We have some breaking news to tell you!

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I know what you are thinking.

You're wrong.

Earlier on I asked for your opinion on what you would like to see on this blog.

One idea we came up with was to have a forum where we could all gather and form an interactive community.

Well, after another morning of work I am pleased to announce that the Larger Family Life Family Forums are here!

We wanted to provide a safe, comfortable place where we could chat and get to know our readers better.  It isn't just a place for large families but for everyone.

There is a forum for general chat, as well as somewhere to share your pregnancy, a homeschooling forum, a cooking forum and a healthy living one.  We also have a forum for old style thrift.  You can leave your comments and suggestions for anything else you think we should include.

Whether you have a large family already, hope to have a large family one day or are simply curious about them, I hope you will register and join in to make this new community grow into a great place to be!

Please spread the word wherever you can!  The Family Forums are ready and waiting.  They just need a community to use them!

Edit: It has been brought to my attention that people using IE or Firefox to register cannot see the captcha code and so can't complete their registration.  I have tried it out and can confirm that the captcha can be seen if you use Google Chrome though I don't know what the problem is with the other browsers.  All I can ask at the moment is if you can please use Chrome to register with, then once registered you should be able to use the forums in your normal browser.  In the meantime I will try and find a solution to the problem of the invisible captchas in other browsers, but as I'm not techie minded at all don't hold your breath that it will be any time soon!  I apologise for the inconvenience. 


It seems to be working okay now so there's no excuse not to sign up!



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Theraline Caesarean Belt - Review

It wasn't until my seventh pregnancy that I had to undergo an emergency caesarean due to fetal distress. The same thing happened with my eighth pregnancy and so Joseph, my ninth was my first elective c-section which was planned beforehand. I was informed then that any future pregnancy would automatically mean another c-section. The hospital wouldn't even entertain the thought of a natural labour and of course, once we found out I was expecting twins a natural labour was not going to be considered at all.

Knowing that this was going to happen and how much it hurts during the recovery process I was happy to take the opportunity to review Theraline's Caesarean Belt which claimed to "protect, support and soothe".

The pack contains a soft belt which holds one of the four supplied inserts. The belt fits from 28"-44" in size and can be worn under or over clothing.

The inserts included in the pack are as follow:

1. The Protective Shield

This is a small shield which offers a little protection and piece of mind against knocks and bumps. Anyone who has experienced a c-section will tell you how vulnerable you feel when you are recovering, especially in the early days and so this is a reassuring little pad which offers a little more protection.

2. The Polyfibre Pillow

This pillow is another insert offering protection against bumps and knocks. It also guards against the rubbing of clothes against your scar and can be used with other inserts supplied.

3. The Cherry Stone Pillow

This insert can be heated up in the microwave or cooled in the freezer, either way offering pain relief naturally and simply.

4. The Cold/Warm Compress

The cool pack is for relieving the pain after surgery.  It can also be used as a warm compress.

My verdict:

I found the belt comfortable to wear considering I was still very sore and tender.  I chose to wear it under my clothing and noted the fabric was very soft and comfortable against my skin.  I wore the pillow insert along with the cherry stone pillow insert against my scar and it instantly provided relief from the pain and soreness.  I was a little disappointed that the heat from the pad didn't seem to last for very long.  I originally compared it to a hot water bottle which would last for hours but then I remembered that, a) a hot water bottle isn't practical to carry around for hours and b) it takes less than a minute to heat up the cherry stone pillow again, so it wasn't really much of an issue after all.  The pillow and belt could also be used afterwards to ease period pains, and the inserts can be used as part of a first aid kit for dealing with aches and pains in general.

All in all, I found the belt easy to use and it did ease the soreness and pain but I feel that at almost £20 it is a little expensive.  However, as I've pointed out you can continue to use it after your caesarean scar has healed as part of your first aid kit so if you are looking for something to offer a little help with your recovery it might be worth considering.  If money is an issue though you'd do just as well with purchasing a cooling/heating pad alone and tucking it into your waistband.

The Theraline Caesarean Belt can be bought from the Theraline Shop for £19.90.

(Disclaimer: I was sent a Theraline Caesarean Belt for the purpose of this review).



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We all need a little pregnancy reassurance sometimes

As this pregnancy draws ever nearer to an end I can’t help but think of how it has compared to my previous pregnancies. The obvious difference being that I have this time had the privilege of experiencing a twin pregnancy as opposed to the singletons of before. Finding out I was expecting twins brought me back to the days of old, when pregnancy was still a new experience and I was less confident about, well, about anything and everything really.

