Thanks for the moral support! I feel a bit better today and think that is was mainly PMT which I don't usually get but did this time. I think the house is fine too but DH is now on about doing the windows - I pulled a face and he said he wanted to get the most profit he can so we can wipe out the debts etc. All good points, but I still think he's getting carried away. We decided we wanted the house before we'd only seen the upstairs and think that a lot of people are similiar. You'll realise it's a very instinctive thing when you start looking for your house come January. Anyway, nothing I can do really, it's not that I haven't tried.

Am off to London next weekend - Friday night to Monday night. Looking forward to it - will be great to see my friends etc as well as escape from the tip. Think my mess threshold is quite low and DH's is quite high.

Good luck with the shopping - have you many to buy for? I managed to buy quite a few things months ago so only have a few little things to get now. DH has loads of nephews and nieces (the nephews esp are both ungrateful and greedy - and at 17 and 19 there's no excuse if you ask me) which tends to cost us a fortune. Call me a tight arse but I am loathe to spend £20 each on 5 neices / nephews now, it's not like they're little and get giddy about Christmas like someone who's under 12. They are now surely old enough to realise what things cost and therefore not ask for cash etc (as can often get CD's, for example, on-line far cheaper.) Saying all this, I am being most hypocritical as last night, fuelled by red wine and grumpiness, I ended up bidding on various things on Ebay which, really, I shouldn't have done (couldn't resist it, all brand new with labels etc etc.) Ooops! None of them were Christmas presents either Now hoping I'll be outbid as we had to take the dog to the vets this morning which cost £50. Silly me.

Excuse typing, am on DHs iPod Touch. While he is not looking, obviously.

Poor Confused, that sounds like a pile of crap. I hope you are feeling better this morning. It is horrible having the house turned upside down, especially if you are doing the work to sell it. I think you should do the work to the minimum you need to sell and get a good price -after all, most people want to redocorate to their taste (or no taste!) when they buy a house anyway. Good luck - aren't you in London this weekend? Have fun and forget about tiles and varnishing.

(also, if you do have a touch of PMT, he should be grateful that he doesn't have a drill waved in front of him in a pseudo-threatening manner!!)

I'm off dreaded Christmas shopping, run ladies, save yourselves!

Argh! Have to brian dump here. So, you have been warned!

Not sure if it's PMT or just the stress of living in a --fucking shithole-- house that's having work done but EVERYTHING, inc DH, is doing my head in!

I got really pissed off with him earlier as he was on about changing a tile in the bathroom as it has a crack in it - THE TILE IS UNDER THE BATH. Changing the tile will mean limited bathroom use for 24 hours which isn't too horrendous but for the fact that the whole house has been in a massive state of disarray for over four weeks now. There is dust everywhere, boxes, tools etc and DH seems to think that the place needs to look like a showhome before we put it on the market. He said that the tile that's broken in the bathroom will show up on the survey, SO?! Noone ever pulled out of buying a house over a broken and hidden tile did they? The house up the road sold in THREE DAYS and was a mess. Despite this, DH, who works slowly at the best of times, thinks we need to do things such as paint the outside, repaint the bathroom (painted 3 years ago, it does not need doing again), 'fix the window's' - whatever that means, I didn't even know there was anything wrong with the bloody window's - and, and this is especially ridiculous, put a small bed in the study room so potential viewers can see it can be used as a bedroom as well. I then convinced him to just buy some foam and he then started fussing about whether a potential buyer sat on it or not. Why on earth would they be sitting on it?!
This house doesn't need this much work and the mess and everything - you get the idea - is just too much. It doesn't seem to bother DH much but I just want to be able to relax and feel comfortable. I am cleaning constantly to try and make it feel a bit better but there is only so much you can do with all the tools everwhere and all the kitchen cupboard piled in the middle of the room. And now he is on about starting in our bedroom too while he's waiting for the stuff in the kitchen to dry - NNNNOOOOOO!

Plus, he is just driving me mad anyway. It may well be PMT as I am getting fucked off with him talking at me while I am trying to MN, eating crisps, scrolling through every channel announcing nothing's on and then watching tv all night regardless while commenting on the crapness of what he is watching etc etc. Now he's got the hump as he said he wants to watch a film and I said, not grumpily but not interested 'oh' and carried on typing. Apparently there is 'no need to be like rhat'. Maybe not but do feel as if I need to escape.

