Ellie78

I really want a sheepskin but can only really afford one John Lewis do a special buggy sheepskin and a separate sheepskin rug- the buggy sheepskin doesn't seem very big but I did wonder whether other people used the same one for home and buggy..?

Hiya Sorry to be a pain but I though I'd send a shout out. For various reasons (antenatal classes, work, visiting family) I don't have any saturday days free until May 26th. yes, it's ridiculous really, and quite close to my due date. I'd really like to meet people though, it seems a shame not to, and wondered if anyone wanted to meet for coffee or a drink on another day? I'm more Nunhead but happy to meet anywhere, occasionally flexible during the week (sometimes work from home) I could do certain times on Sundays 15th or 29th too. Anyway, if anyone fancies it PM me and let me know. Not trying to create a splinter group (SPLITTERS!) just a bit sad I won't be able to make any saturday meet ups. Sob. I guess there's always post May 26th....

There is coram fields cafe in the foundling museum...but independent from it... Which is both delicious and cheap.

Hiya I've asked this on another thread but the date is fast approaching and I'm clueless. I'm taking Saffron's advice (thanks saffron!) and would like to get a present for my friend rather than the baby. It's a little tricky (or maybe I'm over sensitive); she earns considerably more than me and I couldn't afford the beauty treatments, jewellery etc that she would be used to getting. I won't be able to treat her in that way. Can anyone share their experiences of meaningful gifts (whilst motherhood was looming! they appreciated, perhaps irrespective of the baby shower context?

Hiya Very jealous of all the meets. I'm back home (have been away for a couple of months working) the week before the next meet but I'm taking my auntie out for her birthday on the 31st so I can't make it. Grrrrr. BusyB - I'm round Nunhead way! And I'd love to meet for coffee or summat when I'm back. Am feeling enormous at the moment and I'm only 27 weeks. I can't believe there's another 13 weeks of growth ahead (if not more!) - that means I'm going to have to be rolled around. Hunger starting to kick in too. I'd been off food for a fortnight then bingo. Ravenous. All the time. Need to make sure I don't eat everything in sight. Step away from the fridge.... At the moment, though, all I want is an Indian take away. A really hot, spicy, chicken curry. yyyyuuuummmm. Now - that's got nought to do with Baby.

on the same track... what's a good baby shower present? Or does this warrant a separate discussion? I don't want to spend loads of money (I don't have it) and she doesn't know the sex.....(though I prefer unisex baby clothes for the most part in any case)...

Hi everyone Nose bleeds sounds scary, Mavis. Nothing as dramatic for me but no bloomingmess in teh 2nd trimester; instead, I've been waking up at, ooo, 4am and not sleeping until, ooo, 7am by which point it's kind of time to get up. That's very boring but I am somewhat comforted I don't have blood gushing from my nose (sorry! -hope it gets better)and I don't have a toddler (which I suppose is akin to pregnancy insomnia). Ah, things to be thankful for. I might be back in London on March 10th for the weekend and will join you all if I can. Otherwise, I'm back the end of March and would love to meet up then before Easter overtakes us all. But that's probably too far in advance to put a date in the diary. I'm 24 weeks soon. Can't blooming believe it. I look MASSEEEV though, which I'm sure is bloating as most of it goes down over night. Have fun at Goose Green on friday.

Oh I'm so jealous! Have a great time on Saturday all. Not back in London properly until end of March but would love to join in the fun then. I'm feeling humungous at the moment (22w) though bump shrinks alarmingly over night so it's obviously muchly water. Ah...Cafe Nero doesn't know what's it's in for....Get all those seats!Vch - I like your thinking. Kristymac1 - let us know how it goes.... best of luck for tomorrow. Debating on whether to have a 4d scan in a month or so - it's a really nice idea....and I'd like the opportunity to see him again before the Big Day... but they're so flipping expensive. I don't want half the rubbish they throw into these packages. Grrrrr.

