June 08: I see it, I want it, it's mine!

[spongebrainmaternitypants]

Welcome to our new thread .

Allnew still no walking here- she was late to sit up and crawl so not surprised.
Great news re house amber.

Children should not wear shoes until they are walking outdoors aparently - that's what I read. They only need shoes to support thwir ankles when walking a lot but bare feet are best for learning to walk

link

Debs - how exciting - just seen you on telly! Your kids are gorgeous and so is Austria - you'll probably get loads of bookings now! If it doesn't work out you should open a fish and chip shop in your village

Re house, Mark has worried me that the biggest falling point is when we have the surveyors do a valuation as they will only lend 75% of the value they put on it. They always value too low. God it's awful trying to buy a place - so worrying.

Just done a pregnancy test and another negative. 5 months now. HOw long should you wait aged 36 and a half before seeing the doctor?

Had a look in Clarks today and it was heaving so J is going to do without shoes for a bit longer. How silly about the nursery BDQ, surely it is your decision and what idiots with the pink shoes. I only want some for J as he seems a lot keener on walking when he is outside, fine in bare feet in the garden or when the weather is OK but there are times when he could do with some shoes.

Saw the midwife today, everything was OK. They have really cut down on how often they see you round here. This was only my second appointment at 17wks and not going again until October, which seems a long time to me.

Allnew- how rubbish that the nursery lost an outfit.

BDQ - you can come round to my house and clean the loo if you like, not a job I relish!

Amber - congrats on the exchange of contracts, seems to have happened very quickly.

Poppy - I laughed about the farmer! Postman Pat had his nose bitten here yesterday.

Debs - surely Yorkshire is the best!

x post Amber! Hope your survey goes well, when is it?
Can you just go and have a chat with your doctor?

Hey Deb, James and I just watched you on Sky+. It was lovely. We both cooed at little baby Ethan. James was impressed in the first shot of him how he looks very much like he did when we saw him in June. Your other boys were lovely too. I thought you looked fantastic and sounded entirely coherent despite BF whilst on TV. More than I could manage. We also laughed at the enthusiastic dog at the end. I am also interested to know what bits they cut out.

Sybil sounds like a nightmare in Clarks. BDQ & Ktpie you come from the same place as me on holding off on the shoes. It says in the NHS "Birth to 5" book that it is better not to get proper shoes fitted until they have been walking confidently for six weeks. P has also spent most of the summer in bare feet with the odd pair of socks or soft leather shoes when necessary. It seems to me that Clarks marketing "crawling" and "cruising" shoes is just an enormous marketing con. P has been walking now for about a month and only confidently for a couple of weeks. I think we will be waiting until the schools are back before going to trotters which sells a number of different makes.

Gosh, that was a bit of a rant. Sorry. Better go, DH waiting for me.

Deb loved seeing you and your lovely boys on TV

Allnew no walking here yet either, but we had no crawling until nearly 11 months so I'm not holding my breath. C loves holding our hands and walking that way, but she doesn't have any inclination to let go and stand unaided, never mind walk!

Shoes go to John Lewis instead, the one we went to to get Lottie's feet measured was great. They have a machine that gives you a ticket with a time to come back, and it was really accurate and saved sitting and waiting for your number to be called. They also told me it wan't worth getting cruising shoes and to wait until she was walking outside before buying any shoes, thereby saving me money! hooray.

sponge and KTpie glad all seems to be going well with the babies! sorry about the SPD.

we had more vomiting at lunchtime today. [sigh] I would try leaving out dairy, but milk and cheese seems to be all she wants to eat.

viva sorry to hear about the vomitting

That's good advice about the shoes - if I hadn't read that I think I would have felt I needed to rush out and get some as soon as he started walking (at least can hold off on that expense for another while!)

A is the other way round though - he crawled at 7 months but is now 14 months and has no inclination to walk on his own, although he loves strolling round with his walker

Lottie loves her stroller too, particularly when just out the bath before I manage to catch her to dress her for bed. She loves to do a naked streak - it's hilarious

Theo was 14.5mths before he walked - didn't look like walking at all then one day just started doing it!

Amber, sorry personal question, but is your cycle regular and when are you having sex? Cos it has suprised me this time, taking my temps, that I am ovulating on day 18 of my cycle (28 day cycle) not day 14 which is normal. If I hadn't been taking my temps I would have been shagging around day 14 and probably stopped for a rest by day 18! So perhaps it is more timing than anything else? It doesn't hurt to go see your doc anyway just to get in the system, but you can always go private if necessary, I did for the Clomid for the twins.

