Dreaming Pink Due Date Group: TTC and Beyond

2LB, lovely to finally see you on here. I have added your due date to the 1st post.

I originally found it quite difficult to keep track of threads on here too, but have now found an easy way.

You can subscribe to a thread by clicking "Thread Tools" at the top of the thread and then it will show you all your subscribed threads in "Quick Links" --> "Subscribed Threads" or here:

http://genderdreaming.com/forum/subscription.php

I think you automatically subscribe to a thread when you reply to it. In the Subscribed Threads you will always see when there is a response to one of the threads as the title is bold.

Hope this helps.

Thank you GeCon, I'm a nightmare at this stuff!

How is every one feeling?

I'm having one of those days! Both boys poorly, both up far to early this morning, been pouring with rain all day so they are ill, bored and tired! Roll on bed time! That sounds awful and I always feel guilty for feeling like this when they are in bed but arrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

Hello ladies :)

So I have a question for all of you who have had drug free births (without pain medication)... would you all recommend it? Was it absolutely terrible or does your body mask the pain for you somehow?

I'm asking because I'm thinking about going natural this time as I've never had a natural birth... because of my history they induce me at 38 weeks and I've always gotten the epidural. I want to experience a natural birth at least once though! I don't know if it will be more painful since they will induce me again this time and use pitocin to get contractions going. I've heard this is more painful but of course don't know for sure since I've never experienced natural labor...

Should I try it? Did you all enjoy your natural birth experience? Do tell!

2LB- don't feel guilty for wanting to put them to bed on days like that!! The way I see it, when they are as miserable as you are there is no reason to prolong the madness... We've been stuck inside because of the heat for a few days and I felt the exact same way. My boys have destroyed my house because of boredom! Haha

Charlee....I will humour you with the good stories then!! My DS1 was the birth story that I would like to repeat in many ways, no meds, no interventions, and easy healing afterwards. Active labour started around 3:30 pm, he was born at 7:27 pm....had been have contractions since about 7:30 am. I won't lie and say it did not hurt, but the pushing was the best. I so wanted DS2 to arrive in the same fashion and up until 10 centimeters dilated it was....then because he was suddenly footling breech, I got to experience an epidural and urgent C-section to get him out...although I have to say, it was a very calm surgery and nicely done. My MD was present for both boys births, so I can hope for the same again!!! My plan is VBAC all the way baby!!!

Charlee, that's great that you're considering natural, but no, your body does not mask the pain somehow. :) Wish it did! I took a natural birth class before DS was born (I highly recommend taking a class) and we learned ways to deal with the pain and not focus on it, but it's still there. In a smooth med-free birth you can usually get by, especially if you've taken a class, because the contractions are not constant -- you get a break between contractions. And then the end is wonderful. :) But if you have back labor, it's the pits and you feel like your whole body is being slammed in a car door and the door never opens!

Med-free with pitocin is another matter, and not one I would suggest trying out. I did try to have DS med-free, but after a certain point he wasn't progressing and I was given pitocin. After that, the game was over. If I hadn't had back labor maybe -maybe- I could have made it through despite the pitocin, but with the pitocin AND back labor the pain was way too much to bear and I got an epidural.

I might try natural birth again with pg#2 when it happens, but I won't be dead set on no meds if I need pitocin and/or have back labor. The pain of back labor plus pitocin was one I won't soon forget!

Charlee, I LOVED my natural delivery, certainly was painful but it is one experience I hope to repeat with this pregnancy!

With DS1 I was induced and he was back to back, apparently both induction and back to back babies are more painful, it certainly was painful, I got to 8cm completely medication free (including gas and air) things then started to go wrong I ended up with an epidural (great stuff) and an emergency csection :(
With DS2 I was determined to have a successful VBAC I also wanted to have my wits about me and remember his delivery clearly. I started the gas and air at 5cm, felt in control the whole time and have fond memories of his birth!

If you want to try med free then I would say go for it as you can always introduce meds if it becomes unbearable, just be realistic! Know what you want for and from your delivery and aim for it, if plans change don't be hard on yourself! Remember its your day!!!