Now hiding in (freshly cleaned - again) bedroom with red wine.

Brain dump over.

Thanks.

Sibella1 - every so often someone like you comes along and makes us all go super green! I realise there never is a right time due to money / jobs etc but it still does seem hard to take that plunge! I can in my head (all the time in fact, and then I swing right back round to red again) but there are still things (house and cash at the moment for us) that make me think that it would be better to hang on. However, like you say, it may take a while and this too is something I keep thinking about - there is no reason it won't take us up to a year to concieve and so, really, we're better off getting cracking now. Me and DH have suggested we start ttc in the New Year but then this may have been put back due to moving - I think the pressure and frustration of houses falling through and all the other crap that goes with house buying would be too much if we had a deadline that could not be moved. However, the house will be ready in a month or so and the house up the road from us which is just like ours sold AFTER THREE DAYS - and it was a mess! Well, not a mess but it had no central heating and had been decorated some time ago by old people so lots of swirly carpets, brown woodchip etc. And the bathroom was horrendous. It was very encouraging to see how quickly it sold, I have to say (and our house, as well as being all done up, is in a nicer location on the street as we have a lovely view whereas this house just looked onto the other side of the terrace.)

Shit - I think I am talking myself into things aren't I? Off for a walk in a bit with the4 friend with the baby I met the other week - the one that made me all weird. I may come back and jump on DH immediately!

To all of you above - GO FOR IT!!

You won't be sorry. And the sooner you start trying the better because it can take some time and doesn't always happen.

You will never have enough money. It will never be the right time. But you will cope and in a few years time you can't imagine not having them. O yes because once you have one you of course think the poor soul can't grow up alone without a sibling...

And a glass of wine or two while trying to conceive is fine - makes it better I think!! Just remember to take your folic acids tabs every day. Good luck!!

Green hmmmmmm. Are you doing anything about it or are you hanging on until after the move?

I was thinking today about why its so difficult to decide either way. Then I thought about buying a house. I know there are financial risks, we are well skint saving up for a deposit and its a massive committment and may well backfire if we get stuck in a neg-equity situation, but still, I really want to buy a house. Maybe thats what happens when you want a baby. The negative stuff matters less, on the whole, and you really see the positives? I just havent got to that point with the baby yet. If I ever will.

(Apologies for anyone offended by me comparing having a baby to buying a house. )

I would LOVE to be the type of person who runs. I look like I should be a runner and it appeals to me. Im just really, really crap at it. I get a stitch instantly, I feel sick, I cant breathe properly and I get bored. Plus I dont like the cold, and its a bit rough where I live, I might get robbed by street gangs hanging aound the allotments. Shameful laughter at you falling off a treadmill

Also, laughing at your DHs reaction to the cervix shots. Maybe he wouldnt be so blah-say if he was looking at photos taken by someone opening his privates with a metal device and crawling up with a digital SLR and a headlamp! Im so tempted to show my DH....

To be honest, I have never really thought about what a cervix would look like. In fact, if you'd have asked me 24ish hours ago (well, before I looked at that site) I wouldn't have been able to come up with very much at all. It was the, urgh, 'juices' that made me feel like gipping really. Interestingly (or maybe not interestingly) I sent the link to DH who said it was really interesting (in a non fruity way) and couldn't understand my reaction, especially as I've got one.

I suppose our DH's do have a point in a way about not being the one making the Big Decision as it isn't their body. I can't make my mind up if the whole childbirth thing is as horrific as I think it could be or, er, worse. Guess none of us will unless we get there - and it would be a bit late then to change our minds!

As for the spare situation we all have going on, don't go to the gym. Gym's are evil. Boring, sweaty and evil. I trained in one ONCE when training for the triathlon (the idea being I could easily go from the pool, to the exercise bike to the treadmill and not have to lug Mars Bars etc with me too to stop passing out) and HATED it. I find it really weird that people pay £'s each month to run on a treadmill, for example, when they could don an iPod or similar and take to the great outdoors. And, as I found out several times to my shame, treadmills are very easy to fall off if you tend to run at different paces.

Am green today. No idea why, but I am really green!

