Scratch that. I feel like death warmed over.

For three days I didn’t vomit. It freaked me out so badly that when I started spotting I thought FOR SURE I was miscarrying. The baby was fine and I thought, “wow- I could be normal. This could be the light at the end of the tunnel!” I ate everything in sight and I even RAN AN ERRAND to the mall to get my chapped, dehydrated lips some of my favorite lipgloss and my three year old some fancy pink mary janes. TOWANDA!!!!!!

And then it was over. And I was dizzy and vomiting and vomiting and dizzy, and it’s all been downhill since then. I threw up while driving this morning, which, let me tell you, takes a certain amount of skill and finesse to pull off. Thank heaven we’ve been living off of fast food and there was a McDonald’s bag within reach. I puked through the stop light, I puked down the street, I puked through the roundabout, and then pulled into a Burger King parking lot, parked sideways and heaved the rest of my guts up. A very kind bus driver saw all this and pulled over to make sure that I was alright, “ha ha”, I told her, “morning sickness”. . .from hell, I added mentally. She told me that she had never been pregnant, but that it looked pretty awful, and asked if she could call someone for me. I told her that I was fine, and that I was on my way to the clinic anyway.

“But shouldn’t your husband be taking you?” She was adamant.
“Um, they don’t let him off for stuff like this. Only if they think I’m dying, really.”
“Oh.”

And so I went, I barely got through my appointment without fainting or puking. The doctor told me to “keep my fingers crossed” that it will ease up. Yeah.

I’ll be in my bed.

Thank you for all your kind words and support in the comments. I am certain the reason I am doing as well as I am is due to all of the prayers and positive thinking. The nausea has eased considerably; unfortunately I’m still quite weak and not able to do much, which is frustrating for me. I’m not at all inclined to sit still, but I find I must.

Yesterday I broke my toe. It is the pinkie toe on my right foot, and this is at least the third time I’ve broken this one.

The first time I was a fourth grader. I walked into my bedroom door and my baby toe was stuck out from my foot at a ninety degree angle. I gritted my teeth and pulled my toe out from my foot and put it back where it belonged. I then soaked it in a sink full of very cold water for about two hours. My mother claims I didn’t tell her this until yesterday.

I did this because I was in my first play, and the thought of missing my hugely important role as a tree in Snow White was more awful then setting my own broken bone. I was the only limping plant in the forest. The show must go on, and here we have proof that I have always been a little cracked.

Yesterday I bashed my foot against the bathroom doorframe. The awful thing about this was not the pain (there was a lot of that) but the sound. This is the first time I’ve heard the snap of one of my bones breaking and I have to say it was similar to, but much worse than the crack of a crunchy bug being squished and the quibbly, wobbly feeling it produced was much more nauseating as well.

A big purple bruise covered about a third of my toe almost immediately. The rest is a shocking shade of pink. It has made walking tricky.

This evening I lanced that foul bruise and all sorts of nasty came out of it, which was satisfyingly disgusting and also wonderful because it relieved much of the pressure that was causing me pain. I can gingerly bend it again, which is a step in the right direction, I’d say.

You may wonder why I didn’t go to the ER for this. You see, there isn’t much you can do for a broken pinkie toe unless it is gnarled and twisted right out of its socket or the bone has come through the skin. This being a simple fracture, all they would do is tell me to ice it, elevate it, keep off it and for heaven’s sake stop walking into doorframes! Since I can do all this myself, it seemed silly to waste another day at the doctors, when I’ve spent so many there lately.

I am two and a half months pregnant. Yesterday I felt pretty good. I didn’t throw up, at any rate. This morning I woke up and felt strangely normal. No nausea. No vomiting. No chest tenderness. I took a shower without feeling like I was going to faint, and I did my hair and make-up for the first time in a month.

Normal people would feel happy to be feeling so well, but all it made me do was worry. Not that I want to be puking my guts out all day, but when half of your pregnancy symptoms disappear and you’re suddenly plagued with mild crampiness it can make you a little neurotic. I tried to tell myself that this was just a random good day and that perhaps the medication had finally decided to do what it was meant to do, or maybe I was just going to get to feel good for the rest of the pregnancy and wouldn’t THAT be a kick! I then reminded myself that I’m just not that lucky.

I consider going to the doctor, but what will I say? “I feel good, doctor. What’s wrong with me?” It would be grounds for a psych consult!

A half an hour later I discovered I was spotting. It was extremely light, and so not a cause for total panic, but worth being seen in the doctor’s office, just in case. I tried to make an appointment with my clinic, but since they had deployed all but four of their 12 doctors there wasn’t an appointment to be had. I hate going into the ER for things that are non-emergent, but this being an understaffed military hospital, well, that’s just how things gotta roll.

