Weekly Chat ~ September 3rd - 9th - Page 3 « Back to Group Discussions

[JuicyPakwan]

Wow so much is going on for everyone.  I hope for all in stressful situations things work out as smoothly as possible. 

We are also facing a move the first week of November and an insurance crisis that is stressing me out.  We lose all insurance in October (dh between jobs) so even though we are planning a home birth if anything goes awry (C-sec) and the baby is late into Oct we are kinda screwed. 

To all those homeschoolers -  we homeschool as well we have a 7th 6th 3rd and 1st grader and what I have learned is that after a baby being flexible is key and even missing several days in a row will not hurt anyone.  Kids are remarkably adaptable and even though we've had really hit and miss years my oldest two are above grade level skills and the younger two right on.  I'm not trying to say it's easy because there were many a day I freaked out thinking I was the biggest idiot in the world but it all has worked out in the end. 

[katt]

Madi- we do have an etsy store: http://www.etsy.com/shop/KataraBaby  However, we don't have any pre-made MTs available (cause i haven't had the sewing itch lately).  HOWEVER, I have a bunch of panels posted on our Facebook page, so if you want something that is there, i can have it done and out to you before my baby comes.  :D

http://www.facebook.com/KataraBaby

The straps are normally a un-cut cord or a brushed twill.  The inside of the MTs are normally silk, unless otherwise requested.  They can come in 3 sizes: standard, toddler, and preschool.  (the bigger they get the more they cost cause they take more fabric)  The panel is reinforced with a denim or other heavy weight fabric.  I can comfortably and safely wear my 5.5 year old in a bigger one if he'd let me.  :)

Okay, i'm done with my schpiel.  :)

[AnyaRose]

Wow, so many women in transitory times. (: I hope we all stick together after our babies are born too- I LOVE coming here and being able to hear you ladies vent and be able to do the same! 

Question...I've been having "menstral like cramps" as they call them... Basically a dull pain that comes and goes in my lower uterus. It doesn't feel like the sharper pelvic pain so I don't think it's my hips or anything. What do you ladies think? Maybe my cervix is chaaaaanging? (: I hope so. 

And to you ladies who can feel your cervix...what in the world?? How can you tell what's what in there? It feels just tight with tons of puffy walls coming out in every direction. Man, kudos to the sperm that found my egg, eh? I can't even find my way to the cervix. (; 

I still feel like I'll go late, but then again who knows. I'm sort of playing with the idea that I'll deliver on Oct 6th. I'm not sure why. It would be 41+2 for me. Whooooo knooooows? 

[judybean]

Originally Posted by AnyaRose 

And to you ladies who can feel your cervix...what in the world?? How can you tell what's what in there? It feels just tight with tons of puffy walls coming out in every direction. Man, kudos to the sperm that found my egg, eh? I can't even find my way to the cervix. (; 

bwahahaha ;)  I love this ;)  I'm on my fifth full-term pregnancy and finally think I"ve actually figured out where my cervix is... I can't really tell you exactly what I'm feeling or what's going on in there, but I'm pretty sure I've at least found it.  It's way high and to the back (for me)... I have to prop one leg up on something to reach way back there, and then even sometimes I have to.. well.. bear down (like taking a big poo... oh yeah, pregnancy and cervix-reaching are SUPER glamorous!!) to feel it.

I'll chime in with hoping many from this DDC really do stick it out and keep in touch.  I have met and become wonderful friends with some fabulous ladies from previous DDCs (especially ones from dd3 -- I've 'known' them for almost 7.5 YEARS now!!!!).  It's really quite a wonderful thing, especially because I'm pretty sure many of us feel kind of isolated in our ways of life (gentle parenting, cloth diapering, baby-wearing, more natural ways overall, etc) in the 'real world' so having somebody to turn to that 'gets it' is of wonderful help.  With my DDC from dd3, we originally had a seperate chat board, but then since everybody was on Facebook anyway, we just created a secret group on there for issues to discuss only with fellow members (so much stuff from divorces to finances to venting to in-laws to... EVERYTHING! it's great).

