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December 2011 Moms
eponine7682
member
TTC since March/April 2010
DX: MFI - less than 1 million sperm, 26% motility
DH put on anastrozole to increase counts
June/July 2011 100 mg Clomid + TS IUI#1 & IUI 2 - BFN :-(
Forced break due to DH getting spinal surgery in August 2011
IVF - January 2012: BFN
FET in April 2012 - BFP at 6dp5dt! Beta #1 at 9dp5dt: 82.5, Beta #2 at 12dp5dt: 352 Beta #3 at 19dp5dt: 6000, saw heartbeat and one little bean at 5W6D!
After nearly 3 years of waiting our LO was born December 18th 2012!
XP: How did you handle holidays?
eponine7682
member
Hi there mommas, I am from the January 2013 board and am starting to think about the holidays coming up. For those that celebrate Hanuka/Christmas/Kwanzaa, how did you handle the shopping and family gatherings while being so close to your due date?
Did you shop early? Did LO arrive early (like around the time of the holiday you celebrate)? If they arrived early, did you bring LO to holiday celebrations or was it too early for you to feel comfortable? Were you able to attend the holiday celebrations? My family is pretty big on Christmas and there are always a ton of work parties too. It's truly my favorite time of the year but I just don't know what to expect now. So, how was it for you all? TIA!
TTC since March/April 2010
DX: MFI - less than 1 million sperm, 26% motility
DH put on anastrozole to increase counts
June/July 2011 100 mg Clomid + TS IUI#1 & IUI 2 - BFN :-(
Forced break due to DH getting spinal surgery in August 2011
IVF - January 2012: BFN
FET in April 2012 - BFP at 6dp5dt! Beta #1 at 9dp5dt: 82.5, Beta #2 at 12dp5dt: 352 Beta #3 at 19dp5dt: 6000, saw heartbeat and one little bean at 5W6D!
After nearly 3 years of waiting our LO was born December 18th 2012!
This discussion has been closed.
Re: XP: How did you handle holidays?
Our baby was due on the 25th, then the 20th and she arrived on the 30th.
We spent Christmas Eve night at a family dinner and we hosted Christmas Day. I was tired and uncomfortable but it was nice to have the distraction. I missed boxing day shopping!
I was due Jan 10, DS was born Dec 22.
I did shop early. I had almost everything for Christmas by mid December.
DS was in the NICU for all holidays so we did not attend any gatherings. We are actually not sure how to handle the coming holidays this year. Our NICU doc said to avoid all large crowds until spring to hopefully steer clear of RSV. My family is also huge into Christmas. I am doubtfully hoping my husband will agree to immediate family gatherings on each side for a few hours. I think that is acceptable. Our other option is for me to go and DH to stay home with DS and vice versa. If you don't mind going by yourself, that's an option. I guess I am very cautious about sickness. I despise the hospital.
We did online shopping too and it was a little dream come true!!!! Everything came from Amazon with free shipping in November so we were all done before Thanksgiving. That helped A LOT!
DS was born on 12/5/11 and was 2 weeks old by the time all the holiday parties came around. We went to them all, but we were complete zombies from the lack of sleep. Plus - we didn't let everyone hold him because he was so new and all the winter germs going around had us paranoid. My Mom had fun parading him around, but she and my sister-in-law were the only ones to hold him during our Christmas Eve party (I have a HUGE family, so there are about 40-50 family members at our Christmas parties) At each event we came late, only stayed for a little bit, then left early. Everyone completely understood. It was rough, but we survived. Looking back I wish we would've said "no" to a lot of things instead. We really needed to just hunker down in our house for a few weeks without any visitors but the Holidays threw a kink in that. Next time around I'm hoping not to have a baby around the holidays so we pull that off, plus we're not going to allow visitors in the hospital. That was a whole new nightmare we've decided we don't want the next time around. Arg.
I was due the 28th, but ended up having a c-section on 22nd. We basically just told both of our families not to plan on having us there at all for Christmas as we didn't know what we'd be dealing with (a newborn or still PG). It turned out I was released from the hospital on Christmas eve and we spent the night at home by ourselves. We had some family over the next day for some gifts and that seemed to work out well.
DH and I didn't buy each other Christmas gifts and for families we just bought online gifts and had them wrapped and delivered. Or for DH's family, he did the shopping.
Now that the baby's here I have NO Freaking clue what we're going to do. DS goes to bed about 6:00 PM so I don't think we'll do anything on Christmas eve but then we have way too many people to see on Christmas day. I don't even want to think about it.
My due date was 12/23, so we always expected to either have a newborn, be in the hospital or be overdue with the holidays, so we went into holiday planning with that mindset. We skipped out on all the extended family gatherings, and planned a very small Christmas brunch on Christmas morning with my in-laws. They brought EVERYTHING they needed, and even cooked, so I didn't have to do anything. H even cleaned the day before. We went into it saying it was 'tentative', and it would just depend on how things went. E arrived via c-section on 12/19, so we got home on 12/22. It was very low key, and we didn't exchange presents - although they did bring lots of gifts for E.