Hi Sandyrose. Hope the tiredness has got better for you. Hmm...vch...Biscuits. I want biscuits. Ginger biscuits. Chocolate biscuits. Any biscuit. I might have to go to shopping. Re the whole vitamin D thing... I want to come off the pregnacare because I don't think I'm absorbing the iron all that well (never had success with iron tablets despite doing everything I can to aid absorption)and I need a replacement vit d3 (?) source (am donig the whole liquid iron thing). Does anyone take anything they'd recommend for vit D3? I've heard that liquid drops (again) are better than tablets...

Hi Natalie I'd be up for coffee date, with or without toddlers (though I can't supply one myself - this being my first). But...I'm going away for work though for 7 weeks, which I am NOT looking forward to, from 1st Feb but I'd like to keep in touch with you all from afar, and hopefully meet up when I'm back in end of March/April. I don't think I'll be able to meet before Feb anyway. It'll be getting all very close then... Moving on from tiredness (relieved it's not just me, Julie! How're you feeling today?)is anyone else experiencing PMT levels of violent grumpiness? I haven't had particularly bad mood swings so far, and it's really surprised me that, at 19 weeks, all I want to do is scream and strop at my boyfriend for no apparent reason. Scary.

Oh boy. I'm shattered today. How's everyone else doing? Collapsed on the sofa, feeling really sorry for myself.

Congrats GemHeidi on the scan and your news. Our scan isnt until 21 weeks (in 2 weeks - grrrraarrgh - too long) but I do know we're having a boy too though (CVS test at 14 weeks, horrible at the time but nice to know early)- Yay to boys indeed! How are you doing on the names? We've only got 2 in the running (1 of which we don't really think we can get away with) and that's the result of 4 weeks planning.....Oh. Dear. Still looking like I'm having a packet of biscuits though.

Hello fellow first timers GemHeidi and Mavisbrackets.. Nice to see we've got some gurus in sydneyswan and qeetah to guide us. Honestly, have no idea what's ahead either. At the moment, focused solely on trying to identify a bump - thought the superficial stuff would be a good distraction from the Big Stuff. Mainly, I just look like I've eaten a few too many packets of biscuits. Little man is hiding... Hope you're all having great days. Morning sickness (mainly) gone for me, appearing occasionally after I foolishly eat some tomato based dish or some such other acidic wonder. I'm still having insomnia though; waking early (4.30ish) and getting back to sleep 10 minutes before the alarm goes off. Not so bad though. I feel reasonably human today, as much as I ever do....

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY! So excited. Been wanting this for AGES!!!! Now don't quite know what to SAAYYYYYYYY... Er.... Due June 13th. He's my first. HELLO PREGNANT EAST DULWICH!

Admin Re the thread from DJKQ claiming to have sent me Pms I checked the messages in my inbox and my sent box from her pretty much every time I looked on the forum to check whether she had been reading them, which she hadn't. I was checking a LOT as I was frantic with worry. It was only this weekend when the first message I sent on 31/10 was marked as read (the message which she claimed she had replied to and sent me 2 private messages through before). Is this a problem on your system? Or is it not? I understand you don't get involved in disputes but surely there is something you can check, whether these were actually sent to me on dates prior to this weekend? And DJKQ - as I said in my Pm to you...it doesn't matter whether these supposed PMs to me are real (which at the moment I don't believe) or not. It was highly irresponsible of you to remove yourself from communication entirely, whilst still in possession of my keys, after having promised to complete the project within a week, having made no intimation of your impending absence to either of us and not to have spoken to us in person to apologise and check we were okay with leaving the keys in your possession. Especially as you have claimed on previous occasions that Pms are notoriously unreliable and don't get through. So these Pms don't excuse.

Hi folks Not posting more about this, as I still want to resolve the situation through communication with DJKQ. I doubt she's reading this but, if you know her, can you please encourage her to contact us. We want to sort everything out cleanly and simply. And put it behind us.

And I see what you mean about The Lounge...

Sue - it was DJKQ who used that phrase, not admin, but she told me that admin had understood her perspective and took her 'side'. I found this story very difficult to believe at the time, and still do, but worried when I couldn't find the thread.

