Hey ladies! Sorry I've been MIA lately, but my sister and her family and my grandma have been in town so I've been busy spending time with them. Still pregnant!!!! 40 weeks PLUS 4 days! I'm pretty adamant on not getting induced this time around, and just letting baby come when she's ready. So we'll see what happens. My sister road trips out here every summer from NC and she had planned her trip this year around baby being here on the 24th and had planned on starting her trip home TODAY! But she said she's staying until baby gets here so she's had to rearrange her plans. I feel kind of bad. But I'm loving the time I get to spend with her, and that Olivia gets to spend with her cousins. But go figure, isn't it just my luck that after worrying so much about going into labor alone and not having anyone to watch Olivia, I would go past my due date and have everyone around just twiddling their thumbs waiting for baby :laugh: Hope you're all doing great!

Destiny
40w4d

Morning ladies,
Well I've been up since 2.30am with cramps every 10-30 mins so nothing regular happening as yet. Hubby up with me as he's ultra excited, I'm trying to keep him and myself calm at the same time!
Have a great Sunday xox

Hope everything is going great!

Shoot I should have read farther! Sas - I hope you have good news when you next post!!

Well this is officially the END of my pregnancy as I gave birth to the most precious gift in the world at 7.50pm last night, little Ava Jane. This is how it all went….
2.30am I woke up with what I thought was food poisoning type of tummy ache so I went to the loo. 5 trips and number s’s later and I was convinced it was food poisoning although it wasn’t runny. By 7am I started to have a bloody show so I knew it was the start of things and so at 7.30am I began timing my contractions and put on my TENS machine. 6 minutes, 9 minutes, 15 minutes, 5 minutes…. This went on all day long, all over the place and most of them lasting between 1 and 1½ mins in length. We went for two walks to town and back and I was contracting all the time. We took Emma to the train station at 5.30pm and by this time I thought I was just being super pain intolerant so James called the labour suite and they said I should go in. When we got there we parked the car up in the car park and walked all the way into the labour suite, contractions now every 3-4 minutes and KILLING me. I went in there and asked for an epidural straight away so the midwife said she’d give me an internal to check my progress as I was way to calm. James was telling her about me being a ‘tough cookie’ and she commented ‘yeah she is, she’s fully dilated’! WHAT???????!!!!! As I type this at 4pm on Monday 30th I’m still in shock that it all happened to fast! From this point shifts changed and our new midwife came in and at 7pm broke my waters and with that I got the urge to push. 4 REALLY GOOD pushes later with immense swearing and grunting, screaming to James that I just couldn’t do it anymore and I was told to stop pushing as her head was crowning. THE RING OF FIRE!!!!!! Oh my God! Never before have I felt such immense pain and I had to hold her there until I was told to push again. This is the only time the midwife gave me gas and air to suck on so that I wouldn’t push. With the next contraction her head came out and to my utter amazement James looked down at her. The next contraction after that I pushed her body out as the midwife pulled at her shoulders.
She gave her a very quick wipe down, cut her cord and put her straight onto my chest, skin to skin with a towel over her body. Still in total complete shock we stared at our beautiful daughter in complete awe. The midwife gave me an injection to speed up the placenta and she delivered that more or less straight away. I wish I hadn’t looked down at this point….ewwwww! 
We were left to soak up our new daughter for a long time, there was no pressure to rush around. Ava had a few goes at breast feeding and although I knew she wasn’t latched on really well she gave it her best shot. We were brought in tea and toast which tasted amazing! The midwife eventually came back and weighed Ava – 8lbs 3oz! She looks so tiny!
After a while I had a quick shower and we dressed Ava. Midwife asked us if we’d like to have an early discharge and we said absolutely so by 10.30pm we were all packed up in the car and on the way home! We put Ava in one of her new sleeping bags but we felt like she wasn’t warm enough so I picked her up and put her to my chest so she could feel my heartbeat and she had a wonderful 4 hours sleep. I think I got an hours sleep at the most but I’m running off complete adrenaline and it’s the best feeling in the WORLD. I love you Ava Jane….hiccups and all xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Amazing!!! Congratulations!

Yay! Congrats! Being a mom is the hardest job, yet the most rewarding!

