The Ultimate Incentive part 10. The only thing holding you back is you.

wendz86

Thank you all, doing ok but obviously a tough time.

Hope Ben is doing ok after his scare. These kids are sent to try us!

Glad you are getting on well Lara and robin is a lovely name !

Birdie85

Robin is a great name! Hope to see pics of the little man!

Glad Ben's lungs are looking good, he's just keeping you on your toes!

Glad you're doing OK Wendz. :A

archersluck

Thought you might like it birdie! It is lovely though lara, how are you adjusting?

Think we had our one day of summer in scotland yesterday, was lovely!

Cinny91

I decided, with the addition of Ben to the MSE baby boom to read this thread backwards to save my heart. So glad he's doing well, I kept wanting to check the thread from our hotel while I was away to see how he was doing but the internet was painfully slow for anything more complex than instagram.

Love the name you picked, Lara!! Robin is a great name, and I'm not just saying that because of the company on here So happy everything's going well for you.

Back from Vegas now and I'm still on warped time, which is frustrating when I don't help the situation. Slept for 12 hours on Saturday night, then maybe had a little nap for 4 hours in the afternoon which left me up all night Spent the time wisely looking at holidays back there in March. We've turned into a Vegas couple, and we did it for the butts :A

Lara44

So glad you had a good time, Cinny! Spill the beans, what did you get up to?

Things good here, just enjoying spending time all together. Robin is so adorable! Breastfeeding is kind of relentless though - feel like I am getting the ladies out every ten minutes, lol. Sleep deprivation worse some nights than others. I'm not looking forward to OH going back to work beginning of August though, as he lets me have a nice few hours in a row each morning. My stitches are healing and I feel a bit more recovered from labour now. We have been out and about for quite a few adventures around the neighbourhood

How's everybody else doing?

xx

Dinah93

Glad you had a nice time Cinny.

Wish you were on fb Lara, really want to see a pic of Robin!

Ben continues to do well, finally building back up on milk, now at 4ml/hr so should be back to full feeds by Wednesday. He's had two goes on the breast now too, he's too little really to get the hang of it for a full feed but he's keen to give it a go. My supply seems to be doing well also, just need to keep it up till he can go full time on the breast as I found it just fell off by 4 weeks with Grace, and at 6 weeks (which was about when we went to Newcastle for her surgery, so very stressful time) it was only really still there due to the medication I was taking to keep it up. I think I probably have about 10litres frozen at this point but I despise the pump and can't wait to have him feeding from me full time and cut out the middle man. Went in to the unit today prepared for a fight, told the consultant we were refusing permission for him to be given fortifer again and he smiled and said 'yes I thought you might say that', and happily he's prepared to try giving bigger milk volumes rather than fortify which seems to be what Ben reacted to. Having done a lot of reading I think we'd always refuse fortifier in future - it kills off the antibacterial properties of breastmilk completely, which is the good stuff keeping him healthy...seems counter productive?! He's still only 110g above his birth weight though so he needs to gain weight without fortifier otherwise we could be in for a battle.

Nearly applied for a job this week, it's something I would love, love, love to do but she needed someone to start in September and realistically that's just too soon for me to think about working, even part time. We don't need me to work, but it would be nice to have the extra pennies, but more to the point the job is teaching kids yoga which is just kind of like a dream job for me.

Lara44

Hey I just added you on FB, Dinah. That's great news Ben is well and very good about your milk supply. What a b milk stash, well done you!! Fingers crossed he gains loads of weight from the b milk and you can feed him full time soon.

Shame about the job, but it's always so good to see things you really feel passionate about. As you could always look to do that when Ben is a bit more grown Hugs to the family x

Cinny91

At least you have an idea of what you'd like to do once you're work ready, and that's a positive! Happy he's doing so well, little trooper!

I'm sure things won't be so bad once it's just you and Robin, Lara. You'll get into a new routine and everything will be fine. Neighbourhood adventures sound fun! I always see my Cousin taking Gracie out for walkabouts, see the big wide world

Just the usual stuff! Ate too much food once our appetites kicked in, drank from mid-day until the early hours without getting anything pass a little tipsy (are American drinks just weaker?!) We saw a few shows, finally saw a cirque show. Was the MJ themed one and it was pretty amazing, OH loved it because they did a little hologram and it was like he was on the stage. Not a big Jackson fan personally but I didn't want to throw up into my hands either. Went almost 1000ft up into the sky on Archers (I think!) suggestion on our way back from Downton Vegas and I wanted to cry, but held it together with just sweaty palms and no one knew my fears Put bunches of photos on instagram We're planning on going back in March, over my birthday into April although we'll have to fly from Gatwick for a direct flight. There was so much left to see and eat, but the heat was too sizzling so we didn't really venture as far as we could have. I just need to knuckle down and clear my debts, then we can get saving!

wendz86

So glad Ben is doing well, that is great he has managed to have a couple of bf's.

That is a shame about the job but doesn't sound like best timing. Hopefully something will come up similar in a few months.

Lara - breastfeeding is hard work, especially to begin. I think they are constantly having growth spurts. It gets a lot easier as they get bigger.

Cinny - glad you had a great time in Vegas. Just had a look at some of your pics on instagram and looks amazing! Exciting about potentially going back at well.

I am doing OK . OH and I attended a service yesterday for the baby and I feel like it has helped me feel a bit more at peace about it all although was hard to go through. Feeling a lot more positive now although obviously have my down days/moments.

Dinah93

Finally a bit of money news, sadly it's not great! We've had an IFA around and we can't get a new mortgage deal, basically the numbers are too tight, so tight that if we didn't have the debt we'd get a deal. But when NIMs salary drops in the new job we won't again. So we're a bit stuck. We have about £3k due to be paid off in the next couple of weeks, and we know we have another £3.2k due but that could be up to 90 days away, so all we can do is what we can to make things as good as possible. He did highlight that we need to apply for tax credits and maternity allowance to up what is coming in to the household, so we're doing that this evening. It just seems so daft that we are currently overpaying by £55 a month, the deal we could get will be £230 less than we currently pay, but it's deemed unaffordable on our income when we've never missed a payment.

I know most of you will have seen on facebook but Ben is back up to full feeds, and he's even had a few goes on the breast now. He will be weighed today so will find out if he's finally had a decent gain when we go in this evening. Missed rounds for the first time this morning as Grace has woken up with a streaming cold so I couldn't take her in as she's an infection risk. Mum is taking care of her this evening though so we can go in, NIMs first cuddle in a few days as we've not been able to go at the same time and if only one of us can have a hold in a day it needs to be me so I can try him at the breast otherwise he could be in longer.