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Pregnancy

Talk about every stage of pregnancy, from early symptoms to preparing for birth.

Due in October 2012 Part 2

999 replies

YompingJo · 17/02/2012 16:30

Kicking off the second thread as we outgrew the first one.

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
squidkid · 18/02/2012 17:54

missbone Wait, now we're not supposed to have sex either!!??

Ok that is definitely a step too far. They made me give up wine, there is no way in hell ever I am giving up sex.

bettybat Any kind of exercise is fine if you're already used to it and still up for it, surely. I mean seriously we can't live in a bubble for 9 months. I admit I felt a bit weird running, but I put it down to being hormonal and overly sensitive about EVERYTHING. Mostly I'm just too tired to exercise as much as I was... I did a couple hikes last weekend (short ones, lots of ice and snow!) Swimming, walking, been doing some of that.

Zara congratulations! I told my mum at 6 weeks and will be telling a couple of mates next weekend (at 9 weeks) just cause I'm going to a massive drunken party in London and want them to look after me when everything tries to make me drink/stay up late. And everyone else I'm going to tell when I see them, just cause I like doing things face to face. Skype is nice cause you can see their faces.

DameFlatYouLent · 18/02/2012 17:55

Horse riding? Isn't that officially the most dangerous sport? GPs are funny fish ime!

missbone · 18/02/2012 17:55

DameFlat, sorry to hear of your Mum's illness...and what a quandary you're in. Sounds like you're not really asking for advice from us lot, and you'll simply tell her when the 'time is right'. If it were me, and my Mum had 'unpredictable' mental health problems, I would suspend the potential consequences of telling her until it was absolutely necessary. Sorry, I'm not pretending to know about this illness - just thought I'd chuck my two pennies' worth in Confused

DameFlatYouLent · 18/02/2012 17:57

thanks, missbone. yeah, that is pretty much what I'll do...as soon as I tell her she'll start bombarding me with text messages. I'm enjoying the "peace" while I have it!

babydust hope everything's ok, thinking of you.

squidkid · 18/02/2012 17:57

I think a lot of people are scared of things causing miscarriages, but almost all miscarriages are caused by the fact the fetus isn't viable.

I could start a massive feminist rant about the way our society tries to make pregnant women believe they are responsible for anything that goes wrong with their pregnancy when usually it is nothing within their control at all.

I bet if men got pregnant they would not even suggest they gave up alcohol. I'm serious.

bettybat · 18/02/2012 18:04

squidkid I'm completely with you.

When I think about pregnant women in indigenous tribes still living off the land, you don't see them sat around not doing anything - they are still expected to contribute to activities of the village. They walk, they move around, they carry younger children long distances etc.

I'm annoyed with myself for even subscribing to this modern way of thinking, even a tiny little bit. I do think a healthy fit mother makes for a healthy, fit baby. I want to do everything I can to get me and my baby ready for the birth - which is the biggest endurance event I'll ever participate in! Why would I prepare for that by wrapping myself up in cotton wool for 9 months??

Hell, I'm taking part in a 500m open sea swimming event in May at gasp 4 months.

If i am exhausted, or end up with SPD or any other circumstances that mean it's better to take it easy - well then, OK. But until/unless that happens, I couldn't bear to get myself into a mindset that means even running for a train has me freaking out internally because I'm afraid I'll have dislodged it. I want to get away from that thinking, not increase it.

NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown · 18/02/2012 18:10

Can I join in please? Got my BFP on valentines day but it still hasn't sunk in - we've been ttc for about 4 months (about 6 cycles tho cos they were all over the place/short luteal phase due to breastfeeding)

I think my edd is about 13th October but haven't booked a midwife appointment yet. I am feeling SOO different to last time, I very tired, cramps and backache but I had horrendous morning sickness in my previous pregnancy and so far none this time. Hope it lasts!

32, have a DS(1) and I think I'm 6 weeks today

squidkid · 18/02/2012 18:12

bettybat Yeah I'm with you (and still hoping to do a 70 mile hike over four days in March, symptoms permitting!) But don't be annoyed with yourself, it's a big mental adjustment xxx

ps the open sea swimming thing sounds amazing! where's that?

TheGrandOldDuke · 18/02/2012 18:17

My stomach is enormous - not sure how I'm going to hide it at work. People have been asking me for the last year when we're having another, so I feel like they've all got eagle eyes on me the whole time anyway!!!!!!!!!
I hope it is just bloating, cos otherwise I'm having quins.... Grin

bettybat · 18/02/2012 18:19

squidkidd It's run by the Human Race people - Google them and go to their Speedo open water events. It's in Poole, and you basically do some laps in this open sea arena thing.

I think it is really, really hard not to feel like you need to shield your belly all the time. Your baby is (generally) so longed for, or if a surprise, suddenly so precious. But I try to ask myself, what would the women of the Serengeti do Wink

Good luck with your hike - sounds awesome! Where is it?

BabyDustPlease · 18/02/2012 18:19

Hi Everyone!

Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers coming my way, they did me some good. Little bean is perfectly fine. He/she has a very strong heartbeat and they said the measurements were perfect for the age. It was the best £80 I ever spent and I officially have a 'viable' pregnancy now. Would recommend it to anyone. I was prepared for the worst but it was an amazing surprise.

xxxxxxxxx

missbone · 18/02/2012 18:20

Bettybat, I was being tongue-in-cheek about your husband (your post reminded me of Paula Radcliffe's svengali husband and manager who used to terrorise her track-side if he felt she'd been 'slacking'). I certainly didn't mean to offend.