Chris had taken my car today, so I had to call him and have him drop it off. I sent him back to work since there was nothing spectacular happening and I knew I was in for several hours of waiting in the emergency room. I dropped the kids off at a friend’s house and headed to the hospital.

Half way there I realized that it was past lunchtime and I was actually hungry and feeling well enough to eat real food. This having not happened to me in over a month, I figured I’d better take advantage of the situation, especially in light of the fact that I was facing a very long ER wait. I stopped at the Taco Bell on base, grabbed some chalupas to go and got back on my way.

I parked about a half a mile away from the ER because it was the best parking I could find and then sat there and snarfed my food. Stuffed full of cheap, gastric upsetting Mexican food, I still felt good. Something had to be wrong.

I took the long walk to the ER and when I walked into the waiting room, there is my husband looking very lost and shell shocked. I hadn’t expected to see him there, but it turned out that when he returned to work his superior ordered him to go be with me in the ER! (Ask any military wife, THAT NEVER HAPPENS). Poor Chris had been looking for me for about ten minutes, during which time he had established that I was neither there or in labor and delivery. Then, the tech who was helping him locate me came out and said, “Sir, your wife is being brought here by ambulance.”

Chris says, “What!? She was driving!”

“Well, she’s en route to the hospital in an ambulance.”

“What!”

So these two are going back and forth and Chris is thinking that I somehow died or tried to bleed to death between home and the hospital (a two mile drive). He is frantic and starting to lose it.

Finally, the tech tells him that I am en route from VacaValley hospital and Chris is all, “Uhhhh, she has no reason to be all the way in Vacaville.”

They finally establish that the tech has informed the wrong husband and given my husband a heart attack by mistake. It is at this point that I walk in to the room, stuffed with Taco Bell, in absolutely no hurry. Chris is pale with worry.

We sit in the waiting room for quite some time before we are called back. The ER is hopping.

I have completely prepared myself to hear the worst news. I am calm; I am chatty. I am not worrying because it can’t change anything. I am pleasant despite the incredibly long waits because being a jerk isn’t going to benefit anyone. Besides, impeding devastating news notwithstanding, this is the best I’ve felt in two months. Pass the food.

Chris is worrying enough for both of us. He is tough and together, but I can see it in his eyes. I both love and hate how worrying over me can destroy him from within. It is good to know he cares, but I had better die first. I’m not sure he can take it. It makes my stomach ache a little bit to see him worry like that, and I’ve seen it in him with every disastrous pregnancy.

Over the course of four hours they take several tubes of blood and do the always fun pelvic exam.

My emotions are in conflict. I have thought long and hard about the possibility of losing this baby. After the last miscarriage I have become paranoid. Every internal twinge has given me reason to worry. Every episode of vomiting has been oddly comforting, because despite feeling horrible, it means I’m full of pregnancy hormones and that the baby is probably fine, at least a heck of a lot more fine than I am.

I consider it. A baby: a sweet, tiny, quiet, beautiful baby. Fuzzy newborn skin and that just born smell. A bigger family, crazy Christmases, and opportunity to see my children blossom into new roles and to get to know a brand new person, to add that measure of love to my life; it is all a beautiful dream, one I will pay for with nine months of misery followed by an eternity of mother-guilt and worry.

I feel a little guilty because part of me is so relieved to have even a few hours of feeling good that the thought of life returning to normal, sans baby, is appealing too. Oh to function! Oh to be able to do my job and really care for my children. I know the tests say this baby is an unlikely miracle, and that my chances for another are slim, but I do have two great children. I could get a puppy. I really wanted a puppy. That had been the plan before this pregnancy surprised me, and it had been a good plan. I like dogs, and I don’t have to throw up or go on bed rest to get one.

Perhaps this is evidence that my priorities are out of whack. Perhaps I am very good at optimism and making the best out of a shoddy situation. Perhaps I am simply an honest woman who is sick to death of being sick to death, and who would like the opportunity to resume her life and parent the children currently trashing her house. It is understandable that I might feel conflicted, or maybe it simply isn’t real yet, and I haven’t consciously caught up with the gravity of the situation. That happens to me.

Most women I see who think they are miscarrying, or who have lost a baby recently are devastated. They are the ones who wait in the ER lobby in tears, pregnancy hormones running high and making an awful situation so much worse. I’ve seen them, talked to them as we’ve waited to treat children’s ear infections and sprained knees. I’ve said comforting things, to no avail, and understood why my words are useless in the face of such disappointment and grief. I’ve experienced the loss myself, quite calmly, and then had it slap me in the face a month later. Sometimes these things take time to understand.

