Overdue and fed up

[bleachblondemom]

I’m 4 days overdue which I known isn’t a lot but I’m desperate to go into labour naturally as I really really don’t want to be induced. I’ve tried everything- walks, birthing ball, sex, curry, raspberry tea, clary sage oil in the bath! I’ve got no signs at all- no mucus plug loss, no loose stools, no regular cramps at all. I do feel some mild cramps in my lower abdomen but maybe one or twice a day, and that’s it. Don’t know what else to do! Due at the midwife tomorrow so will accept a sweep if offered but part of me thinks that won’t bloody work either.
I’ve also been trying to collect colostrum all week as I won’t be breastfeeding, and nothings happening there either. My body has just decided to be completely uncooperative and it’s getting me down.

@bleachblondemom Is spotting considered normal then at this stage? I think that's what I've had, I was starting to get worried but I've had no more since...

@Stargazer87 I think mine is from my cervix being prodded earlier lol. But I think it’s normal to have some spotting around the time you start to lose your mucus plug, so yours could go soon? I’m hoping mine gets encouraged after today.

Feeling a lot of pressure in my pelvis right now and baby is wriggling around like mad, hope it means they are moving further down! Been on my feet all afternoon doing things around the house so hopefully that’s helped a bit. Poor old legs are killing me though 😩 Got some mild cramps too but been having those sporadically for ages so might not be anything to get excited about.

Eeek hopefully that's a good sign @bleachblondemom! I've got the same just now.. feel like his head has gone further down by the weird sensations that are going on down there saying that his feet are still dancing about in my ribs so maybe it's just party time! Off for a walk with OH and the dog.. much more appealing that DTD which might have to be a last resort later 🤣

@Scotabroad24 ooh yes I’ve still got little feet in my ribs 😂 hopefully both our bubbas have the same idea and are burrowing down more.

Fingers crossed @bleachblondemom I definitely feel for the first time like his head is really low which considering last week his head wasn't even engaged feels like a step in the right direction!

Hope everyone gets a good sleep tonight and these babies start moving sounds like most of us are booked for inductions around this weekend!

Baby has been so active all day, and is going nuts right now. I'm trying to sleep but it feels like a fish is flopping about inside me and it's impossible to drop off. The clicking sounds are really frequent as well.

Everything I've read says it's a decrease in movement that is worrying, not an increase. I know baby's heart rate was fine today at my midwife appointment. Anyone else had similar? I don't want to get my hopes up that it means something is happening.

@addler mine was really active last night and this evening too! And same, heart rate all fine. I don’t know whether it means anything or not 🤔 it’s not on the list of early labour signs. But it has felt like it’s pushing down into my pelvis so hopefully it was manoeuvring itself lower down!

Bit of a weird one this morning, I got out of bed to go to the toilet and before I sat down to go I wiped to check for any blood following my spotting yesterday, no blood but water came out and soaked the toilet paper...I'm not sure if it was my waters leaking or wee?! I didn't feel like I was weeing and went to the toilet afterwards like normal? 🤷🏻‍♀️

Morning ladies,

Hope you are all ok this morning ! We ended up going in for some monitoring last night due to reduced movements ! Fortunately everything was fine however an anxious time especially as OH had to wait in the car ! We’ve been booked in for a scan tomorrow to double check everything is OK before hopefully birthing on the MLU (when bubba finally decides to come) !

Got to be honest, I didn’t really like the rushing to get to hospital. They told us to bring our bags etc incase I was induced, the bags were ready but not everything was in them (tech bits etc) and being one of those people that doesn’t like sudden change or things thrown at me out of the blue, it just really unsettled me ! I think I’d always envisaged having time during labour to get all those last odds and ends ready so NOTE TO SELF .... make sure bags are 100% ready today to avoid any unnecessary stress when the time comes !!!

@Stargazer87 I was never sure if I would ‘know’ if my waters had gone so asked the midwife last week. She said if you think they might have done put a pad on and monitor it - if it’s waters it should continue to trickle so pad should get wet ! Eeeek maybe things are moving for you now !