When I was pregnant with Ben nineteen years ago (was it really that long?), there was no internet to speak of. Information wasn’t as widely and easily available as it is now and so my main companion was my Bounty book, which was read and re-read over and over. Like all relationships, ours has changed over the years. We have a history, do Bounty and I.

Technology over the last two decades has made it possible for that little book to develop into a vast collection of information, advice and reassurance in one place. I’ve got older. Bounty got wiser. I’ve got slower with age. Bounty has everything available within seconds.

The website doesn’t just cover pregnancy and birth but also so many other subjects including family time, money, health and travel. There is a great deal of support and tools for those trying to conceive including a fertility calendar to help you to predict your most fertile period during the month.

Once you’ve got the positive sign on the pregnancy test you’ll be keen to know when your baby will be arriving. The due date calculator will work it all out for you and you can then get on with checking up on your pregnancy week by week and feel reassured at every step of this exciting new journey that you are embarking on.

 Actually, that reassurance doesn’t just stop with first time mums. I’m a regular user too and love to know what is going on inside my body. Finding out how the babies are growing and developing gives you such an amazing insight that it still leaves me in awe, even now. It goes to show that Bounty is a valuable plethora of information whether you are on your first or your tenth baby!

I never imagined we’d still be together nineteen years after we first met.

Me and Bounty.

Bounty and me.



(This is a sponsored post).


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Twin Pregnancy Diary - 28 weeks 2 days

Twin Pregnancy 28 weeks

To be honest there isn't very much to report this week.  Night times are becoming increasingly uncomfortable and disturbances are greater as my bladder has gone from this capacity...

O

... to this capacity....

.    

(It's that full stop right up there. See?)

Round ligament pains are getting more frequent and can be quite breathtaking sometimes, although the lack of breath could also be contributed to the fact that my lungs are being squashed like an accordion.  

Having got those complaints out of the way, I have to say that I actually don't feel too bad.  Of course, pregnancy isn't easy as your body is dealing with so many changes and working so hard, so some discomfort and even pain is to be expected at times.  On the whole though, I think I have been very lucky so far to have had no problems apart from the odd expected and quite normal pregnancy twinges.

Looking at my photograph above, I don't think I look very much bigger than last week.  It did make me laugh a little when someone over on the Larger Family Life Facebook page commented that it looked neat.  Yes, my abs of steel are keeping it all held together.... I wish!  

We have a growth scan coming up this week.  The sonographer will be checking on the well being of the babies and estimating their size and weights.  Mike has guessed that they're around the 2½lb weight.  It will be interesting to see how near/far he is to the mark.  I cannot believe that we are now in the final ten weeks, as I won't be carrying further than 38 weeks.  Does anyone else think this pregnancy has gone by fast?  Still, let the ten week countdown begin!

If you are a new reader (please do leave a comment and say "hello!") and would like to catch up on this pregnancy diary from the start you can go back to where it begins with the Twin Pregnancy Diary - The First Nine Weeks (Part One). 

If you've caught up, or you've already been following to date you can continue to keep up with our journey by subscribing to a full feed in your reader.

And don't forget, if you'd like to chat with me or keep up to date with all the little stuff in life you can leave a comment after any post or join Larger Family Life on our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter too.

(You can also share posts on Facebook, Twitter, Stumble them or Digg them too so don't be shy! It's good to share, after all!)


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Finally....

I finally got on with it and brought the baby clothes out of storage where they've been for, ooh, all of the best part of the last eleven months.

Due to limited space I stuck to digging out only the smallest sizes of clothes for now which are all mainly white with a few blue and no pink at all.

A few weeks ago Persil had sent a bottle of their 2-in-1 with Comfort over to try so I thought I'd use it on the baby clothes.  Once the wash had finished and I was folding the lovely, soft, tiny clothes I kept getting a whiff of passion flower.  Looking at the washed, dried and neatly folded pile I can't help but feel there isn't enough for two babies at once though.

Getting newborn clothes out of storage always makes me stop and think.  Pregnancy gets to a stage where it feels never-ending.  The discomfort sets in, especially when it's hot and humid, and it gets difficult to get to any level of comfort at all.  To me, getting the teeny, perfect clothes ready is the marker that it will all be over soon.

I look at Joseph and even though he is not yet a year old, he already seems so big when I compare him to the newborn outfits.  Soon, he's going to be promoted to big brother status.  My baby will be a baby no more.

So at least one more thing has been ticked off the to-do list.  Perhaps today I might make a start on packing the hospital bags.

Perhaps.