Charlee, good on your for considering a natural birth.

As I said earlier I do think that I had a lovely birth and I would be delighted to have another one like it. From hearing other people's birth experiences I appreciate just how lucky I was with my birthing experience. I went into it with an open mind, but being quite sure that I would go for an epidural for the pain. But it looks like it wasn't meant to be and I went without anything but G&A. Yes, it was painful, but I would be happy to do it again like this. Of course, everyone's situation is different and I think it is also important to go with the flow and not beat yourself up about it if things don't go the way you were hoping for.

Niva, nice to see you on here. :)

How are things with you?

Hi GeCon! I'm still lurking around. :) It's so nice to be able to stick with this group instead of having to move on to a new ttc month thread, since this was the lucky bfp month for so many of us. Such a good idea to make it open to those still ttc as well as you gals with a pg ticker. ;)

I'm currently waiting for O to return after my chemical... it's taking its good old time, too. I would have been very optimistic about this month's chances of a bfp, but I've decided to do a really strict bd attempt with all the things that reduce chances while swaying harder. I've been swimming in hormone soup since the chemical ended, and I'm completely at a loss as to whether the extra stress has been swaying pink or blue. I've finally decided to go ahead and try anyway, but to tighten up my sway and have a really strict bd attempt just in case I need to compensate for extra T production. But I feel really in limbo right now since I'm well aware I could be passing up a super sway month if my hormonal anxiety has been making pink stress instead -- there's just no way to know! It totally sucks not knowing because it somehow feels like this month is "the" month after last month's false start and I could probably get another bfp quickly, but then I'd kick myself if I had been swaying blue by accident. And all this fretting about having too much blue stress has of course fueled the stress into a kind of feedback loop, so no chances of mellowing out in time, haha. I definitely have a super hormonal sway going on, but I can't decide whether to jump at the chance or avoid a bfp like the plague, so I'm taking the middle ground.

Anyway, that's my situation, sorry for dumping on the party! I'll be very glad when this month is over and next month can be like any other where ttc is again in the background of normal life and my cortisol levels don't surge every time I think about it. :)

I had babies 2,3, and 5 drug free. I could have done it with DS 1, but no one ever told me that the contrax. get to a certain point and pretty much stay there, I thought they'd get worse and worse and worse, but with my drug free births the pain just got bad and stayed that way. It was a disaster because epidurals don't work on me until I'm so drugged I can't even push, and it took me FOREVER to push him out.

DS 2 was at home with a midwife and it was GREAT. I used the birththing ball a lot with him and they used a lot of massage and it was all very gentle.

DS 3 was natural in the hospital, back labor and it was my most painful birth (that child does everything the hard way.) Luckily it was FAST.

With DS 4 my water broke and then I didn't go into labor and wasn't dilating, so they insisted on the Pit. That was rough. I had to lay in the bed, and for some reason with that pg I went almost totally deaf, and I also had broken my glasses and so I couldn't hear the TV or see it, so I had to lay there and be in pain the whole time (I concur that Pitocin is very hard to have natural, even for an experienced person)and I still wasn't dilating at all, so I caved and had the epidural. It still didn't work (I'm apparently immune to epidurals) but at least I had something else to think about the whole time LOL. Hard recovery too and very scary at times because I kept almost passing out at inopportune times and couldn't be alone for like 6 months afterwards.

DD was the easiest labor altho it took them FOREVER to get set up for me to push so that part wasn't fun. I was really ok in control the entire time except for the very last part. Easiest recovery.

So my point is, really, my epidural births were harder than my natural ones, the epidural doesn't make it a cakewalk, it's a hard road no matter how you slice it.

The main thing that was different about the 3 natural births were the level of support I had. DS 1, they were just about pressuring me to have the epidural and were kind of annoyed that I didn't want one. With DS 4, it was like the nurses were all busy doing other stuff and I really didn't have anyone other than DH and he was in a shitty mood that day. With my natural births, the midwives and nurses were very attentive and my husband was helpful too, so whenever things got hard I had the support - my main advice would be someone with you who will be supportive the whole time. You can TOTALLY do it!!!

