My ob/gyn recommended that we start prenatal vitamins 3 months prior to trying.

1/31/2011 11:46:29 PM

This recommendation comes from Samwise16 who studies this kind of thing

Quote :

"I can't post the pregnancy thread in old school... can you tell them I said it's recommended you take 400 micrograms of folic acid at least 3 months before conceiving in order to greatly lower your risk of having a child with a neural tube defect pleeeease ma'am"

2/2/2011 9:01:34 AM

Thanks ya'll. I've been taking them for awhile. I am, however, not always perfect in remembering. I'm trying to get better since we are actively trying now.

2/2/2011 9:35:32 PM

I get pregnant as soon as I think about trying. This time I just bought separate folic acid and added it to my bedtime routine.

2/2/2011 10:04:57 PM

I want to bank my babies cord blood. Any experience with this? Information would be great and cost analysis too.

2/2/2011 10:55:50 PM

I am against banking cord blood for your own personal use and advocate donation.

For us, banking our son's cord blood would have been false security. My sons immune deficiency could have been treated by a hematopoietic stem cell transplant, but his own stem cells would have been useless to him. I was so glad that we chose to donate his cord blood instead of save it because it would have done Silas no good, but could perhaps help someone else who needed it for different reasons. For us and for others, our child was unable to use his own cord blood. Privately banked blood is rarely used for the donor, but usually by other family members if usable at all.

This article outlines many of the things that private banks do not tell you about banking cord blood for personal use.

http://www.parents.com/pregnancy/my-baby/cord-blood-banking/the-cord-blood-controversy/

2/2/2011 11:17:30 PM

Ommmmmm

Had my first prenatal yoga class last night. Felt great looking forward to more. I was surprised in what my body could do pregnant. She's gearing us up w/ squats to stregthen our legs for some baby pushing

2/7/2011 10:07:46 AM

So it is looking like I will have to deliver at 37/38 weeks again(like I did with Maya). I have been doing all that I can to keep my diabetes under control and have been doing quite well, she is just soaking up all the sugar/carbs. Her stomach is growing at about a week ahead of schedule while the rest of her body is right on par with where she needs to be. I was trying REALLY hard to take her to 39 weeks if she didn't try to come out before that by herself. I have been kind of emotional about it but there is just nothing more I can do about it. She would definitely be healthier if I could keep her in the womb longer.

We are looking at having a baby March 29th or if possible to keep her in, April 5th.

Waiting on my Maternal and Fetal medicine OB's decision.

2/7/2011 1:42:02 PM

When will you talk to your OB again?

2/7/2011 9:42:01 PM

The OB will be talking to me this week to set up the procedure, I think. I HOPE he will talk to me this week. Feeling kind of anxious about all this stuff.

2/7/2011 10:53:33 PM

So...I am having an amniocentesis done on March 30th at 8am to see if her lungs are developed enough to come out. If her lungs are mature then Orion will be delivered on March 31st at noon by c-section, if not, she will have to wait til the next week.

Ken was hoping they would let us push the date to April 1st so that her birthday could be the same as TWW's.

2/9/2011 9:59:56 AM

you should have a vote for 4/1 date on the front page

2/9/2011 10:01:09 AM

2/9/2011 10:02:31 AM

Good luck, Amna! We'll be praying for you guys!
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Wish us luck next week, everyone! We're going to have a fetal echo-cardiogram done. Our daughter had a cystic hygroma at 12 weeks, but it has since gone away. Our doctors have kept us pretty busy with tests because of it (combined with Mom & brother's medical histories). All the test results have been unremarkable and we're past concern of fetal hydrops or intrauterine death, but this is our last test and I'm ready to enjoy my pregnancy instead of worry.



[Edited on February 9, 2011 at 11:04 AM. Reason : .]

2/9/2011 11:02:28 AM

Wow--good luck to you Amna and you too bottombaby! Sending positive vibes y'alls way

[Edited on February 9, 2011 at 11:23 AM. Reason : ]

2/9/2011 11:19:05 AM

We've got our 32 week checkup today. From what we can tell, he's big and strong and active. Let's hope the Doc agrees!

2/10/2011 8:48:05 AM

is basil weird for a girl's name? everything i see online about it is male. that seems backwards to me but it looks like it was only popular around 1900.

*disclaimer: not pregnant, just thinking about stuff like that

2/10/2011 10:05:30 AM

I've never heard Basil as a girl's name -- just a guy's name. I think it's a little weird as a name, but I'm just not a huge fan of naming kids after herbs and spices.

2/10/2011 2:27:14 PM

i'd never heard of it being a name period before i thought to look it up. *shrug*

i want sorta unique names but not too weird.

[Edited on February 10, 2011 at 2:34 PM. Reason : ]

2/10/2011 2:32:21 PM

Yeah, I think it was used in jolly old England and pronounced. Baaazil.

2/10/2011 2:35:36 PM

Good luck with the echo, BB!! Keep us posted if you feel like it.

