Weekly thread: September 5 - 11

[mom2threenurslings]

[mom2threenurslings]

Happy Monday, Mamas!

So...how many Labor Day babies are we going to have?

I had my homevisit today!!! Yippee!!! It's been over 4 weeks since I've seen my midwives! One of the midwives came and she checked out the house, my birth supplies, and told dh what his duties are while I'm in labor (boil mixture of 4 herbs in a gallon of water and let steep 4-6 hours for mw's to put on pads and put in freezer for after birth; put receiving blanket on cookie sheet, put heating pad on blanket, cover with more blankets and wrap in a towel ... turn heating pad on when I'm close to pushing to warm blankets; etc). He has to boil water :LOL ! Then she checked baby's position - head down , blood pressure - 107/64 , and heartbeat - , and sat and chatted for a while about my previous births, about arrangements during and after birth, and about when to call, etc. She was impressed at how organized I am (birth supplies in drawers in rolling cart, birth supplies in both possible birthing rooms, birth bags/birth box/birth projects set up for the kids for during and after birth, etc.). As soon as today is over and I get some sleep, I'll be ready to have this baby!!!

Gotta run - time to go to my parents' house for a lobster and steak picnic with friends and family!

I hope everyone has a great day - and a great week!

~*~*~*~Gentle Birthing Vibes~*~*~*~ to anyone who needs them!

[cuqui]

OMG! Major fright this morning!

My dds woke me up at 9am, climbed into bed and started to pet my belly and talk to baby but got no response. I freaked, I shook my belly, got up (well jumped out of bed), walked around, took a shower (in tears I might add). I beside myself, 25 minutes and no response. I woke DH up and called my midwife. Her first ?, 'When did you last eat'? Duh last night around 7pm. (I avoid eating after 7pm b/c of the acid reflux). She told to eat something immediately, have a tall glass of cold water and lay on my left side. I had 2 bananas and a tall glass of water and sure enough within minutes baby started to dance around! Whew!!!! My poor DH, the guy turned gray, I thought he was going to faint.

Too much excitment for one morning.

My cousin is having an early BBQ today, so we are off to her house, this way I don't have to cook. I will just soak in her pool with my dds.

Hope everyone has a great Labor Day.

And, eat yeah eat often! I will!

[Goldiemom]

Cuqui, I am glad that you were able to get baby moving! That would have been really scary for me too. Your poor dh, hopefully he doesn't get too many grey hairs before your little one is born.

Amanda, I am jealous that you are getting to have lobster and steak. Yummy! I think I need to feed myself, then maybe I won't be so jealous. :LOL I am glad that moonbaby is head down and that all is well on that front. Also glad you finally got your homevisit done. Does your dh have a habit of burning water? Is that what is so funny about him boiling water? I hope you are able to get your birth pool back in the next day or two, whether your friend has her baby, or she gets her own pool.

Not too much to update on. I am going to be buying some terry cloth so that I can make up some more fitteds and make up some infant prefolds for my pocket diapers. Poor Allissa is a super soaker baby and her cute CareBear dipe leaked all over her outfit last night. Anyone know good natural ways of getting BM poopoo's out of white liners? I don't wanna bleach if I don't have to. I think I am mostly going to be doing laundry and rearranging furniture in the apartment today. I need to get the desk out of our bedroom into the computer room so that I can use it as a sewing table. I think it will work out well. At least I hope so.

Hope everyone has a good day. ELV's to anyone needing them. I love adding new babies to our list. Take care of yourselves everyone!

[ZeldasMom]

mom2threenurslings--I am glad you finally had your home visit! I know I felt glad to have that taken care of. One more thing to check off the list before the big day, you know? I am impressed with how organized you are too! We also have 2 potential birth rooms (the spare room downstairs if it's a water birth and the bedroom upstairs if I end up wanting to be there). I could probably do some more prep for 22mo DS. My sisters from out-of-town are coming to do sibling support and I want to write up tips for caring for him and directions for getting to places like the library, the zoo, etc. for them. I also have a few new toys hidden away I should find.

Your picnic sounds dee-lish. Enjoy!

Cuqui--I am so sorry you had that scare!!! But I am so glad it was just that and not something more serious.

Goldie--Have you tried laying dipes out in the sun to get rid of stains? I have been amazed at some of the stains that have sunned out! I think it works best if the diaper is wet when you put it out in the sun. I have also heard of people putting lemon juice on the diaper while sunning, though I haven't tried this myself. I have also been thinking about making pocket diaper inserts out of terry cloth. I got some thrift store towels I want to try this with. I got some instructions from another MDC mama about how to do it--we'll see if I end up having time to give it a go before the baby comes!

