NCT membership

jellyhead

i remember student midwives being great back when i had my son :cool: we don't have a midwife unit but i've heard only good things about them, so i hope yours works out well sasha. from anecdotal evidence they only intervene if it's really necessary.

bun, i'm glad you like reuben. my son chose it and i quite like it (although i'll have to try not to call him little roo when he's older, it's a baby name really lol!). hubby isn't too keen and other people have screwed their faces up at it, lots of people even said they've never heard it before and think we've made it up! i haven't met anyone with the name but i do know an adult with it as a middle name and he likes it. if baby hates it it can be shortened to ben, that's a common enough name. hubby doesn't think it sounds right with our surname - 2 syllables, the last syllable being 'man', he thinks both names sound like they have the same ending. my son has told nanny on hubby's side that it's his favourite, so she's hinting that she likes it too because she dotes on my son and likes to let him have his own way as often as possible lol!

sasha, my local NCT group produce a newsletter, so that's what i've had from them. it's printed quarterly so you may have a wait for yours if your group prints one, although mine sent me the old copy as soon as i joined so i wouldn't have to wait for the new copy before getting any info from them. your local group might also have a website with mother/toddler info on.

Spendless

jellyhead wrote:

. hubby isn't too keen and other people have screwed their faces up at it, lots of people even said they've never heard it before and think we've made it up!

Jellyhead-5 years ago when I named my son people including relatives said exactly the same thing to me. They all got over it! a friend of mine has since told me how much it suits him though she initially disliked the name! Nowadays my sons name isn't that unusual. What about the other names on your list though? Are you in agreement with any of these.

Can't help you with NCT but I know we were offered free parentcraft classess at the maternity hospital on both occassions. We only went when I was pregnant with eldest. Our midwife gave details.

I was living in a different area when I had youngest and our HV set up a coffee morning in a spare room at the GP surgery once a week. You could go from newborn to 1 year or walking. There were toys out for babies and a hot or cold drink for yourself. It was free but I did some fund-raising for the group to pay for the refreshments. I know a lot of mums thru taking my youngest one to this. Again your midwife or HV should have details of anything similar in your area.

jellyhead

i'm seeing the midwife on thursday so will ask about the classes then, i did have some when pregnant with my first but that was 9 years ago and i've forgotten everything (and i wasn't with hubby then, this is his first baby), those classes were at the hospital but they've stopped doing them now.

there's a toddler group by the school, that's still going, and one at a church a couple of miles away but they will be for children up to nursery age so it would be good to find one that's for babies. will ask my HV. i need to get my MATB1 from the midwife, should have given it to work weeks ago ... grrr! i'm working this week, i've only done 2 hours work in the last 5 weeks but have grown a lot bigger, realised this morning i'm going to find work very difficult with my belly in the way all the time, i'm not looking forward to it lol! but there's 12 weeks to go and everyone keeps telling me how they worked right up to the due date, etc. etc., making me feel lazy - but they all had desk jobs, it's not the same, boohoo!

Spendless

jellyhead wrote:

there's 12 weeks to go and everyone keeps telling me how they worked right up to the due date, etc. etc., making me feel lazy - but they all had desk jobs, it's not the same, boohoo!

I ended up signed off due to ill-health in both pregnancies. Yes people told me that they worked upto due date too but they were the ones that hadn't suffered illness. Do what you think it right for you and baby.

loobs40

My experiences of childbirth in hospital with my first born were so horrific that I would suffer panic attacks afterwards if I went into a hospital. It also put me off having a second baby for 7 years until my best friend who was a midwife told me a home birth was possible.

Throughout the second pregnancy I went nowhere near the hospital, except for a scan, let no doctors near me, only midwives. Despite having intervention for the first birth, the second at home was perfectly normal, lasted 4 hours and everything was fine.

When the GP came round to check out the baby, I remember her saying something about not to mention home births to my friends in case they got ideas !!

I am not a fan of the NCT. The ante natal classes were great, but I found the coffee mornings extremely clique ridden and after a couple of visits I went my own way

jellyhead

i imagine it's the same as any toddler group - the mums get cliquey. i'm not the cliquey type and find men much easier to be friends with than women so i'm not good at all that stuff. i'll give it a try though.

phew, it was so hot today! all the staff were struggling. lots of customers felt sorry for me and told me i looked hot and tired, lol! the manager heard them and sent me for a sit down my belly is enormous today, no mistaking my pregnancy. i handed in my notice, 4 weeks starting today. i think i could have got away with 3 weeks notice actually, i should have checked lol! my feet and ankles are very swollen, after the first hour i couldn't feel my feet anymore, i could just feel something hot at the bottom of my legs. i kept bumping into people and knocking things over. my employers have cut my hours down so i only do 4 hour shifts now, and have said it will only be one or two shifts a week for the 4 weeks of my notice, so that's nice. i just wish my second shift of this week wasn't tomorrow, i wonder if i'll be able to feel my feet by then lol! am going to look into the holiday situation, see if i can take a week's holiday during my 4 weeks notice period lol! looks like i have 2 days pay in my holiday pay pot. well, i'll stop whinging now i was chatting to a customer today whose baby's due in 6 weeks (but she doesn't live here, otherwise i could have gone to coffee mornings with her lol!) and she already has a 1 year old and a 2 year old! imagine having 3 children under 3, i couldn't do it :rotfl:

kidtechnical

s&#64 wrote: »

Apparently, fertility treatment fdalls under consultant-led care. So,with that & it all being new to me, I just accepted that I 'had to' have a hospital birth.