Hope all you other ladies are feeling ok this morning and will look forward to hearing if anyone has had any further progress !

Morning all!

@SEP880 I'm sorry you had to go through that last night, sounds really stressful but glad everything is ok with baby and movements. It's such an awful feeling having to go to hospital without partner there 😟 where we live mine isn't allowed in at all at any point during the birth and it's standard that they keep you in for 48/72 hours after. It's a huge worry especially when it's your first and you just don't know what to expect isn't it.

@Stargazer87 sounds like it could have been your hind waters? Although my auntie who's a midwife did say usually if you've had a bit of a leak of waters it can be that baby's head is acting as a stopper for the rest, her advice was to put on a pad and lay down for a while, once baby moves and you stand up the rest should leak out. Saying that I've a friend who gave birth recently and it turned out she'd lost both waters a week previously and hadn't noticed as they'd gone so slowly and just trickled.

It's so confusing all this sign checking, I always thought the start of labour would be huge and obvious but maybe not after feeling like baby was really low last night he appears to have moved again and is having a party up in my ribs so looks like another day of nothing for me.

@SEP880 Sounds like you had a stressful night, it's so hard not being able to have your partner with you, I'm dreading that bit! Good advice on the bags, mine are packed but I've got a list on top of last minute bits that I'll need to pack, I'm the same, I hate being unprepared and it's so hard not knowing how much time we'll have before needing to head to the hospital!

I've got a pad on at the moment to see if I leak any more...oh the glamour, not knowing if it's wee or waters! 🤣 At least I'm seeing the midwife this morning so can see what she thinks...

Thank you for your kind words ! Bubba is making me an emotional wreck and he/she isn’t even here yet !

@Scotabroad24 Ican’t even begin to imagine having to birth without my OH - it just doesn’t seem logical as surely if you live in the same household, the potential impact is no different ! Do they get to visit after birth ? Or will it be a case of meeting the baby when you are discharged ? If that is the case it makes me extremely sad !

Completely agree with the symptom spotting too, trying to tie every little feeling to it ! That said, I have stopped ‘looking’ now as I was only getting frustrated and hoping like you said when it starts it hits me like a brick !

@Stargazer87 Hope all goes well with your midwife appointment this morning ! I think this part is probably the most ‘glamorous’ 😂 - what’s to come not so much ha ha !

I’m just hoping all this extra cooking time isn’t making my bubba an absolute whopper ! Midwife (and sonographer separately) have suggested 9/10lb so I’d appreciate it if baby didn’t use this time to add any extra winter insulation 😂

Ha ha glamorous is definitely not a word associated with pregnancy 

@SEP880 I think being this overdue and sleep deprived definitely makes the hormones/emotions waaaay worse, I cried the other night because I thought OH had given me burnt chips for dinner on purpose because he secretly hated me not my finest moment.

He won't be allowed in at all not even for a visit he'll only meet baby the day we are leaving hospital as he has to come in to register him. Its awful I can't imagine how he will feel knowing that he's here and can't see him for at least 2 days. Not to mention the anxiety I have about doing it alone.. been very good at blocking it out for the past 9 months but can't do that for much longer! I'm scheduled for a covid test on Saturday afternoon before induction on Sunday or if I go into labour spontaneously they do it at the hospital and results are within an hour apparently so definitely doesn't make any sense that he can't come in if it's negative!

Good luck to all with midwife appointments / sweeps today! Hope they bring positive news anyone else got any plans for today to get these babies moving?

Oh and @SEP880 hope they're wrong at estimating baby weight they often are I think!! My friends baby was estimated at 8/9lbs a week before she arrived, and was born at a tiny 6.6lbs so hopefully no whopper 🤣🤣

Morning all!

Thought I was having some promising pains and generally ‘weird’ feelings last night, went to bed hoping I would be woken in the night by a contraction or two but nope, nothing!! Don’t know what my stupid body is doing 😤

@Stargazer87 that sounds promising, if I were you I’d start getting excited! good that you’ve got an appointment today as well so you can ask about it, and maybe get examined to see what’s going on.