Amber - sorry to hear it was a negative for you again. It's worth going to the Dr for a chat and see what they say

We've just watched the programme again without distractions and in the 3rd house I say "It's quite a big room" to which Nigel replied "Remarkably small" - LOL

Bits on the cutting room floor include a traditional procession through the village here, a chat to another Austrian friend ( complete with lederhosen), my visit to toddler group in the UK, a walk with friends at Aysgarth falls - a morning of filming and their girls are devastated that they're not on telly , Nigel playing tennis ith a friend and having a pint, and going to a theme park with sil and bil!

You could tell the director in Austria who had young children was at ease with breastfeeding, no sign of it in the UK with the childless director there!

Ethan's not walking either

LOL Deb, I did notice that Ethan mysteriously disappeared in the UK!

by the way, wrt Scotland, would your qualifications allow you to teach here? I thought that Scottish teachers were able to switch, but you'd need to do a conversion to teach in Scotland. Not that I'm trying to put you off - I would commend it to you!

In the UK Ethan was often being looked after by the researcher!

Don't know about teaching in Scotland- will have to find out

Shoes, I'm with others on thinking that the crawling/cruising shoes are a total rip off. I mean, why does a baby need shoes to crawl?! I have not been hugely impressed with Clarks either, so maybe will change to JL next time. We bought A his first pair of shoes on 31st July and he has already grown out of them !

My mum has said that shoes were one of the biggest expense they faced when us four were small - and she always refused to use hand me downs or second hand shoes because she believed that shoes should always be new to mold to your own feet. Don't know if anyone knows how true that is? How on earth they managed to afford to buy us shoes on their budget I don't know .

Amber, sorry to hear you've had another disappointment . I would echo what others have said about having a chat with your doctor, but it depends on what s/he is like as to whether they would do anything at this stage. Are you still on meds for your thyroid? Have they been checked? You've also been under a lot of stress recently, with illness and the house move, etc, which isn't going to help . Going private is definitely an option that I would explore too.

Lol at the disappearing baby Deb! I hadn't actually noticed that Ethan only appeared in Austria and not in the UK! The Aysgarth Falls shots would have been lovely - that was one of our favourite places when we lived there.

Thanks for all the sympathy on the SPD - tbh the sciatica is worse than the SPD at the moment. Didn't have this with A and it is unbelievably painful and also makes walking very difficult . It's worse at the end of evening, when I've been on the sofa all night then need to get to bed - my left leg has no strength in it whatsoever . Not sure if there's anything I can do to relieve it, but if anyone else has suffered the same and has any tips, do share!

viva, so sorry to hear Lottie is still being sick - poor little girl .

Poor you Sponge - what a nightmare. I had SPD and that was bad enough but only had it in the last two months where you seem to have had it from day 1!

Thanks for the TTC comments. My cycle seems to have regulated in the last couple of months and I have been doing the pee sticks but they never really show the 'surge' that you are supposed to have. When I did have a surge was on day 13 so we just did it again at the same time this month. Will have a chat with the doc, she's nice but clearly not a fertility expert. My thyroid function is almost normal now. I have another test in 4 weeks. Neenz how much did it cost to go private if you don't mind me asking? Mark and I are broke because of the house!

Oh by the way the survey is the beginning of next week so I will probably not sleep until then!

Luke has MMR related mumps today - he was up twice in the night and only settled after milk/calpol. His glands are enormous. Apartenly it is rare to get that - flaming typical!

sponge I had sciatica with Fraser but not till 8months so the hospital physio wouldn't see me as they thought I'd give birth before I could get an appointment. Can you get to see a physio sooner rather than later? It was absolutely horrible so you've my sympathy!!

amber I used the temperature method to concieve my boys as my cycle is so irregular we could have been waiting for ages. I would recommend the whole temperature/cervical mucus thing although I know it's a pain to do. It is horribly stressful, I know where you're coming from!

I have the vomiting bug right now I was up sick last night and am feeling very fragile today. D's at home with me too as he's really tired and has pre-school this afternoon. At least he's much easier to take care of than Fraser - DH took F to nursery and will bring him home this afternoon.

Deb I'm watching your programme while I write this. You look fantastic! And the boys are so gorgeous. It must have been a really difficult decision and now the wait to sell your place must be hard.