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A downside to having a large family

I normally try and write about the good side of having a large family.  The fact that there's always something to do, someone to talk to and a great mix of characters within one house.  That's all good.

However, there is a downside that became very apparent this week.

We have run out of baby names. 

We are expecting twins, each of whom will need at least one name.  We also give middle names.  That means we need to find four names for each gender.  We don't know what sex the babies will be so we have to be prepared with names for each scenario.  Eight names.

In this family we are heavy on the boys.  There are seven boys, all with first and middle names.  That is fourteen boys names already used up.  Plus dad.  Fifteen names (no middle name for him).

Choosing girls names isn't a big problem.  We are pretty much decided, I think, on what we would call one or both if they are girls.  We are one middle name short but trying to think of one name isn't too bad.

The boys names, though.  Ugh, that is a whole other story.  I am twenty six weeks into this pregnancy tomorrow and we are still no further along in picking a name.

It wouldn't be so bad if it were one or two names we were struggling to find, but it is all four boys names that we need, and given that, after six boys in a row, I think it's likely for the male chromosome to be present once (or in this case, twice) again, I feel the pressure is on.

The babies could be here within the next couple of months and they would be nameless.  We would have to number them or something.  And then everyone would accuse us of copying the Beckhams.  I would not be happy about that.

We need help.

We need four boys names please.  Traditional names.  Nothing... um..."fashionable".  Just traditional.  Like your grandad would have had.

And just to make it easier for you here are the names we already have for the boys in the family so far:

Ben Constantine (middle name after my grandfather who was obviously not English)

Harry Andrew

Edward James

Sidney Albert

Patrick William

Oliver George 

and finally

Joseph Gerard

This doesn't seem to leave us very much.  Suggestions would be welcome and very much appreciated.



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Theraline Original Maternity and Nursing Pillow - Review

I had been on the lookout for a maternity pillow for a while. I already have a smaller V-shaped pillow which I use when working at the computer but I needed something more for getting comfortable in bed.

The problem was the pillow was too small, too soft and just not cut out for the job. The added pregnancy weight means that when I sleep on my side, the pressure makes my hip hurt. I then wake up, try to get comfortable and can't and spend the rest of the night trying to sleep while ignoring my aching hip which would continue to hurt throughout the day.

Cue Theraline who obviously must have felt my pain (or had enough of my complaining) and sent me one of their Original Maternity and Nursing Pillows.

This thing is huge!  Unlike the standard V-Shape pillow I already had, this is the King of Maternity Pillows.  It measures in at 190cm x 38cm and doesn't fall out of shape easily, being filled with approximately 40 litres of polyester microbeads.  This means that it remains firm and supportive enough to take my ample pregnancy weight.  The cover is removable and washable - always a bonus, and you can buy several different designs of covers for it so you're bound to find something to suit your taste.

The size is such though that Mike may need to sleep on the sofa later on during this pregnancy and that may cause some matrimonial disharmony.  However, I have Theraline's address and so I can send the divorce fees to them to settle.

I have been using this pillow for the last week now and ended up oversleeping four times, such is the difference it is making to my nights.  My hip no longer hurts as much during the day, having had a lot of the pressure taken from it and the pillow is also handy for elevating my feet during the day and lessening the heavy legged feeling I get.  You can also use it when baby arrives to help support him/her during feeding times, but please keep safety first and never, ever leave your baby unattended with it.

All in all, I have fallen truly, madly, deeply in love with it and fully recommend it.

Theraline Original Maternity and Nursing Pillow is available at the Theraline Shop for £44.95.  (Divorce papers and alarm clock not included.)

I was sent a Theraline Original Maternity and Nursing Pillow for the purpose of this review. 


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Twin Pregnancy Diary - 25 weeks 2 days

25 week twin pregnancy belly photo

Yet another week has passed and I have achieved nothing much in terms of preparing for the twins' arrival.  Their clothes still remain in storage, unwashed and unsorted.  Nothing is ready to be packed for the hospital and there is still plenty to be done organisation wise.  I know it seems that I have ages to go but I'm noticing a week by week decrease in energy levels and I am sure that I need to get things done sooner rather than later, lest they end up not done at all.  You can't really bring babies home with nothing to wear and nothing to sleep in.

On the positive side, I have ordered two new crib mattresses which I found at a reduced price.  Really speaking, only one needed replacing (the one for the second hand crib we bought), but I decided that I'd replace both seeing as the last one given they were in the sale.  We also collected the cot-bed that Mike's cousin kindly gave us and I've ordered two cotton wool pleats for the hospital bag.  Every little thing I do counts, doesn't it?

