep..woke up after 40 mins. He is very angry...

I wont post a blow by blow account of the whole of my evening. I could fill the rest of the thread up.

Oh,Sponge. Focus on all those 'ifs', and what Poppy said. Can you get a private scan? My friend did that, bleeding early on, previous pg was a m/c, so decided that even if she had to starve for a week she was paying for that scan. She's now 28 weeks and still ok. I'm desperately thinking of something to make you feel better but I don't think there is anything.

Ali do post, I was thinking of you whilst settling Iestyn. I will no doubt be thinking of you at 3am (Iestyn's favourite waking time). Did Peter go back to sleep or is he still angry? (Lovely image there, btw, I can picture him all angry!)

Essie - he stayed angry for 30 mins, but then went back to sleep, this time at the top of the cot on his side with his head bent back .

Ali - DS1 still sleeps in crazy positions - I'm sure Peter is perfectly comfortable!

Just checking in to see how things are with Sponge and sorry to hear today has left you with such a worry. I'm sending you positive vibes and wish I could do something more to help you through the week!

The one thing you should do though is try and keep really busy over the next week.

Sorry to all those having sleeping problems. I've lost track of who's having what issues because I've not been able to keep up very well over the last week or so. S is still really hit or miss which makes me reluctant to start CC, although I'm generally in favour of people giving it a go. Some nights S sleeps beautifully, others he wails half the night unless we bring him into our bed and others he just needs the dummy plugged in and will go straight back to sleep. There's no rhyme or reason to it either.

Must confess though that I'm starting to feel sad about him going off to nursery next week, so when he woke up about midnight the other night, I said to DH, oh I think its going to be one of those nights (had no evidence of this AT ALL) so he should come in with us. All so I could just have a nice snuggle with my baby for the night . DH said he woke in the night and me and S were all snuggled up together and it was really cute.

Good luck tonight Ali - I really need to get back to my studying!

Sponge - take care.

You say that like it's a bad thing Ali!

Sponge- nothing I can say that hasn't been said. Send extra cotton wool x

Amber- eek! There's early and there's early. Send you virtual baby sleeping tablets (isn't that Medised?!)

Everyone else- I only skim read as I'm so tired. I didn't mean to miss you or ignore you. I send you all Creme Eggs!!

sponge virtual cotton wool here too. what a strange, thoughtless and hurtful way for the consultant to speak to you hopefully what she was trying to say was that it most likely your own heart beat, and next week you'll see a little one racing along beside it! keep the positive thoughts going, remember your hCG is climbing and you feel sick, good things! Also, most pregnancies aren't scanned until much later, so perhaps they are just not as accurate at the moment. hugs and cotton wool for the next week.

Good luck with the crying sleeping thing people, sending zzzzz vibes x

Good morning everyone! -5 here and frosty, it's a beautiful view from my window (not quite as good as Josey's but if you ignore the house across the street, the hills are nice).

We gambled and didn't give Fraser calprofen last night, figuring he mustn't be teething every night and he slept until 3! The night before he was up at 11 so this is a huge improvement and gives me hope. He was up again at 6am but that's DH's job to get up with him then so I had a good night .

bdq I know what you mean - I always am tempted to leave Fraser in bed with us for a cuddle but when I do, I invariably sleep worse and that's not a good thing. I've less than two months left before I go back to work - time is going by way too quickly! I know that I was extremely lucky to take 11 months off though!