Thanks, LKB! CRIB TIME!!! Post pics in here?

73- I like that name but I am weird.

spydyrwyr- how did it go?

2/10/2011 4:11:21 PM

It went great, thanks for asking! Wifey is 32 weeks and is measuring 32, heartrate is perfect, weight gain is right where it should be, and gestational diabetes test (couple weeks ago) was clear. Sooooooo thankful!

We've got labor and birth class this weekend... I'm not sure what to expect there, but since this is our first, at this point everything is a bit exciting.

Oh yeah speaking of names, his name is going to be Jacob Emerson ("Jake" most of the time). We wanted a Biblical name that we could shorten and Emerson is my middle name and my dad's and his dad's and his dad's, etc. etc..

Best of luck to everybody at whatever stage you're in now!!

2/10/2011 4:56:30 PM

^that's great news

^^It's not completely put together yet. But will be on the 20th! I'll post pics up then

and 73, I too like the name Basil. I've got a few typical boy names on my girl name list as well...so I say when the time comes for you, go for it!

2/10/2011 7:30:15 PM

My wife and are not planning on having a kid for about 4 or 5 years.

It is just crazy that I know/have met so many of you in this thread over the years and now you are all going to be parents.

2/10/2011 8:49:41 PM

Got to see and feel my son kick for the first time. Pretty awesome experience

2/10/2011 10:28:52 PM

attention expectant parents: please read this before you give your kid a stupid fucking name. i am absolutely serious. lame baby names are out of control lately. please, please don't be these parents.

okay... thanks.

http://www.stupidkidnames.com/about/

2/11/2011 4:39:02 AM

^^YAY!!!!!!!!! Awesome awesome awesome!!!

^^^I think it's pretty crazy myself actually. When the crib arrived this week I had this feeling come over me of, "holy shit...our baby is going to sleep in there holy shit...we're about to be parents in just 20 more weeks **FEAR FEAR FEAR! ALARM ALARM ALARM!**" lol

2/11/2011 6:46:56 AM

my brother had a gf in high school who worked part time in a daycare, and they had a little girl named placenta. for serious.

oh & i went to hs with a girl named precious heart. idk what her middle name was.

i am not going to give my kid a stupid fucking name, but i don't want jennifer, christopher, matthew, madison, etc. there's kind of a tradition of passing along names on my mom's side. my great great grandma was daisy, my grandma was daisy. my great grandma was martha, my mom is martha. i was very close to my grandma, who died just last august, & i am thinking of using daisy also. the family name passed down through my grandad's side is bizzell (great great grandma's maiden name, grandpa's middle name)...but that's a really odd one & i'd never use it. i've been doing a LOT of genealogy/family history research & i really love finding out all of this really cool stuff, so it makes me want to use a family name. there are some weird ass names in both sides of my family, i think because they lived in nash, franklin, halifax, wake, surrounding counties since the mid 1600s & were poor farmers.

[Edited on February 11, 2011 at 8:00 AM. Reason : ]

2/11/2011 7:47:14 AM

When I see the name Basil, I think of it prounced like most people do: "Baa-zill," and then all I can think of is Basil from Austin Powers



I think my sister knows someone who named their 3 kids Basil (pronounced "bay-zill"), Sage, and Rosemary.

2/11/2011 9:38:01 AM

wow that's awful. we prob won't go with basil. i wasn't seriously considering it at all, just wanted to see people's opinions on it since it was such a surprise to me that it was a male name

we don't need to make any decisions anyway. we're not pregnant & won't be for a while (knock on wood). my granddad died yesterday, my grandma almost 6 months before that, & those kinds of things make me think of the future sometimes...especially since my grandma would have loved to have seen great-grandkids

2/11/2011 9:40:54 AM

Quote :

"my great great grandma was daisy, my grandma was daisy."

my friend just named her baby Daisy.

2/12/2011 10:57:17 PM

Ewwww!

This didn't happen the first time around and I'm extremely fair skinned, so I just wasn't expecting anything like a linea nigra to show up on my tummy. While I don't quite have a dark line down my belly, I do have some slightly darker body hair coming in like a little happy trail on my tummy. It's really squicking me out.

2/12/2011 11:16:36 PM

hehe, I'm pretty fair skinned as well and I keep looking for linea nigra to see if it will show up. I have dark hair though, so I've always had a bit of a dark happy trail. However, it's definitely getting more fuller, so I have to wax it more often now which is annoying.


and question...I plan on breast feeding, but I know that we'll need some bottles for my pumped milk when someone else is watching baby or Justin feeds him. I know a lot will depend on what baby likes to use, but what bottles have you experienced mamas found to be best?

OH...and do you prefer the bags or jars for breast milk freezing?

[Edited on February 13, 2011 at 10:29 AM. Reason : ]

2/13/2011 10:22:08 AM

We love the Dr. Brown's Natural Flow bottles. They're our personal favorite, but they do have extra parts that need cleaning. It was totally worth it because the baby swallowed minimal air.

