pregnant communters?

[tyaca]

aggghhhhhhh!

its killing me. i can just about cope with work, but the 2 1/2 round trip is close to finishing me off....think someday someone's going to find me asleep on a platform at clapham junction.....

Hi
Don't know if this might help some of you but some of the train companies have/had a scheme (used to be called mum2be) that allows you to sit in first class if the train is full. They keep very quiet about it - I've never seen it advertised. Just phone their customer service number and they'll tell you how to get a card. It was a life saver for me. On the rare occasions that first class was full one of the polite gents always gave me a seat.
Good luck!

I have now given up cycling to and from work - it's just too dangerous trying to balance a bump with my pitiful attempts at looking like every other Dutch person (I'm a Brit).

Now I use the tram to but that is fraught with it's own problems and I had a huge arguement on Monday with a complete ass who kept hitting me in my back with his bag because I wouldn't move out of the way for him. I said in a rather loud voice "It's bad enough being pregnant and having staand without you pushing me!" - funny though, he continued to be an ass and no-one moved or helped me. Aaaaarrrrrgggghhhhhh - roll on Mat Leave!

try the Metroplitan line - the rudest most arrogant men in creation.

One day had packed train, i was standing as usual and more people tried to get on. It was stinking hot and I was feeling shit. Some delightful male wanted more space and pushed me telling me to mve in plenty of space - my bump space. I did not budge so he pushed, i banged bump quite hard and threw up for the first and only time in my pregnancy all over him!!!

in seven months of commuting - I was offered a seat once. By a sixteen year old hooded West Indian lad, who jumped up and as some snotty business man went for his seat, he pushed him out the way -saying I did not get up for you, it is for the pregnant lady. Loads of guilty looks around and said business man started to argue. The reply he got from the young lad was - my mother brought me up with manners mate and she would clip me round the ear if she saw me sitting and a pregnant lady standing. Yours obviously didn't....

I had to smile as he escorted me up the escalators aswell. Restored my faith in humanity!

fatback hurrah! i do think young boys are really quite good at times. perhaps because they are looking more closely at womens bodies so just more likely to notice

we live on a council estate in south london and the 15 and 16 year old boys just noticed i was pg last week. shouted out their congratulations, and bless 'em even stopped throwing fireworks at each other to let me get to front door....

daisynova - its all about invasion of personal space isnt it? rucksacks are the worst...

I am agog that someone would think to argue with a beautifully raised young man who said he was giving up his seat for the pregnant lady!

In any normal moral universe that businessman would have slunk off the train at the next stop to avoid the glares of everyone else!

I was reading the London Lite (the free commuter paper) on the train home the other day and the discussion was about giving up seats to pregnant ladies. The overwhelming response was as follows:
"I did not ask the woman to get pregnant, I have had a hard days work and pay alot for my season ticket, so no they cannot have my seat"
Another one was,
" They are pregnant, not sick or old so I will keep the seat!"

Roar!!!!!!!!!!!!! Being over 7 months pregnant as I was on the train reading this made my blood boil!

KT

Fatback I think I would have cried if I'd come across that young lad! What a sweetheart. Teenagers get such a bad press. The kids from the secondary school at the bottom of my road (and this is not a nice, leafy middle-class area) always move out of the way when I walk past with the pram or pick up their football if they're kicking it about.

As for those idiots who wrote in to London Lite - words escape me. Would it occur to them that a pregnant woman might also have had a hard day at work as well as being pregnant? And I've not seen them give up seats for old or sick people either!

This all brings back such delightful memories. Particularly of the metropolitan line. After working out at about 26 weeks that no one would give me their seat unless I asked and that if I didn't get a seat I'd arrive in work a wreck, I would ask a group of people if they minded giving up their seat and generally got one that way. Except on my final day of work.

Because the carriage was very crowded and there was no way to get near the seats, I asked a man to let me through to them. He told me there were no seats. I said I knew this but I was nearly 9 months pregnant and needed to sit down. Instead of moving out of the way he started having a go at me for not making it more obvious ie I should be wearing a badge and not a big coat (it was January. WTF I had a huge bump and had just politely told him I was pregnant. Someone let me through and to sit down while he was mid rant and a woman tried to remonstrate with him but eventually concluded he was a nutter and gave up. She wished me good luck on leaving the carriage. I was very glad that was my last day in work.

My firm has a lovely tradition that when you go on maternity leave you get a taxi (paid by them) home.

I've no idea how I'll manage it again in the future.

I've just gone on mat leave at 36 weeks, and a commute that uses victoria line and then bus- I can really sympathise with your comments, even though I started work early and finished early to pick up my 2 kids, it was really rare I got offered a seat, even at the end. I seemed to lose my assertiveness in this pregnancy and found it very hard to ask for a seat, the journey home often left me feeling a) tearful and b) wishing to machine gun the whole carriage down for ignoring me.In my case it was usually men who offered, and usually, as someone else said, eastern european, black or asian. I felt it had definitely got worse in the 5 1/2 years since I had my eldest, I even got berated one evening when working late and the train was crowded for hanging onto the pole in a way that apparantly crowded my neighbour. When she berated me, I told her I was pregnant and didn't want to fall over - sorry. Her response was to swear at me, call me a b**ch and tell me she'd see me later and come and "get me" - nice eh! Thanks goodness I don't have to take the tube in rushhour for a while, good luck everyone else with their journeys! The work was fine but the commute was hell on earth!

Oh I so wish I was done with commuting...
Where has plain old courtesy gone!??!