[Galatea]

I want lobster and steak. Actually, I don't want to eat anything and have no appetite. But lobster and steak sounds nice. BIL wants us to go to the RibFest. I don't think that is such a good idea, esp. since I have no energy, but we will see.

Goldie - If you put the diapers in the sun, they need to be wet from the washer. It should get all the stains out.

Cuqui - My baby is quiet for a few days now too. Maybe I am not eating enough either. He esp. does not move much in the mornings. Usually I can poke him awake but sometimes it is scary.

I still feel like crap, really nauseated and still lots of diarrhea (sorry TMI) and some stretchy feelings down low. I slept for 10 hours with the help of Benadryl and am still exhausted. I want to have this baby soon!

[Full Heart]

Well we had an eventfilled weekend. Our mini shower broke...AGAIN! I had this one less than a year! At least its under warranty but with the holiday I have to wait till tomorrow to call. Meanwhile we are dunking and of course...of course ds has to have teeth coming in which of course has caused the runs :LOL . Timing is always off. Its his last 2 teeth though, eye teeth.

My grandfather had to be admitted to the hospital this weekend for rectal bleeding so badly that he had to have a transfusion. They are waiting to do the colonoscopy till he regains some strength to see what is going on.

Today dh has an apt and I have to go do paper work for dds brownies (I have no idea what for as I have already filled out about 8 forms!). Then off to my parents for a bbq and swimming. I told dh today would be a good day to have the baby as I would get a really good meal afterward :LOL . And we started school with the kids today. They are so excited!

Goldie...do you have a minishower? I noticed if I spray off the nb poos they stain less. And of course the sun! Works like magic.

cuqui...My baby doesn't move if I haven't eaten either. Everynight hes so quiet, and it always bothers me. You would think after a few weeks of quiet nights I would be used to it but I still get scared.

mom2threenurslings...Congrats on your homevisit. We do the wrapping towels and blankets in a heating pad too. Of course right now I could probably just hang them in a window and they would get as hot :LOL

Michelle

[sarahloughmiller]

mom2threenurslings - you are so organized! When I had ds I was like that, but this time I have been terrible. You would think with having twins at home I would be more organized, but I so am not. Have fun tonight & eat lots, the day before I had ds I ate sooo much and then went into labor that night!

cuqui - it is so scary when they don't move, I had a time like that with ds and I was bleeding also. It was so horrible, as soon as I went to the hospital he got super active and was totally fine, but it was so scary for a few hours. Eat up and keep that babe movin!

Goldie - how do you do all of that? You have 3 kids, one a newborn, and you manage to make diapers! I packed up all my diaper makin stuff because I know I will not be able to make anything once these guys get here. Whatever I did not finnish is just not going to get finnished! Oh, and sunning diapers works great. Wash them 1st and then lay them out in the sun, you will be amazed.

Galatea - I hope you get that baby out soon so you can stop feeling so crapy. I have been going back and forth feeling like that also and it is no fun.

Well, I am still pregnant and am actually ok with it. These guys will come out one of these days and they will be nice and big so that makes me happy. I thought last night was it, but no such luck. Dh is off work after thurs for 7 weeks so I hope I have these babes soon, I don't want his time off wasted . Not that it would be wasted, I could really use the help with ds, but I want him to spend as much time with the babes as possible.

[phathui5]

The nurse who did my "discharge education" at the birth center said something about not having engorgement because I'm tandem nursing. Not only am I engorged but I'm leaky and both of the nurslings are asleep.

[ZeldasMom]

Originally Posted by phathui5

The nurse who did my "discharge education" at the birth center said something about not having engorgement because I'm tandem nursing. Not only am I engorged but I'm leaky and both of the nurslings are asleep.

edit: when I first read this I thought you said you *weren't* engorged! Maybe you could take this opportunity to take a warm shower (I seem to remember it being hard to get showers in when I had a newborn). I remember this helping get enough milk out so I was comfortable. Maybe by then one of your nurslings will be awake.

[Shell_Ell]

Okay, warning here... I'm in a raunchy mood so this post will definately show it.

I was able to stay positive yesterday. Chad and I went out for ice cream last night. Just hung out. Did some nipple stimulation last night and brought on contractions, but they would go away after an hour or so. I got sick of it, and figured it was my body's way of saying "I'm not ready yet" so I let it go.