My ds 3 was a natural childbirth but by no means was done on purpose. I was Induced with ds 1 and ds 2 so I had no idea I was in labor with ds 3. I left for the hospital after I lost my mucus plug and contractions were 5 minutes apart. When I got to the hospital I was 6 cm 100% effaced my water broke and it was too late for drugs. Piece of cake! Lol. I delivered him within 1 hour if being there and I think 2 pushes. Really!! I was walking around almost immediately afterwards. The only hard part was I tore and felt every stitch. Ouch!

Cagirl, we are cycle buddies! I am on cd17 and I normally O on CD 18 so we are at a very similar place right now. Ditto on the desire to get back in the game quickly! Are you doing a cautious sway or going whole-hog-gimme-a-bfp?

Atomic, that's so great that you had some natural births you really enjoyed. I found myself a midwife for this time around so hopefully I will have a better experience than the first. Like you, my water broke but I wasn't in active labor or dilating. They let me labor on my own (without pit) for about 16 hours and then insisted on hastening the process with pitocin because they had set a 24hr time limit for the birth. I got the lowest dose epidural possible, and LUCKILY it worked -- I was throwing up and nearly passing out from the pit-induced back labor! Good to know that without pitocin or back labor the contrax will plateau. Hope I get to experience that someday. :) Charlee, go for it and you can always request meds if you get in a bind. Or better yet, try to go into labor on your own before they need to induce. ;)

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Originally Posted by Niva

Cagirl, we are cycle buddies! I am on cd17 and I normally O on CD 18 so we are at a very similar place right now. Ditto on the desire to get back in the game quickly! Are you doing a cautious sway or going whole-hog-gimme-a-bfp?

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I told my DH that it depends on whether or not I ovulate from the left or right side. I frequently feel O pain, so I can recognize that I almost ALWAYS Ovulate from the right, Ha! I can't even remember the last time I ovulated on the left. Anyway, I told DH that if I do in fact ovulate from the left, we will do a less strict sway in an attempt to increase our chances to catch that eggie. Otherwise, we will be very strict in our attempt, like immediate J&D, more aci-jel w/ less of a delay between insertion an BD, longer hot shower for DH and more antihistamines for me. So for no EWCM for me whatesoever, though, and I usually have at least some a few days before O, but I just took my OPK, its getting a tiny bit darker, so I can't help but wonder if I will get a fade-in tomorrow with a more positive one on Friday.

Cagirl, do you know that both ovaries can give you O pains in the same cycle even if only one releases an egg? Often it is the one that DOESN'T release an egg that feels the pains worse, because the follicles on that side are still swollen and the pressure hasn't been released by the egg rupturing out. So unfortunately even when we think our O pain is consistently predictive, it may not be. :(

Hope you get your +OPK soon! Mine has been half-dark and I've had borderline EWCM for about 10 days now, so I'm still in limbo too.

Hmmm, Niva, I definitely did not know that! That certainly puts a whole new spin on things for me. At least it may mean that I ovulate from the left more than I realize, but may change my sway attempt a bit. Hmm. what to do, somewhere in the middle I guess.

Lets hope this Limbo passes for us soon!!

Two days out of town worked...and 1 day closer to the u/s!! I feel really good tonight about stuff in general for me, but when I read the stuggles other girls are dealing with, I feel guilty for being excited for myself.

With boys, I did have back labour, but the support of my mom, DH and MD made DS1 arrival great...and with DS2, I was so much more zen and I wish that he would have been head down. All the more reason for my rainbow baby to be my VBAC!!

Cagirl and Niva.....I hope that being cd buddies means that 2 bfps are in our near future in this thread!!!

Ladybugs, staying away from this site also works ;). I was working second shift on tuesday and yesterday we´ve been to the zoo all day long.