I have just given up work at 36 weeks. I was taking two buses and a tube - the first part of my journey on the bus was with my 3 year old taking her to nursery. I was rarely offered a seat on the bus - they are by far the worst. The classic was I had a seat and then a disabled elderly woman got on and no-one offered her a seat - I got up to let her sit down,,,,and of course not one person offered me a seat - even though I am the size of a house and I had a toddler in tow. I found it all really depressing - as a child I was brought up to offer seats to elderly people and those who looked liked they needed it. Most people now don't give a s**t

tigger - what a lovely tradition re the taxi. fine fine idea.

alice182 - WHAT A STUPID COW, i am fuming on your behalf. that would have sent me into a ball in a corner of a dark room for months

the key to survival is to lower my expectations of other people. communting is always tough - but if you then anticipate that well mannered people might behave as you would (eg give up their seats) then you'll only get more frsutrated and upset when they dont.

ho hum - four more weeks to go for me....

When pregnant with DD I used to have to commute from London Bridge to Croydon against the flow of people. The platforms trains left from used to vary a lot and in the latter stages I found that in the time it took me to get from the info board to the platform, fighting the tide of people barging me out of the way, I'd have missed my train. This usually happened to me twice in a morning before I caught the third. Always I'd find myself sliding along the side of the train trying not to fall down the gap...

The journey to work is something I definitely haven't missed while on maternity leave. The best were mostly women in their 50s, one guy who gave me his seat was with his wife. Then there was the young woman who was sat in an end seat with a toddler on her lap, I said no thanks to her as I felt she was in as much or more need than I was, but she did shame the person opposite who wasn't into offering.

It didn't help that I didn't look pregnant until 7 months.

One group of people who never offered me their seats was football fans, either Arsenal or Spurs supporters (Victoria line between the two grounds). But then before pregnancy one charming bloke pushed me out of the way when I tried to get up to leave the carriage to go home, telling me I should wait for him and his mates to get past me.

It doesn't improve when you have to get buses with a buggy either. Someone dropped a bag on my ds and when I said something actually told me she hadn't noticed there was a baby there. What did she think I was doing with a pushchair?

Hope you all find solutions which work.

Looks from others' comments like a lot of bus lines are worse than tube lines, but I just wanted to stick up for south London bus commuters; my bus is always overcrowded and I usually manage to get a seat now that I have a visible bump. (Was much harder early on, when I really needed a seat but didn't want to ask!) Sometimes I sit on the stairs, sometimes I have to ask, but often a seat is freely offered and I am hugely grateful. I live in a pretty rough area, but find people around here to be much nicer to and more supportive of pregnant women than those I come across in smarter areas. Interesting.

smallwhitecat that is HILARIOUS! fair play to the lady in question for just sitting down. i've been tempted to sit on the platforms when there are no benches free!

that asking people to move down thing is a such a commuting nightmare. about three months ago i couldnt get on my train in streatham and plucked up courage to be the shouter. at which point a young guy started shouting at me "what are you looking for the secret seat? hehehe! she thinks there's a secret seat!" he carried on the secret seat gag at me, for like, five minutes, encouraged by a giggling girlfriend......

Funnily enough, I always got seats on the tube when pregnant (starting at 13 weeks! I was huge) and yet this doesn't seem to be a common experience. Is it because I am bolshy? Because I was huge (see above)? Because it was a summer pregnancy so there was no coat hiding the evidence? Because I was on the Circle Line?

Who knows, but you all have my complete sympathy. I am so shocked by these idiots who don't understand the moral imperative to give up your seat to anybody who needs it more than you. It doesn't seem to get drummed into kids anymore - you see so many parents on tubes/buses who let their kids sprawl all over the seats when there are adults standing.

hester - good point re it being winter. do think we're a lot less obvs under coats and jumpers.

smallwhitecat - long before getting pg i would get a bit annoyed about the people who let their two small kids take up two whole seats during rush hour with the rest of the train packed sardine style. is that unfair? maybe i'll change my mind when i have my own? i'd be interested to know what mums think (and like you, i always had to either stand for adults or sit on my mums lap ---- and now i found i have this massive Victorian streak )

Has anyone contemplated buying a shooting stick? It does sound like the only way to get a seat on the Underground is to bring your own.

These stories are horrific. I am on my knees thanking God that my commute is short enough I can do it by taxi. That said, I have become The Bitch Of Pregnant Entitlement. Last night there were no cabs and I came out of the supermarket with five heavy bags of shopping. I walked halfway home and was starting to think uh oh, I may have to call my husband to leave work and come and collect me. A taxi pulled up to let someone out, and even though I saw two 60-something women making for it I bolted and got there first. In any other circumstances I would have let them have the cab, but not last night.

Sadly I think the only solution to all the selfishness is just to assume that no-one will give you a seat, and so to become very un-English and assertive just ask. Then at least you've tried and if people are still stuck fast then they truly are all selfish pigs and we just have to despair for the society that we are bringing our children in to . But hopefully it's more likely that someone (surely) in the carriage will have a good heart.

By the way, is this a mainly London problem? Are we the worst down here?

tyaca - I think it is completely fair to expect small children to share seats or sit on their parents' laps on the tube. My dd (2) loves sitting on her own seat on public transport, but I insist on her sharing with me as soon as anybody else needs the seat. Unfortunately, she responds by throwing a tantrum, which doesn't exactly encourage anybody to take the now-empty seat, which feeds her tantrum (if nobody else is sitting there why shouldn't I?), which means I end up wrestling a small screaming octopus while everyone else stares at me disapprovingly.
But I've learned not to expect credit for trying to teach my toddler social graces.

I think it's fair for kids to sit on a parent's lap if possible, I've been on train and journeys where I wouldn't make a small child stand (mine's not old enough to be out of his buggy yet) for safety reasons. It does irritate me seeing children occupying a seat and their unfolded buggy taking up the buggy space. Especially as they're likely to be occupying the only seat I could sit on near my pushchair!