And... right now my older two girls are playing at the park around the block, dh has the younger two at another park (soccer pictures for dd3) and I'm on the regular computer ;)

When I finally washed my newborn and small diapers, I snapped a crappy nighttime phone picture...

Over 90% is made by me :)  I'm pretty pleased with that!  I'd like to get a couple more fitteds made (six ideally, four would be fine) and maybe another newborn cover or two (just made one today).  Then maybe a few more postpartum pads and I'll be set... I think!

[judybean]

oh.... and I can't figure out if I'm getting a cold or if it's just from nasty smoke in the air (fires are still raging all around... the air here is disgusting with all the smoke.. hard to see down the street sometimes), but I'm crossing my fingers it's just from the smoke, but my throat hurts, my sinuses hurt, and my nose switches between runny and stuffy at the drop of a hat.  Ugh.

[Carlin]

Judy, I hope it's not a cold! No need to get sick right now! Hopefully your back feels better too.

MamanF, Holy cow, it sounds like all you'll need to do when 'real' labour starts is stand up and let the baby fall out! At least you know those annoying contractions have been accomplishing something!

AnyaRose, I've been getting those too. I hope it's cervical changes causing it, but sometimes I think it might just be abdominal muscles tired of holding up all that baby.

Drat, there were a whole bunch more people I had comments for and now I can't remember any of them. Blame it on pregnancy brain I guess.

I had a midwife appointment today, and everything still looks good. I'm measuring right at 38 weeks, which is nice as I was measuring a couple weeks ahead, and I don't really feel the need to keep getting larger at this point. I've actually lost a few pounds over the last week or so too, which isn't a bad thing, considering how much weight I've gained overall. I'm still eating plenty, so I think it's just that mine and baby's metabolisms have ramped up to the point where we are actually using all the extra calories.

On Cervixes - I'm a fairly accomplished cervix checker when not pregnancy (4 + years of FAM / NFP will do that for you) but I can't reach it at all for most of my pregnancy. It's either too high and posterior, or my arms are too short to get around my belly. I was able to get just a slight touch of it yesterday, so that was pretty exciting, in a wierd way. It was actually softer than I would have expected but still so high and posterior that I couldn't really tell anything other than that.

I have new curtains to put up and some bins to put away, and after that the house is actually ready for a baby. However, DH will be out of town Wednesday and Thursday, so absolutely on no condition can this baby be born until after he gets home on Friday. I'm not too concerned, as I don't really feel that we are close yet, but I'm a little ansy that murphy's law will kick in and I'll go into labour while DH is 5 + hours away, and possibly out of cell phone range. On the other hand, if baby is born so quickly and easily that DH doesn't have time to get home, I think I'll just be grateful for a fast, easy labour!

[dmpkmom]

I'm too impressed by you checkers! I've done it successfully once when not pg (hmm..actually come to think of it, it was when I was oops, getting pregnant and was trying to figure out if I would indeed get pg. I thought i would and did....I ovulated on day 28-29 it seems!). To that end, this whole pg has been a bit of a denial for me and here it is, Sept and I still can't complete accept that this baby is gonna be here! We have barely a name list, I've gotten a few green/yellows out but haven't had the wherewithall to go up to the attic to find at least a handful of 0-3 boy and girl stuff so I'm not trying to do it w/a newborn in arms. I am trying to think of something I could do to connect w/ baby mentally. There's just so much going on here and now w/out baby, I can't take a moment to think about this little guy/girl. But, I'm sure I'll fall in love w/ him/her when on the outside. I certainly am just smitten w/ my 2 yr old son right now. The 5 yr old, whole I love w/ every fiber of my being takes a little more effort to feel love for right now, especially w/ the kindergarten adjustments. Any ideas on a book/poem/activity I could do to connect w/ baby within?