Gosh. What Lounge does to threads. Sorry - OP is here but working and will return to this subject another time very soon.

Thanks Otta, the one place I didn't look. Apologies to admin for suggesting a deletion... To be honest, I'm not sure what I think about moving the thread to the lounge. The point of the post was to try and establish contact in whatever way I could and through the forum appeared to me to be the only way of contacting. I didn't want to start a thread (yet!) about the wrongdoings or otherwise of the person involved, though I was, of course, interested to hear other people's experiences. This will now not happen, as no one will see the post and pass the message on - so this route has failed for us. I am upset that these things (in the lounge) are taken so lightly, as (in this venue) it is merely a topic of conversation. Added up we have a loss of ?440 - plus a work we need now to re-do, not to go into the amount of stress this has caused us. It's not a matter for chat. I don't understand why Sue's experiences have been defined merely as a matter of 'chat, subject to comment, rather than placed in the 'recommendations' thread? If I post now in recommendations, will I get moved to the Lounge?

admin why was my post deleted? and what would be acceptable to repost? I am now incurring an expense of over ?300 because of the actions of a someone who reached me through an advertisement on the forum. I would like to share my experiences with people, to prevent the same happening to others, and invite the person concerned to offer an explanation, particularly as they are avoiding my calls, texts and pms through this site - though they are obviously well enough to post and play active sports. Would this be allowed? I emailed you about this, hoping to find some advice but I haven't heard anything back - I know you must be busy but I would really really appreciate your response/advice/laying out of the rules. I was told by this person that you were their 'friend' and that's why previous criticisms (from a so called 'difficult client') were removed from the EDF admin. I cannot believe this but it therefore did seem odd to me that the responses to my thread were promptly deleted. Can you explain?

Apologies, hope I'm not using valuable EDF space here but I don't see any other way of approaching this. We've been trying to get in touch with her for a couple of weeks now (pms through here, texts, calls -we're clients, found her through the forum, haven't heard anything from her in over 3 weeks) We're desperately worried..... Hoping that by posting on the forum she'll either see the message (on the possibility that all other methods of communications have somehow failed) or that someone who knows her will see it and pass on that we're trying to get in touch. Hopefully nothing has happened. It's quite urgent for us so any help would be really appreciated. Ellie (Apologies if I'm posting in the wrong place)

Thanks again everyone! I'm not sure I can make much sense out of the statistics, myself. And I think unless I have a true aversion (after visits) I might just stick with where I am already. As I said, I have no idea what my body will need on the day, having never gone through this before, and whereas in theory I'm anti intervention I don't know whether that's going to be realistic. We shall see. Strawbs - congratulations!! How are you doing? Chantelle - I think my midwife's unit is in Deptord (near New Cross station), first appointment there in a couple of weeks - or ,at least, that's where the community centre is where I'm booked in for my first appointmnet with the midwife (same thing?)

You've all been really helpful, thank you so much. I'm much more open to see how things work out now; I think the lesson learned is to ride the wave. Generally I would say that I would prefer not as much intervention, just because I think I'd find it all a bit scary (lots of machines attached etc) but, you know what, in the however many secret years I've known my body...it sometimes just does what it wants to do (or what I don't plan it to do)...For that reason perhaps my choice of St T's isn't so far off the mark of where I want to be. Will make an appointment to look around St T's first, see how that goes and go and look about the other two. Thanks for the offers of pm chats. I might well take you up on it.

Very newly pregnant and was put on the spot this morning at the GPs. I could have any one of these. He said, and I agree with him from what I've read on the t'internet, that there's not to choose between them in terms of care. I opted for Lewisham, then changed my mind and have now gone with St Thomas' (on the basis of it being actually more convenient in terms of ante natal appointments) None of them make more sense, in terms of getting to the hospital; they're all pretty similar in terms of distance and we'd have to go by cab/get a lift anyway when The Time Comes. Is there a factor I'm not reckoning with?