Feminist Pub IX. Newbies and regulars welcome - pop your cognitive dissonance down outside and have a gin.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Right, thought I'd better start a new pub. I warn you, my knowledge of Roman numerals conks out shortly after this one, so either buffy will have to start the next thread, or we'll have to go Arabic.

Everyone is welcome in - if you want to chat, or just jump in with a question/link/gin, please do. Especially if it's too small for a thread or you don't feel up to thread-starting.

The old thread has, at my count, about 9 posts to go, and it was here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/2126791-Feminist-Pub-VIII-not-as-prolific-as-the-Swaggerers-but-there-are-cushions-and-consciousness?

We were just chatting about feministy light reading, and will doubtless meander onto other topics shortly.

Good plan, Pengers. I think with a unified response this could work, if anyone ever hypoethetically requires such a response.

how is the sleep, by the way? getting any?

Thanks for asking. Just enough that I don't actually fall asleep on my feet if I drink enough coffee. Not enough that I feel anything other than dog tired. My babies seem to be getting worse and worse sleepers each time, one of the very good reasons I won't be having a no. 4! We've had a fair few nights where he is up every hour.

Oh dear. I do feel for you, I really couldn't bear that awful feeling of being beyond tired all the time. There is nothing that can be done about it except the coffee and hanging on. courage!

In fact, in the unlikely event that I suddenly found myself pregnant again, I think it is the knowledge of the tiredness to come, how long it will last, and what it will do to me that would make me absolutely panic and reduce me to terrified blithering horror. I just couldn't do this again. I come from a family where my parents' generation habitually had siblings in the double figures, but after two - it nearly destroyed me. The End.

Thank you! This pregnancy was unplanned and your post pretty much sums up how I felt! He's gorgeous and wonderful and smiley and I love him to bits. But dear god. DD2 was nearly 2 before she slept through the night, god knows if I'll survive this one! I had always wanted three, but it was the sleep that made me think we should stick at two.

I've never wanted a third baby, but did always want a third child, so I just need to ride it out now. And pray to every god there is that he sleeps through some time before his first birthday.

On mildly cheering feminist news, we are decorating the DD's bedroom and I insisted that, instead of what felt like the natural split (DH decorating, me looking after the kids all weekend) we both did some of both. It was good. I like decorating.

Good on you, penguins.

And sorry to hear about the sleep struggles. As vezzie says, courage! (If I can say that without being a tit, because obviously I do not know whereof I speak!).

You can say that without being a tit .

IME of people without kids, the one to avoid is the ridiculous hyperbole sympathy. I have a friend who went on and on and on about DD2 as if I was surviving daily waterboarding. "Oh, you are amazing, I could never do it, I need my 8 hours, wow how do you do it....". Much as I love her, that gets old pretty fast.

If someone could have delivered me 3 month old babies, with no colic/reflux problems and who had well established BFing, I would have had several children. As it is, I'd have had to go through another awful pregnancy, terrifying birth and the utter boredom and drudgery of the first 3 months, so only have the 2. And they are 6 years apart. I take my hat off to anyone who does it more than twice.

Sleep deprivation is awful, so I'm sending sleepy vibes to smallest penguin.

And I wholeheartedly agree about ignoring wholesale the more troublesome poster.

When I was younger I wanted about seventeen kids. Having had just one so far I'm definitely rethinking. Two, tops. Although I'd prefer the second one to just sort of pop into existence aged about four.

I'll take them from about 18 months and can do pregnancy and birth. We need someone who loves newborns and we can set up our feminist commune.

I'll be that person! I never thought I wanted children - partially to do with the fear of bringing girls into the patriarchy - now I wish we'd started younger, I fecking love the post birth befuddlement, the tiredness slows me down enough to make me stop and think, without the guilt that would usually attach to that. We are pretty much definitely going to adopt once our housing is sorted, we're just wondering whether or not to have a 3rd BC before we do that...

Am at vile SiL's now. We've already had head tilting and sighing. If I'm arrested for placing her face firmly on a BBQ grill, you lot are my alibi. Ok?

Make it look like an accident

We were there, we didn't see nuffink.

I'd love to have children but it seems to not be happening for me and I'm running out of time. OTOH, I'd be terrified - it seems like such a daunting life long task from where I'm standing.

The early days were terrifying. And I definitely did not like being tired all the time. And the inexplicable crying (on the part of all parties). Now the sleeping is OK but the other problems! Not as straightforward as "You Must Not Eat Other People's Children" (Ice Age 3).

Capt More details please.

My mother is now hideously pissed an telling gaslighty stories about me. Vile SiL has taken herself indoors with a bottle of wine. Have I ever said how much I hate my family?

sounds grim capt

Oh dear. Can you kidnap a bottle of wine and hide too?

Home now, had a good rant to DH on the way home, so feel much better now.

The zenlike thoughts and stuff helped, so thanks. Won't have to see them now for a very long time!

Right.... whoever has the wax effigy of me, could they stop sticking pins in it now?

It turns out that my delightful alcoholic step mother is in the UK for a holiday.

Seriously toying with the idea of moving to the USA and becoming some kind of mountainman.

Or drinking a medicinal bottle of wine.

I have a blocked up nose due to having hacked through the jungle that is my garden and having serious hay fever attack. I wish I fancy some wine. But capt you can have my share.

I LOVED the first 4 months. After that it was boring. tbh, we got very lucky - dd slept midnight to 6 am from just a few weeks, so I could go to bed around 10, DH did midnight, I got up at 6, he slept til 8. By 3 months she did 7 - 7.

But then I had years of infertility/IVF, severe hyperemesis, up to and including on the delivery table, 8 days of latent labour, 3 days of active labour and emcs. After all that, I think almost any baby would feel 'easy'. At the 6 week check, my GP admitted that they'd all been very worried about me. Some days I saw medical staff 3 separate times, as I had so many 'little' problems, like blood pressure, depression, and headaches.

For years I wanted another one though

So glad we only have one atm. I'm finding DD hard going this summer. She's just such a young 10 (almost 11) year old. She's about to go into 'secondary', but acts more like a 5 or 6 year old, and it can be painful seeing how much of an oddball she is. Sigh. She will grow out of it, but sometimes you can just see people thinking 'what an odd child'. Still, back to school soon, where 1 in 5 kids have as many diagnoses as her, if not more.

Lord Copper - you should come out to the desert - no allergies here!