Some Rough Days

So much for the vomit-free life.  There's no stopping it some days, drugs or no drugs.

Finally made it in to see my primary care doctor to confirm the pregnancy and secure my referral to the obgyn.  She pointed out that my Zofran dose was half the strength I was used to, which explained why it hadn't really been working.  Now it works really well at least some of the time.  I'll take what I can get.

The obgyn is swamped, and can't fit me in until the end of September, and then only at the office thirty minutes away.  We stayed in this apartment specifically to avoid driving thirty minutes to the doctor.  Whatever.  I'm not sure what they'll be checking for anyway.  My experience with early checkups and emergency calls is a lot of peeking and poking and no real intervention.  We'll see how that goes.

Ten weeks tomorrow.  No bleeding yet.

First Milestones

So, we've made it to eight weeks, which is longer than two of the other pregnancies.  During all four of them I had started spotting by this point.  I suppose I have the Endometrin (progesterone) to thank for this change for the better.  It comes in delightful little 100 mg suppositories I have to put where the sun don't shine every twelve hours.  Inevitably they eventually dissolve and come out, which always sends me running to the bathroom to check for blood.  I haven't found any yet, so I'm gradually becoming less neurotic about it.  I'm also becoming less convinced the baby is going to spontaneously fall out if I walk around too much.  Not that it hasn't happened before.

More about Endometrin.  I read all the fine print on that two-foot long piece of paper in the box, and when I was done I almost didn't want to use it.  There is a long and colorful list of side-effects, some of which we're enjoying already

• abdominal pain
• nausea 
• abdominal distention
• fluid retention
• constipation
• vomiting
• fatigue and drowsiness
• urinary tract infection
• headache 
• mood swings
• depression
• irritability
• ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome
• uterine spasm
• vaginal irritation
• vaginal bleeding
• blood clots in the legs (thrombophlebitis)
• blood clots in the lungs (pulmonary embolus)
• blood clots in the eyes (blindness)
• blood clots in the heart (heart attack)
• blood clots in the brain (stroke)

The boldfaced are the ones I'm familiar with so far.  The constipation and abdominal pain have just about made me immune to the panic-inducing effect of cramping.  The real kicker was "Call your doctor immediately if you have abnormal vaginal bleeding."  I thought I was taking it to make the abnormal vaginal bleeding go away.  I've been buying anything I can get in cranberry to combat the mini urinary infections, which seems to be working so far, but more later on difficulties associated with eating.  Whatever.  We'll see what it brings us.  If the meds do what they're supposed to do and don't kill me in the process, that will be perfect.

Now, the perennial nausea.  I'm not sure whether I have hyperemesis this time or not because I stay as drugged-up as possible.  Even the Zofran is pooping out on me, so it must be bad.  My lofty ambitions of maintaining a perfect diet are long forgotten.  For alternative remedies, I found some chocolate-covered ginger at the organic market and some liquid concentrated ginger drops.  That stuff is not for the faint of heart.  Tastes like ginger ale but burns like battery acid.  I hate ginger.

In the meantime, any day without bleeding or vomiting is a relatively good day, even if I feel like crap the whole time.  I've put my face in the toilet at least four times, but always chicken out.  I really hate the smell of toilet water.  The problem is usually linked to the fact that I'm hungry, but nothing fresh and healthy looks even remotely palatable.  No one on the brink of vomit is going to lurch into the kitchen and make a green juice.  Even eating grapes is dangerous.  Relying on Chipotle every day isn't feasible, so my fallback was frozen burritos.  Failing, by the way, in my gluten-free aspirations.  Dave has been bringing me Chick-fil-A in the evenings to take the edge off.  Today I was driven to stumble out of the house in my pajamas with the cabin-fevered dog and swing by the nearest drive-through window, which happened to be Little Caesars.  Salt seems to be key.  The nausea keeps coming back unless I keep eating the salty fast food, and eating all the time with Endometrin-induced constipation does not do a body good.  I'm about to risk the peppermint.  I love peppermint, and it nukes the nausea quicker than anything else I've tried, but I read somewhere that it can cause uterine cramping.  Go figure, right?

Mooch Busted

We interrupt your regularly scheduled program for this dog shaming.  The culprit was determined to be a one-year-old toy poodle with an entitlement complex.  She was sentenced to public shame and ridicule, but immediately forgot the incident.

So It Begins

The Sickness has finally hit me.  I don't call it "morning sickness," because that is a lie.  24/7 I Hate My Life Sickness would be more accurate.  I'm not going to stand for it this time.  The one tiny benefit to cycling through all these miserable pregnancies so quickly is that my Zofran prescription is still good from the last one.  I still have a few days' supply of pills in the drawer.  I just went online and ordered the one refill it allows to tide me over until I can get a hold of the OBGYN to write a fresh order.

This is not a view I intend to enjoy very often.  I've spent enough quality time there for a lifetime, thank you.

Winter Is Coming . . .

So, last year was the first year we needed a shovel to escape a snowy parking lot on pain of being late for work.  Last year was the first year apartment maintenance failed to use a snow plow.  It was an epic and tedious process using the tools we had on hand.  Our belated attempts to rectify the situation failed due to vast crowds of people with the same idea clearing every hardware store of every proper shovel for miles around.

Rumor has it this year will treat us to yet another punishing winter.

We have changed our snow-schlepping strategy accordingly.

Partly Cloudy With a Chance of an Infant

Because our kids only seem to be around for a limited time, here's announcing baby "Julian" at six weeks.  It's kind of like naming hurricanes.  They pop up on the horizon from time to time, make our lives miserable for a few weeks, put me in the hospital at least once, and then spiral off into the great beyond.  Fifth time's the charm?  Maybe?  Whatever.

There is a slight chance this time might be different.  My uterine cavity has been cleared of all abnormalities.  I'm currently on a progesterone treatment, and my nutrition is much better as we've been hardcore vegetable and fruit juicing for about a month.  I've decided to go gluten-free for the duration just as an extra precaution.  We're really grasping at straws, but it never seems to matter what we do.  Oh, well.  Time will tell.  In the meantime, brace for impact.