I WILL get there!!

kirtsypoos

Thanks es, I'll bear that in mind - we bought a cheapie Moses Basket back in September for downstairs (we live in a townhouse so putting him down for a nap in the Next to Me crib is a no go) but am pretty sure it won't last long!

The annual leave/maternity saga is finally partially resolved. I have managed to get a HR Manager friend of mine who works for a company locally to send me their maternity leave policy, meaning I can prove to the powers that be that I do not use or lose my holiday, and am entitled to continue to accrue it. I wasn't aware that mat leave automatically started when baby was born though, so will change plans slightly. Will take 9 days throughout Feb to enable me to take half days, then 10 days holiday end of Feb/start of March and then commence mat leave on 12th March all being well. so will still be paid out for some holiday in December, but not many. Bit of a boost to Dec pay and a bit of a boost to start of mat leave. Best of both Worlds!
Now just need to get my boss to agree (rolling eye emoji would be perfect right now) wish me luck!

Decorator is starting the nursery on Tuesday morning so tomorrow will be spent trying to agree on paint colours without the room looking like the rest of our house - varying shades of grey everywhere :rotfl:

NZ CC payment came out yesterday and OHs CC DD is due out on Monday - so excited, then it will be 1 more payment before it's cleared

Have started on 2019 budget spreadsheet to work out 2 scenarios - 1 is that I take the full 12 month mat leave with 3 months totally unpaid, the other is that I return to work early Jan/ early Feb meaning 9/10 months off....I would prefer the year but will have to see what I can work out. We still want to be adding to savings while I'm on mat leave so I'm trying to make everything balance. Easier said than done!!

abba1772

Your house sounds like ours the only rooms that aren't grey are the kids room :rotfl:

kirtsypoos

Grey is the best Abba!!

When I ordered the nursery carpet I text my Nan to tell her it was done and she replied with "I'd bet my years pension on grey"....she was right :rotfl: so there is grey carpet and the wallpaper (1 wall only) is grey and white so I want a bit of a break from grey for him....wish me luck as I tend to lean towards grey no matter what I go thinking I'll get :rotfl:

monz

one payment until clear and omg cant believe you are 28 weeks already xxx

kirtsypoos

I'm so excited that that CC is down to £75 - as of 7th Feb it will be gone! That's so exciting to me

Had a bit of a worry at the weekend and ended up on the maternity triage ward at the local hospital thanks to our little tinker stopping moving - all seems fine and I've had monitoring so his heart rate seems fine, he just must have been tired! Gave me quite a fright though, especially when the midwife took a while to find his heartbeat - my heart was in my mouth.

After Saturday nights scare and realising I'm not very prepared in case of anything happening early, I went shopping for my hospital bag yesterday - donut is pretty much sorted but I was not! I still need a few bits like a couple of nursing nighties for in the hospital and some more maternity pads but other than that all should be well....just need to pack it now!

We have a new dining table arriving today as our old one is too large for the dining room, meaning we can't get the pram past the current table so that will be going on ebay once the new one has arrived. OH built some shelving into a half cupboard in our bedroom yesterday as well, so we now have proper storage for towels and bedding rather than them being piled into this massive cupboard.

Managed to agree on the paint for the nursery too, so we picked that up on Saturday - fingers crossed it looks how it does in my head!

All our baby stuff is stored at my mom and dads at the moment so we will be bringing some of it over in the next 2 weeks - like the car seat so we can practice putting it in the car! It's feeling a bit real, but still not totally

Managed to provisionally book the antenatal course I was after but I wanted to do hypnobirthing as well, they won't let me do both even though you have to pay for the hypnobirthing separately - a bit annoying as OH can't make the dates of the hypnobirthing course so my Mom was going to come with me to that and OH and I would go to the normal antenatal courses....may have to try asking very nicely!!!

kirtsypoos

Well our table didn't arrive yesterday so my poor mom waited at ours all day for nothing :mad: I can't seem to get hold of the courier and the company I bought it from aren't responding from aren't answering either. I am not impressed!

Nursery is being painted by a friend today (have discovered that neither OH or I are particularly good with cutting in. I am better than him but still not great - when we painted the kitchen at our old house he painted more of the ceiling than the walls :cool:)

Still over excited that there is only 1 payment left on OH BC too - we will still have debt, but it's joint debt that either is for a reason (zopa loan for car - better rates than anywhere else and a secondhand low mileage car) and our NZ trip on a CC, but the money is in savings to repay that, I just want to make the most of the 0% and keep the funds in an interest paying account rather than paying the card off just yet.