Squidkid, let me get one thing straight: I am not pronouncing myself a pregnancy guru, nor the oracle of pregnancy-related exercise dos and donts. However, I am mystified as to why any woman would feel so bereft at the prospect of giving up (temporarily) horse-riding (a huge no-no according to pregnancy gurus), white-water rafting, karate, or any of the plethora of exhausting, cardio-crazy sporting pursuits they love so much. I feel it is less about bemoaning the 'nanny state' advice pregnant women are having thrust upon them and more about a woman's refusal to lose the body-shape/psychological image they have built up for themselves pre-pregnancy. After leaving rehab I undertook a strenuous (and exhausting) weightloss regime consisting of advanced spinning, kettlercise, circuit-training, running and bodycombat which had the blessed result of the loss of two stones and the emergence of a fabulously athletic figure. So, I do sympathise, to some degree, with super-fit/outdoorsy women who are struggling to align their early pregnancy with a different approach to exercise. However, for me personally, an anguished dread of some necessary lifestyle adjustments perhaps indicates a time to sit down and rethink our priorities. I'm sorry if this sounds 'preachy'; I'm certainly not a sanctimonious or dogmatic person - and i do sympathise with the aforementioned ladies - I simply don't feel it's particularly healthy to be so despairing at what is, essentially, a temporary adjustment to our lifestyles.

TheGrandOldDuke · 18/02/2012 18:20

babydust Great news!!!! Congratulations Smile

missbone · 18/02/2012 18:32

Battybat, I was reading the other day about a tribe in the Shaolwater Bay Indian Reserve who are experiencing 50-67% miscarriage rates. The women of Serengeti also suffer dismal miscarriage and infant mortality statistics. Yes, disease and poor antenatal facilities are a factor, but i wouldn't bet on their relentlessly exhausting lifestyles not being an influence on these statistics, either

missbone · 18/02/2012 18:33

Sorry, Bettybat, my typo re your username really was a mistake!

missbone · 18/02/2012 18:34

Babydust! Congratulations...you must feel soooo relieved! Thanks

DameFlatYouLent · 18/02/2012 18:38

hooray, babydust! Great news, you must feel amazing.

DameFlatYouLent · 18/02/2012 18:38

missbone I don't know enough about it to really comment, but could a small gene pool and "interbreeding" be a factor too? Not to mention limited medical facilities.

squidkid · 18/02/2012 18:39

missbone No not preachy at all, though I think we'd have to agree to disagree. I hadn't thought about it as a body shape issue - I can see what you mean, that makes sense. I hope I didn't cause any offence myself.

For me, exercise is less about my body shape and more that it's a useful and healthy way to lift my mood. To get a little personal for a second, I found some of my jobs extremely hard last year and found taking it out on the hills or doing some circuit training gave me the mental and physical strength to take on another day. I like being fit. It's not about how I look, it's about being able to manage things.

I also think it's better for mum AND baby to be a fit mum, so I'm working from the opposite assumption from you, really - I want to do this FOR my pregnancy, not in spite of it. I mean obviously I agree contact sports aren't a great idea, and if you're not an exercise person normally it seems daft and exhausting to start just when you get pregnant. But swimming, hiking, running, weights... this all seems very reasonable to me.

Anyway at the moment I'm so tired so I'm not doing much at all! And I'm far more worried about being on a hospital cardiac arrest team from April than I am at any amount of exercise :( :(

squidkid · 18/02/2012 18:43

babydust that's wonderful news, so happy for you!

squidkid · 18/02/2012 18:48

Just to throw into the third world debate, my mum had me and my brothers when we were living in the foothills in Nepal, 3 days walk from a road! I spent most of my formative years with my brother hunting wild pigs with knives we'd "borrowed" off the grownups and stuff. England was a bit of a culture shock. So I was brought up like a feral child with a completely blasé attitude by nutters (lovely nutters, I love my parents, but they are mental)... which may account for some of my personality ;)

My boyfriend was not allowed a climbing frame in case he fell off it.

I feel our parenting styles may differ.

bettybat · 18/02/2012 18:50

Missbone I shall respectfully disagree. I think we humans - we're animals, we're designed to move around, have the ability to certain types of movement, have the ability to move consistently, with endurance, for a long time. We have completely lost that sense, on the whole, of what our bodies are designed and capable of doing.

I - and probably like a lot of people - don't move to look good, to bow down to the pressures on women to look a certain way by the media or society. I couldn't give a f*ck what people think of the way I look - my shape, my weight. I move because I cannot bear not to. I think it is far more detrimental to the human being to be sat down all day long, slumped, hunched, sedentary and atrophying.

Every day in work, I am a human being trapped in captivity. I come home, spine curved, hips flexors stiff from being in a chair all day long, and I stretch out like a cat. I move around - sometimes in structured "fitness", other times in play, most of the time outside, and slowly I begin to feel supple again - not stiff, and achy.

I don't do what I do so I can fit in size ten jeans. I do it because I want to see my body do what it was designed to do. These things are important to me. To be healthy, to move constantly - because I can't bear what it means to be sedentary and what the consequences of that will be. But I don't think most people get what I'm saying - it's too much of a reach. I don't move because I have to, or because I want to look good, or because I feel it's a chore to be done with for the day. I do it simply because my body can.

DameFlatYouLent · 18/02/2012 18:50

Oh no squidkid, is that set in stone? that'll be tough, but you should be feeling quite a lot better by April, so maybe it'll be in time for the "blooming" phase? Once you're "out" as being pg they may make allowances? I have a Dr friend who was put on seriously light duties once she made her pg public.

DameFlatYouLent · 18/02/2012 18:52

squidkid Grin re parenting styles

milk · 18/02/2012 19:19

I am so happy for you BabyDustPlease Grin

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