I was unable to get a good milk supply going with my first one, so I don't know squat about freezing breast milk.

2/13/2011 10:59:18 AM

milk storage tips:

if you freeze the bags laying down, you can store them vertically and they don't take up a lot of room. Just remember that when you freeze, you should freeze one bottles worth (i.e. in the beginning, don't freeze 6oz per bag b/c your baby won't eat that much and you can't refreeze what you've thawed). you can buy a milk storage bag organizer at target - but i just put them in gallon ziplok bags after i froze them flat.

If you have a deep freezer (a chest freezer), you can store them for 6 months - whereas if you use a side by side fridge/freeezer you can only store them for 3 months.

And as you freeze, make sure to not let any in the freezer get too old. If you are able to continuously freeze some, make sure to cycle the older out to be used.

i had to go back to work at 10 weeks so i pumped and sent bottles to daycare - and i really wished someone had told me to practice pumping before i went back to work. I really suggest pumping when you can after every feeding. This will help you get a good stash in the freezer, train your body to start a relationship with you pump (yes that sounds wierd, but true) and get you a strong supply going.

my kid turned 10 months old today and I've been fortunate enough to not have to use any formula. It's been tough but so rewarding! And, they just made pumps tax deductible:-)

2/13/2011 2:45:57 PM

Good stuff thank you!

Did you use the storage bottles at all? I saw madela has a bottle/jar storage option or the bags. Did you try both and end up preferring the bags?

[Edited on February 13, 2011 at 3:23 PM. Reason : D]

2/13/2011 3:23:09 PM

I used bags for storage purposes

2/14/2011 12:11:40 PM

I never tried the bottles - i used the bags b/c they are cheaper and take up less room in the freezer.

2/14/2011 2:48:22 PM

^ditto

2/14/2011 4:20:36 PM

I use the storage bags for freezing, but if I'm just going to store for a day or two, I use the little 4 oz bottles.

Where are you delivering? We got a goody bag sponsored by Similac from the hospital (Wake Med Cary) that had storage bottles and bags. Those little storage bottles come in very handy. Now I use them for putting pre-measured amounts of formula powder for on the go feedings.

Re: Bottles. I use Born Free, and I don't have any complaints about them. The lactation consultant at my Pediatrician said that was a good brand because it had a wide mouth nipple which was helpful in avoiding nipple confusion. I don't think that my baby would have had any problems with "nipple confusion" but it did make me feel better since we had to use a bottle to supplement really early on.

2/14/2011 8:56:23 PM

Hello all,

I offer my sympathy to you. Have you tried things such as ginger and seabands?

2/14/2011 9:06:15 PM

We'll be delivering at Rex.

We get some storage bottles with the pump accessory kit, so we'll see how that goes I guess and also get the bags. But it does seem most people I've talked to prefer the bags.

Thanks ladies

and EMCE...hahaha

2/15/2011 6:38:14 AM

Just be careful using the samples that the hospital gives you if you plan to breast feed.
It's a supply and demand thing - the more the baby demands, the more your body tries to supply -so each time the supply comes from somewhere else, thats less supply your body thinks it needs to make.

and no i'm not one of those anti-formula people :-p

I just feel like there are so many things i had to learn the hard way!

2/15/2011 10:09:25 AM

We took a 2-day labor and birth class at WakeMed Cary (where we'll be delivering). Pretty cool, very informative, and got to tour the facilities. Pretty nice delivery and post-partum facilities. I'm pretty excited and a little more at ease after the class, it was nice to learn what to expect, what the "normal" sequence of events is, and some of the things that can change. Met some nice couples there too to talk with and share experiences and questions. I'd recommend it.

2/15/2011 11:22:20 AM

Quote :

"I offer my sympathy to you. Have you tried things such as ginger and seabands?"

hahahaha....I used both for my first pregnancy because I was so nauseated/puking all the time. How do you know about that, EMCE?

2/15/2011 12:41:33 PM

ashley_grl told me that is how I could offer my support in this thread, back on page 1.

2/15/2011 5:42:49 PM

^Such common advice!! That is ALL I heard for the first few months of vomiting and misery!

On a side note, I had to go in for another u/s today because she wouldn't cooperate well during the first one. Turns out they still won't 100% verify that she's a girl b/c she is standing straight up in my uterus (aka breech). She has apparently been tap dancing on my cervix for a while now!! I thought I had been feeling some odd kicks in the vag area.

2/15/2011 6:09:37 PM

our little one is breech as well at the moment. some of its kicks in my groin are so I totally understand...lightning crotch!!

i can no longer see my feet, and my belly button is getting shallow. fun fun haha

2/16/2011 7:00:17 AM

Hahaha...lightning crotch

2/17/2011 9:11:48 AM

How is this thread not full of preggo belly pics? Seems like every pregnant woman I've met, at least for their first pregnancy, take tons of belly pics. My wife included.

2/17/2011 12:44:45 PM