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Crepeys/Hagsnet - come to the candlelight!

1000 replies

MrsSchadenfreude · 18/06/2011 11:33

As the last thread is now full...

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herbaceous · 18/08/2011 13:24

Thank the lord DS's nursery is open again, after a two-week break. I'm 'working' today, but it is lovely to not have constant 'no', 'mine', or anguished 'don't LIKE IT'.

Thanks for the cat condolences. It's odd - I bawled my eyes out when he first died, but now don't feel much. I think I can't believe he's not going to come into the room any second.

Tell you what, I've been treated with a great deal more compassion and sensitivity by vets over him dying than I ever was by doctors when going through miscarriages. They seem to have procedures and processes that people follow to make it easier. For example, rather than making me stand at reception, paying the bill, when the cat had just died, they'll just send the invoice. Post miscarriage no2, at 10 weeks, I was phoned up by the hospital, telling me off for not going for my 12-week scan. The same hospital where I had the miscarriage.

MrsSchadenfreude · 18/08/2011 14:55

The girls go back to school on 24 August after 10 weeks off, and I cannot wait! They are bickering non stop now, DD1 won't go swimming with DD2 and DD2 is not old enough to go on her own, so have told DD2 I will take her at the weekend (and may take her to Disneyland on Saturday - all of her friends have been away for the whole 10 weeks and she's a bit fed up).

I second what you say about vets v doctors, Herbs. I had a miscarriage before I had DD1 - the doctor's surgery was aware of this, as they'd confirmed it, and it was in my notes... fast forward about 8 weeks and I got a really arsey phone call from the nurse, telling me I should have booked in to see the midwife by now, and could be putting my baby at risk by not having regular checks. Told her what had happened, and she sighed heavily and said, right, well I'd better cross you off our list then.

I have been discussing with MI what dull meal I can feed the parasites tonight. We have agreed on boil in the bag salmon (better than it sounds), with boiled baby potatoes and peas (MI deemed salad too exciting). The good news is that they are leaving early as one of them cocked up his work plans and should be working on Saturday, so is going back on Friday.

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herbaceous · 18/08/2011 15:11

Mince, browned, no onions. Boiled potatoes. Water.

Having my hair cut this afternoon. No idea what to ask for. It's also a new 'salon', that I've never used before, so could be disastrous. I'm using to just saying 'oh do what you think', but this could be unwise.

It's currently a grown-out graduated bob, with fried blonde ends. I'm wondering about a page boy. But in the wrong hands, this could be Frumpsville Central. Population me.

MrsSchadenfreude · 18/08/2011 15:30

I am sporting a similar look, Herbs. Grin My hair is naturally very curly and every hairdresser I have ever been to either straightens the life out of it, or makes me look like Bruno from Fame. It needs cutting again, and highlighting, but I never seem to have the time probably because I waste so much time on here

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MrsSchadenfreude · 18/08/2011 15:31

Herbs - have you not just described Stovies? (The parasites are Scottish...)

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herbaceous · 18/08/2011 15:45

No idea what Stovies are, but if they're plain mince and potatoes the Scots are welcome to them.

We get an organic veg box every week. As it's so ridiculously expensive, it prompts me to use up all the veg. This leads to some pretty weird meals. Last week we had scampi (on offer in Sainsburys), chips and cabbage. It was pretty grim. You could try that?

Stropperella · 18/08/2011 16:14

LOL at scampi, chips and cabbage. MrsS, I could FedEx you something from one of the boxes at the back of my fridge. This will undoubtedly ensure that the parasites will never darken your door again. Mind you, they might not ever darken anyone's door again...

MrsS, I too have been made to look like Bruno from fame. Which is why I grew the fringe out. I think I need to try a new hairdresser, but I am too scared. No one has ever suggested straightening my hair. This is probably because it makes me look like an extra from Prisoner Cell Block H.

I am deep in hormonal gloom and royally hacked off with being a lumpen, penniless prole. A dear friend of mine from uni has just invited all of us to stay, but a) I can't find a kennels place for the dog and b) he and his wife are successful and glam and live in a mansion. We are not and do not. I feel even more loser-ish.

motherinferior · 18/08/2011 16:37

Don't talk to me about hair. Mr Inferior informs me mine is looking 'bouncy'. This is the crop I was hoping looked chic...

God, Strops, I know just what you mean about university friends. I avoid large swathes of all bookshops because they include prizewinning works written by my former contemporaries.

Stropperella · 18/08/2011 17:08

I'm thinking of getting dd to make me a "bitter and twisted loser" t-shirt and getting a number 1 cut.

Gah. My mother phoned in a gloom this morning because she has to go to the funeral of yet another of her contemporaries today (was actually one of my primary school teachers). She sighed and said "Well, that's life, I suppose." Glooooooooooooooooooooom.

bigTillyMint · 18/08/2011 17:34

One of the bonuses of having gone to a university formerly known as a poly is that no-one seems to have become famous Grin

Infact I am doing "better" than most of my contemporaries from grammar school, despite them having been in higher forms than me - I am fairly high up in my career (was even higher, but chose to downsize when DC no.2 was born Wink), whilst most of them are now TA's. So much for the forcing of us grammar school girls through academic hoops!