[katt]

Do you have any fav. books from when your olders were younger?  You could read that to the bump.

just a quick announcement: my cousin had her baby today.  They were TOLD a girl.  They GOT a boy.  :D

[WindyCityMom]

Last night I did the castor oil as per my midwives request. I took it around 8:30pm, took a hot shower and inadvertently did some nipple stim (trying to milk a plugged duct.. Ow!) and then got out and had sex. Started having the contractions as I laid down um. Dtd.

Anyway, watched a funny show with DH for a little while, the digestive effects of the castor oil showed up around 12:30am. We also got hit with a big storm around that time. Anyways, contractions got really hard and probably every 5 minutes. At 2:30am the digestive stuff slowed down and I wa able to rest. Woke up an hour later, still having the contractions, and still pooping, lol. Went back to bed, same thing happened two more timed about an hour apart. I'm still having contractions they're just a little further apart and slightly less painful, so like I said ive been trying to rest.

Even if it's not labor, it's good practice and lm sure it will do something for this stubborn cervix! At least I hope so! I'm just living on. Coconut water, pastrami sandwiches, and emercen-C. Blah. Going to try and rest some more before the sun comes up!

[judybean]

Good luck, WCM! Just like you said, maybe even if right at this moment it's not full-on labor, hopefully it's doing something for your cervix!!

It's 4:30 am for me and I've been up with dd4, who seems to have a tummy ache and is having a hard time sleeping.

I had a dream that I was in labor and it was *so real* that it was very disappointing to wake up and realize it was only in my dream. Harumph. It was so real too (except that my midwife was sleeping in my bed... that part was odd!), but she was getting dd4 back to sleep as I was going to hop in the shower because I knew with certainty and absolute clarity that Today Would Be The Day.

I'm thinking that either 1) EPO goes straight to my head (instead of my cervix) to give me baby dreams or 2) I was probably having some sort of mild, weak contractions in my sleep and in my foggy sleep i got excited. Or of course it could just be another wild pregnancy dream. I've been having plenty of fabulously apocalyptic dreams lately (complete with treks to Beijing via underground tunnels...*sigh*). Or! Maybe it was that darn garlic bagel... yesterday morning i had a delightfully garlicky bagel (I swear it had to have two full heads of garlic in it) and now at 4:50 am the following day, my mouth *still* REEKS of garlic! And (eek!), oh the gassyness it's causing as well! Dh plugged his nose if i tried to kiss him

Funtimes at our house. Pregnancy can be so weird.

[Monkey Keeper]

Hope it works, WCM!!

Wow, MamanF...can't wait to hear about your quick, easy labor--on FRIDAY :) 

Thinking of everyone else...too much to reply to to even start to keep track of it. We are so chatty here as we wait for these babies to arrive!

AFM, I'm 38w even today. No sign of baby soon, of course. I figure three more weeks which seems like an eternity at the moment. I overdid it this weekend cleaning, prepping for and hosting DS's 2nd birthday party and really did a number on my back. Luckily I had a chiro appointment already scheduled for yesterday, and she managed to work out most of the kinks. It's also kind of interesting here because my DH thinks he may have torn his calf muscle playing basketball this weekend, so he is hobbling around. I'm so glad we got the house cleaned before both of us were out of commission! Now I just have to keep it up. He assures me that his calf will not impact his ability to support me during this birth ;)  Today is DD2's first day of preschool, and I have given the baby permission to come on out after this. I do have to work on Saturday, and it probably would be a good idea to have some clothes washed for this LO. And I'd like to have our bedroom cleaned, the Arm's Reach up, and the majority of the laundry done. So I am sure that baby won't come now with all of that stuff on my mind and to-do list.

[ascher21]

I guess it's my turn to rant about something that is not pregnancy related.