I debated whether or not to post but since it's my reality, I decided to go ahead and do it and not worried about what anyone thought. I'm terribly depressed today. I had another start and stop early this morning. This one was bad. Started with intense intestinal pain and then I was having contractions with double-peaks for about two hours. I have been crying on and off all day. It seems like the days are really dragging now. I'm feeling like I did at the very beginning of my pregnancy when I had morning sickness really bad. Like I didn't even really want to go to bed at night because I knew I'd wake up in the morning and it would be a repeat of the day before. The only difference is that I know that each day that goes by I'm a day closer. It's just rough right now, and I don't think I ever remember feeling so desperately impatient! I want relief. I am emotionally exhausted!

Tomorrow I have a chiropractor appt in the morning, and then a midwife appt at 11:30. I think I'm going to ask her to strip my membranes. I am pretty sure she'd do it at this point. It's not really invasive... it's one of those things that only works if you're body is ready for it to work. So couldn't hurt. The only down side is that I would rather the baby be born toward the end of the week so we get the weekend with Chad home. Otherwise we have to loose money with having him home. He doesn't get paid time off, and didn't get paid for today (I was really hoping baby would come this weekend since he had an unpaid day off anyway) so it would be a rough time financially for him to come.

That said, he can come whenever he wants. Money is NOT priority right now. In any case... I think I'm gonna ask her to do that. And keep having sex (we should be doing it daily, dangit) and hopefully it will move things along. Something just isn't ready yet it seems. Something is holding my body back. But the longer this goes on (it's been 3 weeks since my first incident of prodromal labour) the harder it gets. I'm really trying to look on the bright side of things, but it's tough!

[sarahloughmiller]

Shell_Ell - I had that a lot when I was pregnant with Jackson. It went on for weeks, every night the contrax would get stronger and closer and I would think it was it and then I would go to sleep and they would be gone in the morning. 1 week before he was born they got really strong & 5 minutes apart. I was sure that was it, but all of a sudden I got really tired and went to sleep and that was it, they were gone. I ended up drinking caster (?sp) oil when I was 42 weeks and it did get things going. I would never, ever do it again though. He was still not ready and it just made my labor much longer because he was not ready to come out. I know it is sooo hard to wait, I have been having a really hard time this time also and have been wanting to do things to speed things along, but I just try to keep telling myself that they will come out when they are ready. Oh, and I think the sex thing is just something some husband made up to get his 9 month preg wife to want to do it :LOL I swear it does nothing, we did it plenty with Jackson and have been doing it this time and nothing. Hang in there and try to rememeber that this anoying pre labor is getting everything ready and will make it easier when the time comes to get this baby out.

Full Heart - I think we were posting at the same time. I hope your grandfather is ok, that is scary. I broke my mini shower also, it got stepped on and we have not replaced it yet (that was months ago). It is so much easier when you have one, but dh doesn't want another one because we could never get it attached right and it always leaked. I didn't mind though, I just put a bowl under it and then I never had to remember to give the dog water :LOL

[trijosie-mama]

Hi mamas! I can relate to so much thats been posted today! I had contractions all night, untill about 4am when dh went to work. I thought for sure i would be able to labor all morning and then he'd come home at noon and we could head for the hospital! I guess the baby has different plans. I'm sure now that the contractions were brought on by nipple stimulation and some BD, but I thought if they lasted all night it might be more than that. I am only 38wks, I just need to go alittle longer, I'm really trying to convince myself of this, meanwhile my back hurts so bad by the end of the day I can barely walk and the pressure on my pelvic bone isn't helping! :

I've also had some periods where I can't feel the baby moving and get freaked out. So far it hasn't lasted long enough for me to say anything. I try to drink some chocolate milk to see if that gets her moving, so far it's worked and it does taste good too!

mom2threenurslings~ I'm happy to hear you got your home visit, I start to wish I was having a homebirth when I read some of your posts. If theres a next time i will be talking dh into it! Oh and lobster, yummy!

Shell_Ell~It's so hard tyring to think about when the best time to go into labor is! DH will only get 3 full days regardless of when it happens, he works on a ferry and his license is a requirement for them, they were supposed to find someone with a license to replace him for a week and they havn't. I'll be lucky if he gets to take me home from the hospital! Maybe all these worries about your dh are holding of real labor, I'm sure mine are! I think I am going to try meditating and maybe another warm bath to relax myself, also Ina May suggests a glass of wine if your up for it!

Full Heart~ I'm sorry to hear about your grandfather. I hope things settle down for you before the baby arrives and that it happesn with plenty of time left with dh at home!

Galatea~ at least you got some sleep!! I hope things atart to progress for you, it doesn't sound like your having too much fun. And that mention of benedryl reminded me I can take that, I have terrible allergies right now and I havn't slept for more than 2 hours in a row in days!