I made a bit of an error on our budgeting spreadsheet which may jeopardise my 12 month planned maternity leave - I hadn't done the total sum correctly in excel and it hadn't accounted for 1 payment every month - it happens to be a fairly big payment so I thought it was all rosy....not so much! I am going to do some re-jigging over the next few weeks and see what I can do to redistribute funds. We have a £1k emergency fund so it may be that I hold off on further savings for the meantime. I really don't want to, but it was a schoolgirl error and stamping my feet that I want both extra mat leave and extra savings isn't going to make it happen!

kirtsypoos

Had a call yesterday afternoon to say the table was en route, despite Monday being the delivery date :mad: cue a mad rush home to get there in time to accept the delivery :cool:

Driver asked me to sign before he moved the boxes so I refused without checking them, he asked if I could check them in his van - no problem! Checked each box over (4 in total) and as I checked them he took them to the house....all great until I went back to the house and realised he'd piled them on the floor by the front door and I couldn't get back into the house without lifting all the boxes out of the way - asked him for help and he said no, he'd delivered now! So 7 months pregnant heaving 20 kilo boxes was not my idea of fun and I've put a complaint in to the courier company - bl00dy joke!

Nursery looks lovely and 2nd coat is going on today wallpaper going up tomorrow morning and then it's just waiting for the carpet on 20th and furniture on 27th before we can start really making it our little mans room!

Went back to yoga for the new term last night - it is relaxing but is getting harder to do the bigger I get - my balance is a bit off now and my right hip is giving me awful gip so I need to be careful. Lots of visualisation about blowing feathers away during 'tightenings' which I hope will help during labour but I still don't entirely believe at the moment...

Still undecided whether to reduce savings contributions during mat leave to cover the miscalculation on my spreadsheet. I think I will be going back and forth over that one for a while.

Trying to sort out my annual leave before mat leave is a bit of a nightmare. I'm struggling to be able to arrange everything and get approval but I really am struggling at the moment so I don't think I'll be able to last any longer than I have asked for....let's hope we can all come to an agreement soon!

Managed to ask very nicely about the hypnobirthing/antenatal classes and they are letting me do both That's a weight off my mind!

Also booked OHs tickets to the annual kiwi day out in London that he is going to on 3rd Feb - I went with him last year but huge crowds of drunk people aren't my idea of fun at the moment so I'm leaving him and his mate to it. Managed to get him a return to london for under £30 though so at least it isn't breaking the bank xx

abba1772

What a idiot of a delivery man it's not like they can miss that your pregnant hope you didn't strain yourself and take it easy xx

sashybo

Kirsty that is a joke leaving a pregnant woman to shift big boxes. :eek: I hope you get some compensation because that really isn’t good enough, you’d think that he would at least move them into the house for you out of common decency. :mad: Sorry you had to move them yourself.

Good to hear the nursery is coming along, we were lazy & just went for some wall stickers, a blackout blind & a new light shade .

I didn’t do pregnancy yoga classes but have been doing yoga on & off for a few years and found that the deep breathing really helped me in labour along with the TENS machine. I was in labour for 48 hours altogether although only in active labour for 17. The deep breathing & TENS really saved me when I was at home, then up to the hospital, then sent home again as not dilated enough etc. Before I was sent home one of the midwives also got me to sit on a birthing ball & lean forward over the back of a chair whilst she gave me an aromatherapy back massage and that really helped too. When I was in the birthing pool later one of the midwives asked if I did yoga due to my deep breathing, I found it helped calm me & I got into the zone.

kirtsypoos

Thanks Abba, I haven't noticed any particular ill effects apart from a bit of backache which has been coming and going for a few weeks so I think I must have been careful enough.

I was quite annoyed but OH and my parents were furious so I had to put the complaint in to appease them as much as myself! Like they said, I've got a pretty huge bump so not like he couldn't have noticed, and I did tell him when I asked for help but he was half back in his van before I'd turned round and had no interest in helping whatsoever - XDP will not be on my courier list ever again! Not that they were in the first place, I've never had anything delivered by them before!

I've been itching to decorate the house sashy, so I'm making the most of the excuse :rotfl: we've been here for 13 months now so it's about time we had some colours other than white lounge is still my favourite room in the house as it's the only one which is fully decorated!

I was hoping the visualisation and breathing techniques would help me while I was still at home but it's looking increasingly likely that I will be induced so won't have much option to labour at home How lovely that you managed so well with the breathing and got to go in the pool - sounds like a dream labour....if such thing exists! xx