I have wondered since, as Jellyhead said, why does it matter, if both the baby & I are healthy? I mean, giving birth is giving birth, how the baby was conceived is all in the past?

Although I like the idea in theory of home birth, I think with a first baby I'm too unaware of what chilbirth will be like to really know if I could do it. I am really scared of the pain! But I also am scared of having no control in hospital, and of not being able to assert myself and not knowing how much say I will get in how things go.

There was also a really off-putting story about home birth in our local paper last week...because of the chronic midwife shortage, a woman who had opted for a home birth was left completely on her own in labour, as there was no midwife to attend. Her mother ended up delivering the baby. They had rung the hospital 3 times. The first time was when they were told no midwives were available. She rang again 5 hours later when her contractions were 10 mins apart & the hospital said 'don't bother to ring again until they're 5 mins apart' !!
So she did & they told her she'd have to go to another hospital, but by then the woman knew she'd never get there in time. Her mother delivered the baby half an hour later. ( and knowing where the other hospital is, she was right...it would have taken her about an hour to get there from where she lived)

I thought that story was awful. The woman concerned said it was really traumatic & that she felt completely let down by the system, after being given so much ecouragement to have a home birth. The Welsh Assembly currently has a drive to get 1 in 10 women to give birth at home, but as she said, this just makes a mockery of that.

I don't know if this midwife shortage is nation-wide, or just local to us in Cardiff, but I found that story quite worrying.

You should ask your MWs for more information about why you are higher risk, there may be valid reasons & if there are the MWs shouldn't have a problem informing you of them. Don't be afraid to ask for medical references for what they tell you, rather than let them generalise.

The HB story is awful isn't it. When I had mines they had a 3 wk rota in place so there was always 2 mws on call. Same 2 for 2 wks then another 2 for a day (law requires they take breaks from on call). So really sounds like bad organisation & admin really. That woman can complain to her local trust & the body who regulates mws as they both let her down.

I'd really recommend you join the homebirth e group, some one there will be able to give you info on IVF & homebirth & even if you have a hospital birth you'll be more prepared for the labour if you know what the specific concerns as an IVFer are? The group has women who've btdt as well as midwives. I know from when I was on it 2 yrs ago it was full of women who'd been told they couldn't have HB for one reason or another, but via the homebirth site (posted earlier) and the e group they were all planning homebirths (basically making their own risk assesment instead of being pidgeonholed by a consultant).

kidtechnical

CDP wrote:

Hi S@sha

I dont know whether this would be an option for you but one way to guarentee you get a midwife you know and trust who is DEFINITELY going to be at your birth is to hire an independant midwife. They are not cheap ( around £2000 for the whole preg and post natal period) but those who have had them say they are well worth the money and I know of people who have remortgaged just for this reason.

They can do your a/n care in your own home so none of the waiting around in the hosp and also have access to all the tests and scans just the same as an NHS m/w.

HTH

CDP

Sorry to keep banging on about the homebirth site, but if you join http://groups.yahoo.com/group/homebirthUK you will almost certainly find an IM or at least some sound advice on how to find/chose one. Have you considered a Doula? They're birth partners though, rather than MWs, so MW would have to be there, but your doula could be in the labour ward with you & I think they work with you before & after the birth. I'm sure there's a national Doula website around, but don't have it to hand.

HTH (a bit sketchy I know!)

CDP

Hi Kidtechnical

YOu are right there is some great support out there! Both the homebirth group and also Angela Horns homebirth site that you posted earlier. The other place you may like to look is the ukmidwifery site which is an egroup with IM and NHS m/ws who are all woman centred in their approach. There are also Mums and antenatal teachers on their too and there is an interesting discussion about doulas atm!

HTH
CDP

s@sha

Sorry to resurrect this thread, but I just wanted to thank everyone who gave advice about the NCT classes, especially about signing up to them early.

I wouldn't have known about them in time if it hadn't been for this thread...as it is, I've been offered a place in my local NCT class for August.

It's especially good because the NHS ante-natal classes in my area were cancelled until July, and I found out today that they are still off until September...too late for me, so I would have had nothing if I hadn't put my name forward for the NCT classes way back when I was 3 months pregnant.

Cheers!