@SEP880 sorry you had a bit of a scare but thank goodness everything was ok. It might be quite nice to have a scan and see that baby is doing just great in there so you can fully relax Its like before you go on holiday and there’s things you can’t pack until the last minute because you still need them, like toiletries and phone chargers, so you have to throw it in on the day and hope you haven’t missed anything 😂

@Scotabroad24 I can’t believe your OH can’t be there for the birth, that’s so sad. Why are hospitals still doing that, can’t they imagine how upsetting that must be for the woman giving birth and for all the partners? Utterly ridiculous, he would be by your side for the whole thing and wouldn’t pose anymore risk than you if he’s negative. Sorry I don’t want to upset you further I just feel so angry about it on your behalf and for everyone else who’s had to go through this.

So my midwife did a test to see if any of my waters had gone but they haven't...turns out it was just wee! 🙈

She managed to do a sweep though and apparently my cervix is nice and soft and I'm 1cm dilated so positive things are happening. I'm booked in for an induction on Monday so just under a week to hopefully get things going naturally...🤞🏻

DS was 10 days overdue. I went into spontaneous labour early in the morning of the day I was booked for an induction. Up until then I had zero signs of labour and was quite desperate to give birth! I’d done the pineapple, walking, etc too but it didn’t seem to hurry things on.

@MilkRunningOutAgain good to know that it can still suddenly happen even without any signs!

@Stargazer87 that’s good news, must’ve been a very big wee 😂 wish my midwife had said I could have another sweep at some point this week but she never offered so I’m gonna have to rely on myself to get it going

@bleachblondemom no problem, no one can be more angry about it than I am  where we live it's still definitely a bit old fashioned when it comes to a lot of things, I certainly would think twice before having another baby here! My aunt who also lives here and was a midwife in the UK is quite shocked about some of the hospital practices.
Sorry you had nothing happen over night, it's so annoying when you think something might be happening and doesn't! Are you going to try for another sweep before next Monday? I'm thinking of asking my aunt (uncles girlfriend really) if she will do one for me, I'm dreading it getting to Sunday and having to be induced!

@Stargazer87 1cm is better than no cm sounds promising even if the leak was just wee! Hopefully the next time it really will be your waters!

@Scotabroad24 hmm I don’t know, I wasn’t offered one. I guess I could ring my midwife and ask if she’d have time to see me this week and try again. I just tried checking my cervix and it’s very high up. Wish I had a friend who was a midwife so I could ask them to pop round and do it 😅

Starting to get a bit upset now feeling like I haven’t had a say in what happens to me. I really don’t want to be induced, i dont want to be on a ward full of other people when I’m feeling anxious and vulnerable and in pain. The thought of it really upsets me. I’m scared that if I have a bad experience with it I’ll end up with post natal depression. But MW just went ahead and booked it whilst I was getting dressed after my examination. I felt like I couldn’t speak to her about how I was feeling because she had a student midwife there with her and I didn’t want to get upset in front of a stranger. Worrying about being induced is not going to help me relax. I don’t know if it’s worth me ringing her to talk about all this or whether I’ll just sound like an idiot.

@bleachblondemom I felt exactly the same being booked in for my induction today so I voiced my concerns and the midwife said that I need to go in on Monday as booked so that they can do checks etc but I'm well within my rights to turn down going ahead with the induction and they will then discuss different options such as deferring it for x amount of days/more regular monitoring etc and as long as there's no medical need you don't need to go along with it...

@Stargazer87 well I haven’t been told I can refuse! This is what I mean, I’m not getting all the info and being allowed to make decisions for myself.

I might ring MW tomorrow, I just hate that I can’t talk about stuff like this without getting upset, she’s going to think I’m being ridiculously childish.

I’m having cramps again but I have just been on my ball for ages so it might be baby’s head pushing down rather than contractions. Feel like I can’t even trust my own body to work properly 😣

@bleachblondemom At the end of the day it's your body and you have to consent to anything that happens to it. They can advise you and if there's a medical need to induce you they will make it clear but if it's simply a case of being induced due to dates then it's completely your decision...