The doctor and her technician come in with an ultrasound machine. They fuss for awhile, somewhat unfamiliar with the equipment and then get a focused shot on my womb. It is not a very high quality machine. The image is fuzzy and indistinct, unlike the crisp photo I had taken last week. I see a blob. I cannot distinguish heads from tails and I cannot find what I am looking for. It is maddening.

I watch them work, looking and looking, worriedly scanning, and then they both smile.

There is a heartbeat.

So many questions over the past few weeks, I thought I’d stop and answer some here.

Did I ever get the princess mini album returned.

Nope. Never saw it again, and I haven’t even gotten around to re-doing it.

Can I get the dissolving Zofran?

Got it. It’s revolting, but I found an alternative way to take it, so I’m managing.

Do I lose my creativity when I’m expecting?

Yes, unfortunately. It won’t last the entire time, but creativity and being terribly nauseated just don’t go hand in hand. That notwithstanding, I have many obligations scrappy-wise, so I’ll still be scrapbooking and sharing it here. It will just be less and much more difficult. I won’t enjoy the process as much, and it does become a chore, not fun. The good news is, that won’t last the whole time!

The really irritating thing about this is that I still get ideas. My brain is still going warp speed- but I go to actually do something and I’m so weak and dizzy I can’t focus or sit long enough to pull it off.

Have I tried ____________________ for the nausea and vomiting?

Yes. Every day someone gives me a suggestion, sometimes hard drugs, sometimes herbal cures, sometimes the insidious crackers. I can honestly say I have tried everything that I felt comfortable putting into my body. So, that’d be pretty much everything but medical marijuana (which I may actually consider if it is offered, as it sometimes is. Do you think Special Brownies would stay down? Food for thought).

So far, not moving and Zofran remain my best allies. B6 vitamins refuse to stay down, Phenergan knocks me out, ginger tea and pills are just awful in reverse, red raspberry leaf, not so bad in reverse, just didn’t work, and crackers, HA! Nothing can make me lunge for the kitchen sink like an innocent cracker.

Despite all this and the much more that is listed in my chart as having been tried, my doctors and nurses and pretty much everyone else still insist on offering suggestions. I know they are well meant, but do people honestly think that after 3 pregnancies of vomiting nonstop I haven’t tried every cure in the book? I flat out told a nurse who was suggesting small meals and crackers, “Don’t cracker me,” the other day as I was getting an IV.

My favorite response to the HG is definitely the handful of people I’ve talked to who have actually had the audacity to say, “I was just too busy to have morning sickness’, as if somehow this is my fault for being such a lazy, bon bon eating, woman without responsibility. These people are lucky I was too weak to actually hurt them at the time.

How are the kids coping?

Honestly, not as well as I’d like. They hardly seemed phased the first few weeks, but now Jonas is getting very touchy and refusing to be helpful. Maggie is getting edgy. They are both really cooped up since I pretty much don’t leave the house. I am trying to schedule more playdates and make it a point to take them plaves on the rare day that I feel I can. This will ease up as the months go by, until of course, bedrest. That one will be rough. I wonder if there will be any avoiding it.

The medication fiasco got resolved. Chris had a long talk with patient advocacy, pharmacy advocacy, and his first shirt and they were able to work things out. Additionally, it was implied that the pharmacy lady who was quite rude to me about it was going to catch heck, which isn’t normally something that makes me feel good, but since I’m so cranky it does. Must be the temperamental pregnant lady coming out in me.

Sadly, even with the medication at my fingertips, it doesn’t always work. You see, drugs have to stay down in order to work, and for the past 36 hours nothing has so I’ve been pretty miserable.

Chris was wonderful and ran and picked me up a copy of Breaking Dawn and then dropped me off at the hospital where I spent six hours getting more fluids and IV meds, so now I am home, the book is finished, and I feel almost alive. This will probably last another two to three days and then I’ll be back the clinic getting juiced up again.

August, based on past pregnancies, is going to be hell. If I can just live through August, then September will be icky. And then October will just sort of suck, but come Novemeber I may actually be doing fairly ok. I’ll get to fight with normal bad morning sickness for the remaining months. Of course come some point in December or early January I’ll be on bedrest due to the preterm labor and irritable uterus. Can I just say that this is going to be one LONG pregnancy? And that I hate those of you who don’t realize that you’re expecting until you’re three or four months along? And that I think anyone out there feeling good enough to be doing preggo pilates or yoga or jogging should come over here so I can smack you? Really, truly. If you’re that perky, you can stand a little smack from me, I think. Pardon my bitterness, and I compeletely get that life isn’t fair and that sometimes that works in my favor, but this is just so exponentially draining I can hardly stand myself. I think they should develop something where you can choose to be in a coma for a few months of the pregnancy, like “wake me up when maternity clothes fit.” Seems reasonable.