I know it's early for me, but I feel so ready right now! I've cleaned every single room in this house, washed my dipes one more time just to make sure they are clean, packed, unpacked and repacked bags for the hospital. I have several "t's time"plans, in terms of who i'm calling to watch ds and when i call my parents(my mom is crazy and I'm not sure i want her there the whole time). I'm starting to get scared dh will be in the middle of the lake when I get to a pushing stage, now I'm going to cry too! crap, I'm going to lay down before ds wakes up, I need more rest. We're going to go for a nice long nature walk after that and maybe that will get me started!

[NowOrNever]

I'm finding it hard not to get anxious now! I'm 38wks, but time has suddenly slowed waaaay down for me. I am not anxious to see the baby yet, but I am getting anxious to have my body back!! I have never enjoyed being pregnant...ever. *sigh*

I have four more orders to sew this week and everyone loves to tell me how crazy I am for agreeing to make them. : If I didn't have them to do, time would really drag on and drive me nuts!! I'll be finished by Friday, though, and have one straight week before my due date to do whatever.

My older three girls keep asking me how much longer. I don't think they know fully what they're in for when the baby does come! :LOL My 2yr old ds is way too active for me at this point, and I'm so thankful for my dh and older girls...they've been chasing him for me!

I'm almost ready for my homebirth. I just have to get a kit to fill up the pool. Hopefully I can find one today or dh will be in the dog house with me.

I can't sleep...still!! Please, someone send me sleepy dream vibes.

[canadiangranola]

Right there with you all. I hit 38 weeks today but for some reason have it in my head that this baby will be born earlier than 40....setting myself up for disappointment i'm sure....with number 1, it had never even occured to me to think about being on time or early, so when my water broke the night before my due date I was in complete shock....now i find myself analyzing every twitch of my uterus and constantly looking for mucous plug and other delights :LOL

Speaking of which, anyone else feel overly dry right now in their nether regions? With ds I wore a panty liner for the last month cuz I was so juicy...now it is so dry it almost hurts to wipe after peeing....not trying to be gross...just wondering if anyone can relate?

Shell - is there anything going on in your head that might be affecting your birthing process? Are you afraid or tense? Do you journal? It just sounds like your body is trying to do it's thing but something is getting inthe way. Would it help to just do a free write, take a pen and paper and write down everything you can think off...whatever flows into your head about life right now, birth, having a baby, finances...whatever comes up just write it down...maybe if there is some emotional stress you are even unaware of on a conscious level, this would help figure it out? Or i'm talking out of my butt and i'm crazy

Had a major pregnancy moment yesterday...I went to the freezer to find soemthing for supper, and while I was there, decided to look for something else I though I had at the bottom of the freezer. Started emptying out the freezer, got distracted, and forgot completely that my freezer was wide open and half off the contents were on the shelf until dh came hojme for his break from work.....the funny thing is...it's not like the freezer is in the deepest reaches of the basement...it is 5 feet from thekitchen, with the laundry, computer, and all the other stuff I use all the time, including the back door.

Anyway.....
I'm getting impatient too...keep having bouts of contractions in the evenings that fade away, and finding myself grumpy as hell and short tempered with ds (even though I know how much I should try to enjoy these last few days with just him, I find myself just wishing someone else could take care of him and I could read or sleep or....anything else.

Blessings mamas....it won't be long now

[mamabeth]

Sooooooooo very good to read that I am not the only one in cranky-pregnant-land! The days really do seem to go on forever, and even though today was a holiday it did too. I am trying to put things on my calendar every day (example: season premiere of the OC on thursday : ) but I don't think it's helping either.

I also am having lots of contractions and it seems like they start earlier each day. I have been finally sleeping well the past few nights and have still been so tired during the day. Weird. My mucus plug has continued its gradual journey out, over the past 3-4 days, which I never saw with dd so that's been sort of exciting.

I have a m/w appointment on Thursday and am so looking forward to that. She is always so reassuring and wonderful, and has never made it being a VBAC an issue, just another birth. Gotta love that.

I hope everybody has a pretty good night, all things considered, and how about one of us has a baby tonight????!!!!

[musicmaj]

Originally Posted by Goldiemom

Not too much to update on. I am going to be buying some terry cloth so that I can make up some more fitteds and make up some infant prefolds for my pocket diapers. Poor Allissa is a super soaker baby and her cute CareBear dipe leaked all over her outfit last night. Anyone know good natural ways of getting BM poopoo's out of white liners? I don't wanna bleach if I don't have to. I think I am mostly going to be doing laundry and rearranging furniture in the apartment today. I need to get the desk out of our bedroom into the computer room so that I can use it as a sewing table. I think it will work out well. At least I hope so.