We did a larger Christmas gathering with my family in mid Jan. We did all our shopping online (love Amazon prime!). By that time, E was a few weeks old so I wanted to get out of the house.
LO was due Dec 24 and arrived Dec 30th. I took the week before Christmas off from work (things get really slow around the holidays anyway) and used that time to shop, get a pedicure, etc. My family doesn't do a lot of presents so it was pretty simple. As FTM, I really just wanted some down time before the big stuff started happening. It was awesome.
My parents (first-time grandparents) were really (surprisingly!) nervous and didn;t want me to drive anywhere, so my family (my husband, my parents, sisters, BIL) came to our house -- simple appetizers and drinks -- and we all went to a nearby Chinese restaurant for Christmas eve dinner. A new tradition?! I have no idea... probably not, but it worked out well last year! MH and I stayed home on Christmas day and just spent the day together. My husband's family lives about 8 hours away and don't celebrate Christmas (Jewish). They drove down a couple days later and were here in time for LO's arrival.
Hopefully your family will be flexible and understand that you can't really plan ahead as well as you'd like. In any case, LO will be the best gift ever!!! Best wishes.
I was due early Dec (12/6) and delivered on 12/2. Normally we go to my parents for Thanksgiving, but we hosted them instead since I was almost 38 weeks pregnant. I had all my shopping done before Thanksgiving. We went to my ILs (30 minutes away) on Christmas Eve, as planned, with our 3 week old then hosted Christmas dinner with my family (that's normal though, had nothing to do with having the baby).
Honestly, just set the expectation (with others, and yourself), that you may not be up for certain things/as many things this year. I was fine when pregnant to do things (the only reason we didn't go to my parents for Thanksgiving was because a 2 hour drive did not sound appealing to me at that point). It was much harder after DD was here because I was recovering and getting used to having her around.
LCT - 5.15.14 ~ 9lbs, 22.5 inches
Great advice! Thanks all! All our family is local and DH will not be with me that month (until I go into labor that is) due to him starting a job a few hours away. I won't be joining him till after the baby is here so that is kind of why I asked. I will want to be with family around that time rather then be alone, but I also don't know how I will feel about being out and about while being hugely pregnant or with a newborn.
Anyhoo, definitely going to start shopping...like now. lol. And I guess everything else I will just have to play by ear. Thanks!
TTC since March/April 2010
DX: MFI - less than 1 million sperm, 26% motility
DH put on anastrozole to increase counts
June/July 2011 100 mg Clomid + TS IUI#1 & IUI 2 - BFN :-(
Forced break due to DH getting spinal surgery in August 2011
IVF - January 2012: BFN
FET in April 2012 - BFP at 6dp5dt! Beta #1 at 9dp5dt: 82.5, Beta #2 at 12dp5dt: 352 Beta #3 at 19dp5dt: 6000, saw heartbeat and one little bean at 5W6D!
After nearly 3 years of waiting our LO was born December 18th 2012!
I was due December 19th and had a December 27th baby.
I was really weird in the sense that I had super bad m/s morning noon and night up until my 9th month. I had braxton hicks all of December---but not bad enough to keep me down. I was seriously the most comfortable at the very end of my pregnancy.
Not knowing all of this I tried to prepare early. Both DH and myself stressed that the holidays would be different to our families. We didn't guarentee to be at any of the holiday gatherings. We also said because of the new baby expenses we were cutting back on gift allowances also. I shopped online a bit and made lists of gift ideas early. I think I had everything bought and wrapped before Thanksgiving. It was a huge stress lifted off of us.
We didn't end up making it to either side of the holiday parties. MIL was super pissed about it....but we had a really nice Christmas just DH and myself and it was important for us to get that alone time just before DS was born not even 2 days later.
The only annoyance I had with family was MIL bought our Christmas presents TO THE HOSPITAL (I kid you not). That's the last thing you want to tote around when you have a brand new baby to worry about.
My advice---Do what you want, seriously. If you're exhausted and dread holiday events, skip them. If you can, buy early and keep it small. If your LO arrives early and you don't think they need to be exposed to holiday gatherings...stay home. Don't let others pressure you into doing something you don't want to do at that point. They'll get over it. There will be other holiday seasons!
GL!
Baby was due Dec. 21, but he came 3 weeks early on November 30th. Most of my shopping was done online, or at the last minute. Or by other family members. I'm not a good planner. We usually host Christmas eve at our house, but had already cancelled that, pending his Dec. 21st birthday. We ended up just having a small impromptu gathering at our house Christmas Eve, and then went to my in-laws for Christmas day. Then I think we went to my parents house that evening.
For other parties and events surrounding Christmas, we just did things as we felt like it. We are also lucky to have plenty of understanding people around so I don't think anyone got their feelings hurt.
My advice would be to make good use of Amazon for gifts, and to just give everyone a heads up that you will have to play things by ear as much as you can. This time is about you and your new family and figuring out what works best for you.