Your experiences with the medical profession following your miscarriages soun awful Sad

motherinferior · 18/08/2011 17:43

Yes. Absolutely terrible. I am so sorry.

Stropperella · 18/08/2011 17:58

Ah, I went to what my father referred to as a "jumped-up poly", but most of the grads are highly employable. I was on the only arts course - most of my friends are engineers.

I went to a grammar school, but was shipped off to a v. posh boarding school for 6th form. Many contempories from there are famous and have achieved great things. If I am remembered at all, it would be as "the weird misshapen state school girl who hated our lovely school".

I don't think the medical profession has really learnt to deal with miscarriages, has it?

MrsSchadenfreude · 18/08/2011 17:59

I didn't go to university, so have no university friends (and only one school friend that I keep in touch with). I was sent out to work "to pay back some of the money that has been spent on you over the years" (get the violins out) after I cocked up my A levels. I was so grateful that I left home after getting a "proper job" (I blagged my way onto a graduate scheme with my 2 crappy A levels) and moved up to London as it was much cheaper for me to share a house than commute and pay my mother what she deemed a "reasonable" rent. I have done OK. My only gripe is that employers use the degree as a filter quite often, and it doesn't matter what I have done, no degree = no interview, so quite difficult to move jobs. I am, of course, hoping to give up all of this glamorous Parisian living in a few years when I become a famous novelist. Grin

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MrsSchadenfreude · 18/08/2011 18:02

Oh I keep in touch with two of the "boys" from the grammar school...one is a seriously big knob in the world of finance and the other (the one my mother wanted me to marry) is a Tory MP, who attained some degree of fame a few years ago for having an affair with his researcher.

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Stropperella · 18/08/2011 18:16

MrsS, I am in awe of you. You probably WILL become a famous novelist.

In my (somewhat feeble) defence, I have suffered from MH "ishoos" since the age of 14 and my parents' reaction was to a) tell me very fiercely to pull myself together and then b) ignore it and hope it all went away. Hence boarding school. In my brighter moments, I tend to feel that I'm doing alright, considering. I'm currently having a wallow in self-pity, but only secretly as watching Mama indulging in loser-ish wallowing is not good for the offspring.

herbaceous · 18/08/2011 18:17

Ugh. School. My parents were progressive sorts, so sent me to the roughest local comp, despite us being Guardian-reading, self-building middle-class sorts. I of course got bullied, and hid my academic ability under an extremely large bushel. From which it has only occasionally emerged. Don't keep in touch with anyone from those days, as had no friends. It would seem that trying to be cool, while being a spod, does you no favours.

As for miscarriages, don't get me started. I've had five, and all have been horrific. With one, I actually passed the baby into the hand of the doctor in A&E. He left it on the side, in a jar. I wanted it to be tested for chromosomal abnormalities, so he gave it to me to carry on my lap, as I was wheeled 400 miles to the ward. When I protested, he put it in a plastic bag and gave it to DP. Later that night, on the ward, a woman with a newborn baby was put in the opposite bed.

After a D&C for another one, at 13 weeks when it turned out the baby had died when I went for the nuchal fold scan, I came round to an orderly shouting in my face 'Have you been to the toilet? Have you been to the toilet?' I went to the sodding toilet, and went home. No word from a doctor, no follow up, nothing. I had to chase like mad to get the results of the genetic test for that one.

If miscarriages are so common, surely there should be a protocol for dealing with them. Not treating women as inconveniences who should try not to make a mess. Makes me FUME.

Stropperella · 18/08/2011 18:21

My mother had 2 miscarriages in the 1960s. It doesn't sound has though the way the medical profession has made any progress in the way they deal with them since then.

So sorry that you have had to go through that so many times, herbs.

bigTillyMint · 18/08/2011 19:13

Oh Herbs, that is truly awful Sad Were they all the same hospital?

herbaceous · 18/08/2011 19:15

Not all the same hospital, no. Jar experience was at one, and the following two MCs (including 'toilet') at another. Jar hospital is the nearest, but I chose not to have DS there. Unsurprisingy.

bigTillyMint · 18/08/2011 19:19

It's shocking that they weren't able to deal with you more considerately. And all the thousands of others presumably. I don't blame you for trying another one for your DS, and glad it worked!

MrsSchadenfreude · 19/08/2011 07:59

I have a small and undeserved hangover (one glass of pink, one of white last night).

Can MN not do anything to campaign to improve the way that women who miscarry are treated? Herbs is right, it is common, and there should be a way of dealing with it sympathetically, not as if you are a stupid inconvenience. (I was asked by a doctor if I was sure that I was bleeding from my vagina and not from my bum. I wasn't very polite in my response.)

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Stropperella · 19/08/2011 09:43

MN did have a campaign last year for a "Miscarriage Code of Practice". I don't know if anything concrete came of it, though.

MrsSchadenfreude · 19/08/2011 19:29

Probably not. I have been drinking champagne and am feeling quite mellow. We are nearly at 1000 posts, fellow hags.

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MrsSchadenfreude · 19/08/2011 19:29

Can't resist - have never been the 1000th post before...

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bigTillyMint · 19/08/2011 19:42

Champagne? Any left? Grin

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