Due February 2016

Morning ladies, hoping everyone had a good weekend.

I am so angry right now!! Apologies for the vent...

So for my first baby I bought a tommee tippee electric breast pump, just a single one and it worked fine. My only complaint is that it took so long b/c you could only pump one breast at a time. So for this baby I decided I am going to indulge and get a medela swing maxi (double pump), also found out that it is covered by Discovery which is great (just as long as you have medical savings available). Anyway, so I have been looking around for it and saw it at Dischem which I know is easy, you just put it through the dispensary and its good to go, and it is listed for 4700. But then today I saw the swing maxi on a takealot daily deal with a whole bunch of extra accessories added to it for 3400 which is a hellofa saving, and the one from Dischem doesnt even get all the accessories with it (it has a nice carry bag, a little cooler bag with bottles and all those nice things). So I decide before I buy it, let me just call discovery and make sure they will still cover it. Spent about 30 mins on the phone with discovery only for them to tell me that they will not cover it b/c it doesnt come from a preferred supplier!! Can you believe it!! That makes me SOOOOO angry!!! We have more than enough in our medical savings account to cover either one of these, but if I can save 1300 on the price, why on earth would I not buy it from there!!! It is MY medical savings so let me do with it what I please!!! And its not like I am buying something that they dont generally cover, you are allowed to buy and claim one of these per year so why on earth would they not cover it!! I am saving everyone money GRRRRRRR!!!!!

UGH!! makes me so angry that we pay such an enormous amount for medical insurance and then we are still cuffed to what they are willing to cover from who!!

Anyway, I will step down from my soap box now...but just for the ladies who want one of these and do not plan on claiming it back from medical insurance (or do claim it back if you have a different better medical insurance company) it is really really cheap on the daily deal on takealot today, totally worth the price.

Hoping everyone has a good day!

Hi BumbleBee, I must say that the last couple of weeks have also felt like a growth spurt to me... I am also worried that baby still has to gain about 2 - 2.5kg and I am not sure there is enough room for this gain in my belly!!!

Suppose there is nothing we can really do about it, except grin and bare it Just a few more months to go...

Finally remembered to take a new pic (I haven't mastered the boep-selfie yet and have to ask hubby to take one every time).

The one on the left was at 26w and the one on the right was yesterday at 28w. It's scary how fast I'm growing now - the top is getting a bit too tight to be decent in public now My stomach muscles are really sore from all the stretching, can't imagine having to grow much bigger than this. I've also been swelling a lot this past week. My hands, legs and feet are all puffy, so not sure how much of my over-all gain is boep/fat/water...

@CarienM, so sorry to hear about your grandad

@STK & BabyT, we went to the Expo last year and got all the big things except the cot, and this year we got the cot (Joie) which was marked down by just under 20%! Most things were discounted by about 15-20% and the items that weren't marked down I couldn't find cheaper anywhere else anyway so just bought them for convenience.

I'm going to try cloth diapering and use disposables at night and when out and about - at least until I'm confident with the cloth nappies. We bought 10 x Bam+Boo AIO's at the expo - the saving was insane and not to be missed! and 2 x Fancypants sleeve nappies. Both were well discounted, but the Fancypants is a bulkier nappy, so thought we'd buy the Bam+Boo ones in bulk for now as we couldn't afford to buy 10 of both. We also bought a bulk box of each size in Pampers Premium (will put Huggies Gold on my baby shower list for variety). CarienM, you should be able to confirm if this is a good indicator - we were told that anything less than R2.50 p/nappy is a very good price and to stock up. Some of the Pampers Premium nappies worked out to R1.20p/n! So that was a good saving.

Sorry if I'm repeating myself, can't remember what I've posted previously

All the bump pics are so cute! I'm feeling pretty huge, but Googled '28 weeks bump' and there's such a variety of shapes and sizes that I'm just going to go with it... Will post a pic soon.

A mommy friend who had her baby 6 weeks ago used this company and was apparently very happy. She said it costs about R500 www.momslink.co.za/. I'll prob use a company as things are a little complicated with me changing jobs 2 years ago and now - need a form from each company, and my husband needs to register me for UIF as he's paying my salary now as his admin assistant.

Hello ladies, hope everyone is doing well. Those little bumps are coming along nicely, you ladies look lovely. I look like a beached whale!! I am significantly larger than I was in my first pregnancy and I am so over people saying to me oh you still have 3 months to go, thats terrible! Gee thanks, what a lovely thing to say to a pregnant woman...

Anyway, my husband and I take turns going to the baby expo and this time round its his turn So he is actually there now. We have all the basic things we need so really just go for nappies and bum cream and every day use things like that b/c you really do save money even on those.

I have had a bit of a sad week, my granddad passed away on Wednesday. I cant really say suddenly b/c he had been in the hospital for almost a week but was completely healthy before he went to hospital, he just got a stomach bug and got dehydrated so went in to get fluids. So it was kind of sudden. He had a good life but I was not quite ready for him to go yet, I was so hoping he would meet his newest great grand child. He will live on in our memories though.

I saw someone posted on our forum regarding UIF stuff. I have to agree that going to the dept of labour is absolutely horrible!! I had to go 3 times with my first baby and the last time I went I sat there for 7 hours with my 3 month old...during which time they also came to the ladies and said oh sorry the systems are off line, we all just stayed sitting there and then suddenly the systems came back online miraculously when no one wanted to leave. My biggest issue was that my previous company did not file UIF for me even though I was paying for it so that needed to be added to the system before they could help me. But when that was there then all was good. I put in my claim close to the end of my maternity leave so I got one lump sum payment of everything, I might just do the same this time round.

Anyway, what I actually wanted to tell everyone is that you can still do it yourself, and not go to the dept of labour b/c you can do it online. Apparently if you just call every week and follow up to make sure everything is there (b/c even if they dont have what they need from you they will not call you or just take forever to call you) then everything goes smoothly. You can of course use companies to do it for you as well, but if you can save 400-600 and just do it online, why not! Here is the website if you wanted to look into it: www.ufiling.co.za/ you create a profile for yourself and then just need to make sure that all the documents are there and ready to go then everything should be fine. I am going to do that this time round, and if I do end up having to go there then at least everything is in the system as well.

Anyway, hope everyone is doing well otherwise

I am going to try and slip away from the office tomorrow just after lunch, as I have free tickets...

You can go look at the Babycity website (or the mamamagic facebook page) - all their expo specials is there....

@BabyT - your bump is so cute!!!

We are planning on going to the expo tomorrow morning as we have antenatal classes the whole weekend. We're hoping that there will be great specials on travel systems & co-sleepers. Who else is going?