That area of Yorkshire is one of the few places in England that we've been as friends live there. It's fantastic! I think the idea of being mortgage free is really wonderful too. Friends of ours managed it by moving up here from the south east five years ago. It just takes so much stress off their lives and lets them really focus on what they want as a family. DH and I have talked about it but we're still 24 years away... Of course 24 years ago inflation should mean that our mortgage will be tiny.

I always used the cervical mucus as a guide ttc and found it really effective, but Amber I think a trip to you doctor is perfectly reasonable, if only to get the ball rolling.

Neenz, I do always buy from Clarkes. Both kids have unusual feet. DS1 has a really high instep which requires a deep shoe and wider than average fitting, and he also has very narrow ankles which means he needs fastenings very close to his ankle or he walks out of his shoes. DD has very narrow ankles which require close to the ankle straps but also three toes exactly the same length, so she needs a broad toe with very little shaping. For these reasons I do need to get their shoes properly fitted so Clarkes it is. I don't mind paying the money but I would like the shopping experience to be a little less horrific. I have gone to JL on occasion but find the queues offputting plus I love JL and end buying far too much in the rest of the shop . Clarkes is safer!

three toes on each foot, that should be. Not just three random toes out of the ten! Apparently this means she will be good at dancing 'en pointe' in ballet. Should she ever want to...

Well I would use the cervical mucus technique but I don't seem to have any at any point in my cycle! Blimey - maybe I'm going through an early menopause...

Amber sympathies re ttc as I am in same boat. I can't tell with mucus and stuffed up completely on temperature. I think I have said before that the normal pee sticks are IMHO pissing your money away. I would bite the bullet and buy a clearblue digital monitor as these work well- also it was money well spent as I bought it the month I fell pregnant with Edie. Can send a link to good site for this If you like.

Completely echo what sponge says re stress no helpin nor thyroid meds. Gp will likely say keep trying as it can take a year ESP at our age - have bow heard this from three different sources (my gp, zita west midwife who probably sees more than her fair share of ttc women and private doc at my medical a few weeks ago). The last doc made a good point that it can take six months to a yEar and first babies aren't always a guide to how long it takes to conceive again.

There was also a good times article about Cutting out caffeine and booze- i know this is obvious bit effect on conception is startling- will find link but eem more than two cups of starbucks type coffee a day has significant effect (something like 20% less).

Just wanted you to know you are not only one on here who isn't having much luck and is worrying about it (

Ah sorry you are feeling yuck .

Best go as dh asleep and Edie looking forlorn while I type.

Re going private can offer some help here on that will cost prob couple of hundred for initial consultations then Tests on

Oh and it's six months at our age they say go and see but as I said before for it to take a year not unusual

Sorry should say tests on top depending on what they recommed so could end up being anything from a couple of grand to a couple of hundred

Amber - I did the temp/mucus thing for a while and some months didn't seem to have any mucus at all and others seemed to have it at all sorts of random times. The temp was a fairly good indicator though.

I've heard round here that JLs is the best place for feet measuring but it means a trip into Nottingham which is a bit of a pain and doesn't fill me with enthusiasm.

AH - hope you are feeling better today.

Sciatica sounds horrible sponge you poor thing.

Amber - poor Luke with the mumps.

Poppy - can (vaguely) remember doing at uni about the effects of alcohol and caffeine on conception and they do have a big effect.

Hello everyone else!

Thanks Poppy - much as I sympathise with your situation too it's good to know someone else is having the same woes. Ktpie I can't do the temp thing as because of the thyroid stuff my temp is all over the place!

Amber & Poppy I have nothing constructive to say, but you do both have my sympathies. Thinking of you both.

Sponge your Mum sounds exactly like my Mum did about shoes. Glad I'm not the only one. It has rubbed off on me though seeing as I am having my own shoe Nazi moments about getting those first shoes. I promise though that I wont make my children wear Start-rites until they are 16 which is what happened to me.

Sponge has your sciatica been diagnosed as such? I only ask because I had what I thought was sciatica when I was about 16 weeks pg. I went to an osteopath who said that it was a strained sacrum ( the bones at the back of the pelvic girdle) which is easy to do in PG. Luckily though, because PG women's joints are all loose they are also easy to treat. I had two sessions with the osteopath and it went away. Before that I had terrible shooting pains down through my pelvis when I straightened up.

Better go. I've got two NCT friends about to arrive. Shock news: I have baked for the first time since P was born.