Just wet the liner and lay in the direct sunlight. You will find the stain gone in no time at all.

If that doesn't work, then wet it, put a little lemon juice on it, and lay in the sun. It always worked for me!

[trijosie-mama]

canadiangranola~ I'm having that dryness too. It's wierd because on friday I lost the majority of my plug, sat and sun were pretty gross too, towards the end of yesterday it stopped. and today I'm dry, more than i have been the whole pregnancy.

We just got back from our walk, I thought for sure it wouldbring on something, but it hasn't so far! I'm beat and I'm not looking forward to going back to work. Is it unusual for a woman to keep working like i am? I never thought it was, but everyone keeps asking me why i'm still working. I think if I wasn't I'd really go crazy, just being alone so much and having so much time to think about the fact that i'm still pregnant and could be for awhile! DH has decided to take on extra shifts so that he might get more time off, the key word here is MIGHT! Nothing is ever a guarantee in his job!

I hope this baby comes when sh'es good and ready, I also hope thats sooner rather than later.

good night everyone!

[musicmaj]

My sil -who was due 5 days after me - had her baby this morning at 37 weeks. He is so adorable and so small. 6 lbs 9 oz. This is their first baby. She had a quick natural labor after her water broke at a party she was at last night. I couldn't wait to get up to the hospital to see him this afternoon. It was so neat to see my little brother (he is 22) holding his son. There is eight years difference between us and he and I were always close. When he was little he used to climb in bed with me when he had bad dreams or would wake in the night. It is just neat to know he is a father now.

We all assumed that I would be the first to have my baby since I was due first and typically have mine a week early.

[ZeldasMom]

I don't think my baby is coming for awhile. I am not having cervical checks, but the only belly tightening/back ache I get is when DS nurses a long time or I walk a ways. When I stop it goes away.

I'm doing lots of pelvic rocking to keep the baby in a good position. It feels good too.

One thing I haven't done much of is documenting this pregnancy. I am going to hang out with a long-time friend on Thursday afternoon--maybe I'll see if she's up for helping me do a belly cast. I'll have to scrounge up some instructions. She wanted to come over here and make me lunch. I said, no way--I want you to wait and do that when the baby comes!

canadiangranola--I think we have the same EDD--September 19? I have spent a little time up in Saskatchewan by the way--I grew up in ND and have relatives who used to live in Saskatoon who now live in Regina.

Galatea--I'm sorry you're not feeling good. That's awesome that you were able to sleep for 10 hours!

musicmaj--congratulations on being an aunt! That will be fun to have cousins so close in age.

trijosie-mama--Last pregnancy I worked up until 5pm on Friday and had DS at 5pm on Saturday. I think having my mind focused on something non-baby-related was really helpful. There were a few people at work who would say something every day about "you *still* here" which was kind of : . I just tried to be light about it and move on to the next thing. I figured getting into it with them would just make it worse.

mamabeth--glad you have a cool midwife! It's nice to be able to look forward to seeing your birth attendant. I had to see an OB for a non-pregnancy related issue awhile back and it sucked having to worry about watching everything I said (my family practice doc advised me not to tell her I was planning a homebirth because his sense was she would just give me grief).

Nowornever--what do you sew? Do tell! Glad you have some help running after your 2 yo. My 22 mo DS has really gotten into turning my attempts to change his diaper into a game of "chase"--I'm going to have to get sneakier! :LOL For our pool we bought a red rubber hose (apparently that indicates you can put hot water in it) and a universal adapter to attach to the sink at Home Depot.

Shell_Ell--I'm sorry things are hard right now! Good luck with the chiro and the midwife.

SLM--wow--that is great that your DH will have 7 weeks off! Good luck with getting those babies birthed in a timely manner! ROFL about the dog drinking out of the mini-shower bowl! Sounds like a very efficient system! I think at the www.pottypail.com site they talk about different fittings you can get to attach the mini-shower to the toilet. We didn't get our mini-shower from them, but I do know DP had to go buy some other part when we got our to make it work right. Unfortunately I am pretty ignorant about this kind of thing.

FH--I am sorry about your grandfather--I hope it turns out to be a problem they can resolve easily. Okay, totally not in the same category of importance, but about your mini-shower breaking! Do you have this kind http://www.softclothbunz.com/index.a...PROD&ProdID=69
We have only had ours since this spring (prior to that we were scrapers) but we it and I would be really bummed if it broke!