I went to my gyn this morning because I am having stabbing pain on the left side fom time to time and since I had an ectopic in dec I wanted to make sure everything is located were it should be. Everything is looking great and it even looks like we might be expecting two little pumpkins :running:. We have seen two gestational sacs but one of them was hidden pretty good. My gyn could not tell 100% yet because everyting was still so small and I also have a retroverted uterus but she was pretty excited. Hope we´ll find out next friday :).

Charlee I had a natural birth without any meds but only because everything was going so fast that there was no time for an epidural. I was fully dilated after only an hour and two hours later DS was born. It was a wonderful experience and I am really happy I did it without any meds. This time I was thinking of a water birth...

Pumpkin, wonderful news that all is well with one or possibly even two little pumpkins. :running:

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Originally Posted by I Love Ladybugs

Two days out of town worked...and 1 day closer to the u/s!! I feel really good tonight about stuff in general for me, but when I read the stuggles other girls are dealing with, I feel guilty for being excited for myself.

With boys, I did have back labour, but the support of my mom, DH and MD made DS1 arrival great...and with DS2, I was so much more zen and I wish that he would have been head down. All the more reason for my rainbow baby to be my VBAC!!

Cagirl and Niva.....I hope that being cd buddies means that 2 bfps are in our near future in this thread!!!

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Never feel guilty about your own happiness - After my chemical hearing about BFPs and pregnancies kept me going. Yes, there were days when I thought "why not me?" but never to the point of not wanting to hear how my cyber buddies were doing.

Cagirl and Niva, O pains are so hard to interpret. I was sure that mine were dead on O due to cm changes and OPKs but when I started temping I realised sometimes they were pre O and sometimes post. Am crossing my fingers for you both and sending you lots of baby dust (you might need to dye it pink before you use it though LOL).

Pumpkin.....2 babies!!!! That is awesome and exciting all in one!!! So your next scan is a week Friday....you are going to have lots of pumpkin stalkers!!!!

I am really trying to just savour this pregnancy as I know that it is our last. I sometimes loose sight that I have endured the storms, clouds and rain, and that a rainbow is meant to be enjoyed.

Pumpkin wow!! Two sacs.... Sounds so exciting. :) :) :) :)

Wow, Pumpkin, two sacs?? That is AWESOME!!!! You must be so excited (and nervous)! We'll definitely be waiting with fingers crossed for your next scans. :)

Ladybugs, I know how you feel. I've had to take a step back and realize the same thing -- I should be excited about making another human, not fearful that I won't get it "right" (aka pink). I've felt the same, that this was our last, so the pressure was on. Although now I'm thinking three kids would be pretty nice...

Emily, you are spot on about sharing both the good and the bad on this board. All the successes make me happy and hopeful! :) And it is very nice to have a place here where worries are understood and sympathized with. We're all at different stages of a very similar journey, and one that not many people IRL are taking or would even understand.

OMG Pumpkin I am so excited for you!!!!

Thanks for all the awesome advice ladies! I REALLY want to do this naturally, but my OB is pretty dead set on induction @ 38 weeks... and you all said the same thing I've heard before... that Pitocin makes it ten times worse to go natural :(

I have NO clue what a natural labor feels like... I feel kind of cheated in a way because of it. Everyone has these beautiful birth stories and mine are kinda empty in comparison. (Yes i know this is me being overly emotional right now LOL) It's just that I react VERY strongly to pitocin and have very strong painful contractions... I just don't know if I can do it without meds with pitocin :(

Both my births sound like yours Atomic with DS4! I pushed for literally 3/4 hrs and tore badly with both of them. They were only 6 lbs! I think I'm just an utter failure with this whole pregnancy/birth stuff... Thank god I've got a decent career... LOL

I'm going to talk to my Dr about a natural birth tomorrow at my appt... maybe she will reconsider letting me go into labor on my own. I think that's my only shot at a natual birth.

Okay... stupid question... what is gas and air? LOL I think we have a different name for it in the US :)

Nevermind... I figured it out... this is why I didn't know what it was!