Hopefully next weekend we'll be able to sort out our bedroom, take down the old cot and replace it with the cot-bed which the twins will share for the first few months.  I still need to get the divider so they can each have one half of it, so I'll shop around for the best price on that this week.  During the next week or so I'll be topping up our cloth nappies, replacing those that are too worn and unusable, and I'll also be ordering the triple height bunk bed.

I had an appointment with the midwife last week.  I'm really not feeling very well connected with her.  She's nice enough but I don't feel as comfortable with her as I have done in the past with previous midwives.  It makes me feel uneasy.  Nevertheless, everything was ok.  Blood pressure was fine, babies sounding good and all in all nothing to worry about.  She now wants to see me every two weeks.

I'm going through a little worry at the moment as I had a fall last night and landed on the left side of my bump. I'm feeling sore and upset still.  I still think I'm able to rush around and obviously am not as light footed as I expect myself to be.  The toy that I tripped over on the way to sorting out an argument didn't help either.  I got the doppler out soon after the fall and heard both heartbeats which was reassuring.  That little machine has provided me with so much reassurance and comfort over the years, I can't begin to describe.  Anyway, I'm still a little sore and getting a bit of pain this morning so not really feeling my best.

As far as the babies are concerned, well they are meant to be measuring approximately 35cm from head to foot and weighing about 660g each.  They are starting to lay down their fat stores now, and I would love to have another 4d scan just to see if they've changed at all from a month ago.  That though, would be greedy and financially unwise, with everything else that we need to pay for first.

If you are a new reader and would like to catch up on this pregnancy diary from the start you can go back to where it begins with the Twin Pregnancy Diary - The First Nine Weeks (Part One). 

If you've caught up, or you've already been following to date you can continue to keep up with our journey by subscribing to a full feed in your reader.

And don't forget, if you'd like to chat with me or keep up to date with all the little stuff in life you can leave a comment after any post or join Larger Family Life on our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter too.

(You can also share posts on Facebook, Twitter, Stumble them or Digg them too so don't be shy! It's good to share, after all!)



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10 things nobody tells you about pregnancy - until now

1. Haemorrhoids are only funny when they’re affecting somebody else and not you. That hilarious joke you made about offering to knit someone a woolly hat for their piles is no longer humourous when they say it back to you.

2. Your house will look like a fully licensed pharmacy and by the end of your nine months you will be an expert on all medications including but not limited to iron, antacids, piles and if you’re really unlucky, thrush.

3. You’ll be amazed that your body can stretch so much despite thinking weeks ago that you were about to burst. Is there no end to your elasticity, you wonder.  Apparently not.

4. The floor gets further away the bigger you get. It is also at this stage that you will drop things more often. And making the sound “Aauurghah!” when you pick things up doesn’t actually help, although may be therapeutic to do.

5. The most high intensity workout you have ever managed to achieve is only possible when you are eight months pregnant and trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in. Surely the calorie burn from that alone should be enough to get rid of any excess pregnancy weight?

6. Once you have finally found a comfortable position to sleep in/exhausted yourself to the point of unconsciousness you will need to wake for the toilet. That is the law.

7. Pregnancy hormones are real. They are only a fake symptom when other women are pregnant. Military cutbacks can be solved by taking on an army of hormonal pregnant women. After all, who in the world would take them on? Have you seen us at our worst?

8. At least once during the end of your pregnancy you will wonder if your waters had broken or you had an accident. People will be excited if you trickle amniotic fluid. Not so much if it’s urine.

9. No other woman in the world knows how you feel and yes, you are the only women to have ever been pregnant. Who’s going to argue? (See #7 for case in point).

10. You will worry.

You will worry at every single stage of your pregnancy. You think you’ll be alright when you hit 12 weeks because chances of miscarriage fall significantly. Then you reach 12 weeks and start to worry because your midwife can’t find the heartbeat at 13 weeks. Once you’ve found the heartbeat you’ll worry that you haven’t yet felt movement. Once you’ve felt movement you’ll worry that your baby isn’t moving around enough. Then you’ll worry that your baby is moving too much which is an obvious sign to you that he’s in distress. You think you’ll relax when you reach 24 weeks because your baby will be viable. When you reach 24 weeks you pray you’ll make it to 28 weeks because your baby is still so not ready to be born. Then you worry about the labour. And you’ll worry about having everything ready. Trust me, you’re going to worry until you have that baby in your arms.

If you think that birth brings an end to the journey of the worry train that you’ve been on for the last nine months you’re wrong.

It’s going to continue.

No matter how old they get.

Forever.


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