AFM: I only have 7 days before my little man is here! Can't believe Tuesday is the big day & that I'll have Logan in my arms! I was worried about getting everything done, but it looks like it's all going to get done in time. The downstairs is almost spotless, just have to sweep/mop the kitchen & dust the livingroom. The carpet lady is coming in less than an hour to do the carpets and couches. Hopefully she can get all the stairs out from my 2yr old =P... Upstairs is pretty much done too, just have to spend some time on the bedroom moving stuff around to make room for the bassinet etc. Getting so excited!!

This group is getting quiet. Where'd everyone go? How's everyone feeling?

Have my 3rd Trimester ultrasound tomorrow. Just got my results back from the glucose and iron tests and I am negative for gestational diabetes and anemia!

That's great news! ... Are you excited for the ultrasound ... 5th or 6th ultrasound on Thursday. I love getting all the 3d pictures. Might have to buy a new scrapbook before Logan gets here cause I wont have any room left =P

Have my 3rd Trimester ultrasound tomorrow. Just got my results back from the glucose and iron tests and I am negative for gestational diabetes and anemia!

That's great news! ... Are you excited for the ultrasound ... 5th or 6th ultrasound on Thursday. I love getting all the 3d pictures. Might have to buy a new scrapbook before Logan gets here cause I wont have any room left =P

I love them! I bought a frame for the wall that has spots for 1st 2nd and 3rd trimester ultrasounds. This will be my 3rd "official" one although I've done two others with a 3D/4D place for the gender determination and the 3D scan. Not sure how many they do in the 3rd trimester, I think it depends on each person's individual situation?

Congrats Sas - sounds a great labour (yet very painful), well done. Glad Ava settling in.

Faughorn - good work on your tests. We dont have any glocose test etc here (just urine at each midwife visit + bloods x 3 throughout pregnancy). We have a scan at 12 & 20 weeks and thats it unless any problems. Im wanting to put my pics in a frame today.

I have my 38 week appointment so they will check my BP, urine, measure my bump and listen to baby. Hopefully all will be well.

My plans for today are to walk dogs, do a bit of washing and ironing and finish the baby room. I started to feel like I was doing it too soon (i know Im due in 2 weeks) but thought I might tempt fate! Think my brain playing tricks on me. Have you all sorted your baby rooms?

Helen
38+1
Up 32lbs

my ice - our u/s clinics here are also seperate but you need a requisition form from your doctor to get one. For whatever reason I've had lots of u/s considering I'm low risk and they've been unconcerned about me for the most part. I had a dating scan at 8 weeks even though I told them I knew EXACTLY when I conceived, one at 21 weeks then another one at 23 weeks because they were remeasuring something. My ob/gyn does one in the third tri so I got one at 29 weeks. I had also booked a 3d one at 28 weeks long before I knew I was going to get all these other ones. Now I have one scheduled for tomorrow because she thought he was breach at the last appointment. Most women here get two otherwise, one at 12 and one at 20ish weeks.

helen- we've got the nursery 75% done. It's done just enough to make me feel somewhat prepared. I have to get the baseboards back on, curtains back up and the crib is still in the garage but our house is so small that I"m leaving the single bed in there for now just for a few months until all the visitors have come through. My sister made an IKEA run last week so she'll bring my new dresser up in two weekends and then I can put all the little clothes away! I'm excited to do that. Right now I've got 6 bags of random baby clothes that were given to us just sitting on the floor. I should really go through them and sort them by age but I've become quite preoccupied watching the Olympics!

I'm feeling a lot of pressure to get the rest of the house purged and cleaned but I just don't have time. I'm at work all day and have some committments in the evenings not to mention just wanting to sit with my legs up for a bit! Maybe the baby will be late and I'll get some time to do that seeing that I start my mat leave that week.

I finally had to take my wedding band off yesterday. I haven't been able to wear my engagement ring for quite some time but yesterday I lubed up my finger and got the band off. ugh! it was tight!!!!

I've cried every single day watching the Olympics :laugh: nothing like being overly hormonal and watching all these athletes achieve their dreams. Good thing nobody sees me cheering and crying I look like an idiot.