Palmerston North New Mums To Be

Is there any Women who are pregnant with their first baby in Palmerston North?
Im 24 preg with my first baby due end of July. I moved to Palmy in December to live with my Partner, but because im originally from the south island( moved up in april last year), i have absolutely no friends here. I just know my partner, and it gets so incredibly lonely for me.
So looking for PN mums to be, that i can relate to.
Help me keep my sanity?!

Hi,
have you linked up with a midwife there yet? They should be able to tell you about ante-natal groups in the area, then also post natal support groups as well. You can make some great friendships that way - SO important to have that extra moral support, especially when your baby arrives.
Good luck.   

If you are planning on breastfeeding, you could come along to an LLL meeting. There are some awesome mums in the palmy group and they are very welcoming. Pregant women are very welcome at the meetings to. There is one on monday at 10am at st davids church (its not a religious thing, just the church has a nice room to use).

hehe if palmy antenatal classes haven't changed since I did them then yeah they are pretty crap. You can meet lots of new mums through plunket once bubs is here. They hold coffee groups for mums with similar aged babies if your into the coffee group thing. They also have various parenting related courses so you could also meet some people that way. They have first aid, settling, feeding type courses/talks etc

There use to be regular ohb palmy meet ups which was a good way to meet new people but they haven't happened in ages. The "oldies" always use to meet up but it hasn't happened so much since most of us older ohbabiers have left. Could always organise something like that. mcd's is a good place for those with little ones otherwise someones house

I think personally for a first time Mum antenatel classes are good cause you do learn things you might not have found out but I found them especially good for DH. I haven't done any with subsequent kids as I still remember the first ones.

I was lucky enough to have a couple of Mum's in my due in thread with #2 so we keep in regular contact, don't have much to do with the ones I met with #1 but then again I did go back to work & time came very precious.

Where abouts are you in PN Amy?? I can put you on to a couple of good playgroups. I've found them really good for getting out of the house after baby is born. Are you working?

As Isabelle says PN is very difficult as a place to get into circles, I don't know why? People are weird here lol Maybe it's our weather lol

I was in Palmerston for most of my life, like Kel said, it can be hard for newcomers to meet people there for some reason, I think partly because it is such a transitional city, people are forever coming an going.
I did antenatal classes through parent centre, and although I learnt a lot more from reading books and through this forum, it was really good for DH and the coffee group I made out of it was fantastic, I Cherie's those ladies and we've all become great friends, even though most of us have since moved away. I would recommend doing the classes.

Also, once baby arrives there are things like mainly music, storytime at the library etc etc which is also great for meeting other Mums.

Interested to know where in the SI you have moved up from? I lived in Nelson then Chch and moved to Hokowhitu, and to be completely honest I have never felt so unsafe anywhere, ever. Always felt like I was doing things to stop ourselves being robbed. Ive had my car broken into twice since being here, one of those times was at 8pm, while still light, with it parked 10m away from our front door, which was closed but with curtains open. Incredible.

Im not very fond of it here, we are moving to Feilding soon and I am hoping that will be a bit better. I miss the SI terribly and as soon as we can, were off.

But yep our MW told us the only reason to go to the classes is to meet the people. They are based so heavily on the actual birth its just not funny, very little on the what to do when you get home with this wee creature! I know its important to know, but really - teach us danger signs (v impt), when to get to the hospital, a brief overview of all the drugs etc then move it on to the things we really need to know! Cos lets be honest, as soon as youre in hospital at the end of the day it will be the MW and/or obstetrician who calls the shots - we are just there to hang on for the ride

I am happy to try meet up sometime for a coffee but im working almost full-time these days so its getting a bit tricky for me to organise anything!

No matter where you live in the country or where you live in a town theres going to be instances of robbery. It's just the world we live in. I think if you left fuel on the back of a ute in any part of the country if someone spots it at night its an easy target. Hokowhitu is a nice area to live in though :)

Hmmm I was curious to see what antenatal meant, it means Before birth; during or relating to pregnancy. So that they are heavily weighted on the birth is very logical, they also do classes on after the birth, it's usually a full day one, I don't think it cost us anymore.

I have to disagee Isabell, you actually do call the shots regardless of where you are. They still have to ask your permission or your husbands permission before anything is done.

I live on the edge of highbury, technically awapuni but post code lumps us in highbury. There are areas on hokowhitu you'd want to avoid as well. I think sometimes it goes more on the look of the street rather than the suburb. If you don't feel safe there though it's definitely time to move. Cross fingers you find a nicer place when you move in April.