Or perhaps it is, I just don't know it. This will probably seem truly silly to all you moms with children, who don't have time for this sort of thing anyway, but my husband and I moved down to Florida 3 years ago and we've moved every year since, so it hasn't been easy to make friends. We did meet a couple through MIL's best friend, whose son is married to a very nice lady and who I thought we had lots in common with. She helped us find a rental and at the beginning of my pregnancy I helped her costume a show she was directing. I thought everything between us was just fine. She throws tons of parties and we were invited to one at Christmas last year, right before I found out I was pregnant. Well, time goes by, and Passover at MIL's friend's house was cancelled, one where both our families were invited. I come to find out, after DH and I had everyone over another night, that this lady invited everyone from the cancelled party excepting us. I was a little hurt, especially since my guests kept talking about the party we weren't invited to. Now I find out, again, today, that this has happened again with a labor day party.

For the life of me, I can't figure out why we are not invited to these things, while DH's mother and grandmother are. It is so bazaar. And as much as I wish I didn't care, it makes me feel like crap. I just can't understand it.

So that's my daily rant of why I'm feeling sucky. I seriously can't think of anything either of us did. We are both very sweet.

[Faliciagayle]

Good luck WCM and Maman!  

Just finished dropping of DD at Kindergarten!  I consider it a supremely good sign that her teacher is a former homebirther who birthed with my MWs former partner.  She was also a lactation consultant, and her grown daughter runs the CSA we used to be a part of! 

38w1d today.  Off to see the MW in a few....

Judybean, you've inspired me!  I finished a ring sling for a friend, started another one, and am working on cutting out some fabric for baby cloths :):)

[nukuspot]

As I was trying to visualize going into labor last night one of the things I thought about was my "water breaking". At 2am I got up to pee and turned on the tap--We have no water. Something broke at our well in the middle of the night. I've been so stressed I barely slept a second. Just waiting, waiting for it to be late enough this morning to desperately call pump repair. I'm so stressed. Tomorrow is my EDD and how can we have a home birth with no water?

[MamanFrancaise]

Oh no, nukuspot! I hope they can repair it ASAP today! Twice in the past week I've noticed the water coming out of my tap is dark yellow. So I freaked out and made DH investigate as to why. He said the city was working on water lines and that we just needed to run the water to clear the dirty water. We were advised not to drink the water if it was yellow though. Gee, um, thanks. I really want to birth my baby in water that is not recommended for drinking. UGH! It better stay clear or I may go hormonal on the city workers.

No baby yet. No contractions really either.

My daughters are safely tucked away in their new school. My youngest even has a boy from her old school in her new class which is a great bonus. She settled in within minutes. My oldest was so nervous. She barely slept last night and she had an upset, nervous stomach this morning. I hope the kids in her class are friendly and she makes friends by first recess.

And with that done, NOW baby can come if he must. LOL I could handle having a baby this afternoon. 

However, since my appointment yesterday I am scared. I'm scared of having this baby. Like the baby coming out of my vagina part. Not sure how to shake that feeling and just let go...

[WindyCityMom]

Just a small update...

I woke up about an hour ago, 10:00am, to a contraction. I had been waking up a little bit every so often to the further apart contractions I was getting in my sleep.. Also having weird dreams.. Anyways, got up because I was hungry this time. Went to the bathroom and lost another huge chunk of plug, had more residual gastrointestinal effects (though admittedly I really did need the laxative!) and contractions have started back up a little bit. They're not as strong as last night but hopefully they'll pick up.

I have my DH on vacation until Monday now, I'm really happy I can just focus on my body and birth and not deal with bickering children!

[Yeeska]

Originally Posted by ascher21 

I guess it's my turn to rant about something that is not pregnancy related.