One of DHs 'reasons' for not being involved in the decision to have children is that he says that he has no right to ask me to put my body through all that. So Im not sure what views he would have on a birth situation. Its good you are talking about it, Confused, even if you dont quite agree yet! Its true, birth comes with many risks, and no-one wants to return to the dark days of 30% maternal deaths, but I dont think the 1950s 'lie on your back and shut up while we inject you' is a good idea either.

Perfect house/money/amazing twanging figure?? Sign me up! I totally agree about the loop, I just go round and round in circles thinking about all this stuff all the time. Too much to try and get sorted in too short a time.

Was anyone else surprised at those cervix pictures, like they werent quite what you were expecting it to look like? Im a biologist, for goodness sake, and Ive never seen an internal photo of the snooker ball/hollow sausage set up. And I didnt realise the juices would be so obviously 'present'. I could have lived without the demonstration of twangy EWCM though.

Also, in the spirit of TMI, due to all the extra-strength antibiotics Ive been on, we have had to take some, er, extra precautions (once I started feeling like a bit of action, as opposed to just holding my head in my hands and crying from the pain). So that was a taste of what it would be like if I did come off the pill...sometime...in the future...

I have to lose half a stone, or buy all new clothes. I could get off my arse and go to the gym. Sigh.

Morning all!
I spoke to DH last night about my home birth ideas (and that's all they are, ideas) and he seemed most disapproving. He said that women used to die in childbirth before all the time, and didn't seem to buy my argument that women are rushed along (hence the forceps, epiostomy etc) nowadays which is why they often have medical procedures that they don't really need. I suppose we (we as in all of us on this thread, as well as me and DH) are getting ahead of ourselves with this, but I do think it's interesting if nothing else. Maybe hypothetically we'll all want serene water births but in reality we'll be screaming for drugs 20 minutes into labour! DH also said that he wouldn't 'want to put me through it' but he's as bad as me with the red / amber / green business.

God knows! I am getting rather tired of this loop though. All we need is a perfect house, money in the bank (make that lots of money) a body to die for that would also twang into shape after (and a pregancy that looks like a Formes advert) and life would be so much simpler.

Re loosing weight - I can't be arsed either, but I also hate feeling like such a blob. As it also takes SO bloody long to shift any weight this is not an incentive either. I do plenty of exercise, especially compared to general population, but clearly not quite enough. Bugger.

Got to go, DH rebooting the computer which may affect the wifi

Yuck yuck yuck!

Just back from My Beautiful Cervix. I managed to get to day 20 before wanting to puke. I know I ought to want to know this stuff, but it was a bit too much information. I am trying to imagine what sort of reaction I'd get from DH if i gave him a camera and a miners lamp and asked him to do similar!!

Confused you have my heart felt sympathies re DIY induced house chaos. We've been living in relative squalor for the best part of a year cos our bathroom has turned into such a long running saga. I just clean around the edges of the mess now and tell myself I'll clean it properly once its finished!

I think I'd probably race to the front of the queue to be Jabba's body double. My mate who is 4 1/2 months pregant looks less pregnent than I do. I'm sure one of the motivating factors behind my desire to be pregnant is the fact that I already look pregnant and I'm looking for an excuse! I need to lose about a stone to get to a healthy BMI, but have no motivation to do anything about it.

A friend of ours opted for a home birth, but eneded up having to go into hospital anyway cos they were worried that the baby might be in distress and needed to hook her up to a monitor. She had a c-section in the end, which was a bit disappointing cos she planned a home water birth! However, if there are problems, the system is equipped to cope with it, so you can plan a home birth and get moved if the situation demands it.

I think I'd probably consider a midwife led unit. Our local unit is on site at our general hosptial, so transfer to the hospital delivery suite should be pretty easy if required. I'd want to avoid hospital if possible, just because I think giving birth shouldn't be a medical procedure. But I don't think I'd opt for a home birth cos a) I'd want access to decent pain relief and to be near help should anything go wrong and b) I don't want to have to clean up afterwards! So I think the midwife led unit looks like the best middle ground. A midwife led unit in a community setting would be even better, but we don't have one of those near us. You can find out about your birth options at NHS Choices. There should be links to your local services from that page as well.

Just in case any of us need to know in the near / distant future...