Laughing gas making a comeback for pregnant mothers in the U.S | Mail Online

Charlee if you are going to be induced ask if they do mobile or low dose epidurals. My doc in Africa said they don't exist but they do! You can walk around with them. Failing that you can ask for epidural to be timed to lessen towards the actual delivery part, or lie on your side immediately after your epidural is put in as this can make it stronger on that side and weaker on the other so you can still feel contractions (if you are likely to need an episiotomy then check what side they do that on!!!) My epidural with DS2 was great as it could feel a lot on one side after I did the laying down trick but the pain was bearable. It doesn't work for everyone though so a lower dose is preferable if your hospital do that.

I think I have found somewhere half decent to have DS3 or DD1 so am feeling more upbeat. I ended up squatting a contracting in a corridor waiting for a room to become available with DS1 so I was please to see they have lots of chairs in the corridors in the hospital I have found online!!

Niva...we were so set on two, but that would have been one of each, lol. I feel blessed to have the chance for a bigger family....and realize that my 2 sonshines could be joined by a third...and that would be great too!!!

Emily - I applaud you for your strength and bravery in having babies all over the world! Since we're friends on FB maybe you noticed that I grew up all over the world... I spent most of my childhood in Asia... southeast Asia specifically. I think you will be pleasantly surprised by your experience there. Vietnam is a beautiful, bustling country and they have VERY competent doctors. My best friend of many years lives there now and she loves it! It is much more developed than Africa so I think you will most likely have a better birth experience :)

I will ask my Dr about my options at my appt today... the low dose epidural sounds perfect!

This is a great thread! A wonderful way to keep up with friends who have gotten there BFP's. I would try to check in on everyone in the due date threads once in awhile, but there was so much information to scan through to find the ones that I "know." Glad to see everyone here in one place!!

I pray I will be able to join you with a BFP soon. We just finished our two attempts for this month and it looks like I most likely O'd yesterday, so I am starting my 10th two week wait. Hoping it's the last one!!

Oh TTCPink I am praying this is your last 2ww! I'm rooting for you all the way :)

So I'm back from my Dr appt with u/s pics!!! Baby is measuring perfectly and was kicking up a storm during the scan... she's even using her yolk sac as a pillow! Haha ... hoping these pics turn out on here... they were difficult to photograph. When I get home I will scan them in and upload them that way if they aren't clear :)

Charlee i like how you say "she". FX you are right ;)!

Well I don't like using "it" and I figured I might jinx myself if I say "he" so for now it's a "she"! Haha

I couldn't upload pics from my phone so I'll do it at home :)

Charlee.....use she.....you will be using it come Dec!!!!! I am so excited that your scan went well...you have me all psyched up for mine on Tuesday!

Pumpkin.....1 more week until your scan...it is going to be a long wait for us! :) I think that is truely great that there are 2 on board!!!

TTC Pink.....I hope that your 2 week wait flies by and that a GIANT bfp is the reward of this cycle!!!!

I am going to spill the beans tomorrow to family....I had the only person who knows about the baby (a girl who I bought some mat. shirts from 1.5 weeks ago) tell her dad...another pt in our clinic...and I got a "Congrats ...I hear you are execting!!" Luckily, my coworkers did not overhear it!!!!
Plus, my ILs are coming up for a visit when I will be 12 weeks, so DH wants DS1 to tell them!!! Oh boy...the comments are going to start!!!!!!!

Here "SHE" is! :)

http://i1307.photobucket.com/albums/...psc03ad121.jpg

OMG Charlee that's such a cute pic :HH:! She already is a beauty!

haha Thanks Pumpkin! :) I'm in love already of course :)

Despite all the pregnancies we have been through, DH seems more invested and excited about this one... it's so nice to be able to share that excitement with him :)

That's how my DH is this time :). This is the one person that I want to talk about the pregnancy with the most and it's awesome that he doesn't get annoyed :). He is so excited about the fact that we might be expecting twins I keep reminding him that it's not even sure yet.

When is your next scan Charlee?

I just realized that we have to pay for the NT scan so I guess there will be no nub guessing for me :(. Maybe I'll just pay for a normal privat scan around 13weeks and ask for a full body profile shot.