Or perhaps it is, I just don't know it. This will probably seem truly silly to all you moms with children, who don't have time for this sort of thing anyway, but my husband and I moved down to Florida 3 years ago and we've moved every year since, so it hasn't been easy to make friends. We did meet a couple through MIL's best friend, whose son is married to a very nice lady and who I thought we had lots in common with. She helped us find a rental and at the beginning of my pregnancy I helped her costume a show she was directing. I thought everything between us was just fine. She throws tons of parties and we were invited to one at Christmas last year, right before I found out I was pregnant. Well, time goes by, and Passover at MIL's friend's house was cancelled, one where both our families were invited. I come to find out, after DH and I had everyone over another night, that this lady invited everyone from the cancelled party excepting us. I was a little hurt, especially since my guests kept talking about the party we weren't invited to. Now I find out, again, today, that this has happened again with a labor day party.

For the life of me, I can't figure out why we are not invited to these things, while DH's mother and grandmother are. It is so bazaar. And as much as I wish I didn't care, it makes me feel like crap. I just can't understand it.

So that's my daily rant of why I'm feeling sucky. I seriously can't think of anything either of us did. We are both very sweet.

Do they have kids? I remember being friends with a couple who seemed to drift when I got pregnant. Over time it came out that she really really wanted kids and had had a series of miscarriages. It was really hard for her to be around pregnant people and/or new babies. I learned all this when we reconnected when DS1 was a couple years old and I started hanging out sans child with old friends again (girls night out kind of stuff).

Of course, I also had friends who drifted from me b/c their social life revolves around drinking and I became boring when I wasn't so into that anymore. So, there's that...

[MotoMom]

Yep. It's official. I will be pregnant forever. I even had a dream last night that Hank was all grown up by the time he came out. He was a day old and sitting on my shoulders singing with me. Haha! I thought I would be all realistic about the whole "due date" thing. I'm a pretty practical woman. But here we are at  only 40+4 and I feel like this kid is never coming out! DH even said it. As we were approaching the "due" date he was feeling like it could just happen at any time but the further past the "due" date we get the less it seems like it will happen. How does that work? It even seems like the prodromal-type stuff has slacked off. Now when I walk my two-something miles, I get back and ... nothing. No regular contractions whatsoever! Argh! So frustrating!

But really, things are good. I feel okay. I'm sure this is the first of many lessons in patience that my little guy will be teaching me.

Sorry to all of you mamas facing your various struggles! I lurk on here but don't always respond and sometimes just don't know what to say. Then I'll have a bad day and start venting in the reply section, but feel better once I get it typed out and then I just don't feel like sharing it anymore. 

Happy baby thoughts and peace to everyone!!

[Worldshakerz]

WCM, its so exciting to hear your progress - I hope we get to hear your birth story and see baby pictures soon 

Nuku and Maman, oddly we've also been having issues with our water. In the past month the water to our building has been shut off completely while they do major repairs. The first time it was for two days straight. Last time it was one day. Then yesterday it was turned off for about 10 minutes right when I wanted to run a hot bath. But then it came back on. It is also making me nervous, this is not something I want to happen when I go into labor! I really want my home birth to include running water! I hope you two don't have to deal with anymore water issues either. 

My insomnia has got me on quite an interesting schedule of staying up late, sleeping in, and napping randomly. I usually sleep in anywhere from 10am to 11am. I will take a few power naps at very random times. My kids have been pretty awesome about grabbing yogurt or cheese and some fruit for breakfast and playing nicely, when I need to sleep in. Today was a little different though! I woke up to a complete disaster area in my living room, and they had eaten all of DH's cookies. I mean it was a real disaster, all the cushions off the couches (turned into mini tents), trash everywhere, toys everywhere, just stuff everywhere, I couldn't see the floor. But they did clean it all up (under my direction, lol). 

[Ava's Mama]

Hi everyone, I have to say I am officially obsessed with checking this DDC for babies!  I just had a midwife appointment and everything looks and sounds great.  My blood pressure is back down a little lower, so no worries there.  Baby is in perfect position for labor.  I will be 40 weeks on Friday, but we are hoping baby will come next week!

WCM thinking of you!