Unless you have acually suffered from Hyperemesis Gravidarum yourself, you truly cannot understand what it is like. You just can't. Wishing for sickness to get better does not translate into ingratitude for this baby, and I would do it all 150 times again, because even though it is hard, it is worth it. Here is my reality:
Every day, my schedule goes as follows:
Every day, my schedule goes as follows:
4:15 Aaron's alarm goes off. I make a mad dash to the bathroom and throw up. Crawl back into bed. Eat some crackers or a piece of toast.
6:15 Get Reese ready for school, pack her lunch, and send her out the door. Throw up in the driveway or on the lawn while we wait for the bus.
6:15 Get Reese ready for school, pack her lunch, and send her out the door. Throw up in the driveway or on the lawn while we wait for the bus.
6:45 Eat a bagel and cream cheese and a juice box. Read and then pray that today will be better or at least different than the day before.
7:15-8:15 Sleep
8:15 get dressed, take Quincy to school. Pull over on the way home and throw up somewhere along Lancashire blvd and then throw up again and again for another 1-2 hours when I get home. Lay on couch with a bowl and watch Spirit or Toy Story with Corbin. On the days I don't have to drive anywhere, lie on the sofa and do absolutely nothing and don't start throwing up until I have to sit up and do something.
11am Eat Breakfast #3. Take Zofran. Turn all the lights off because Zofran may help keep food down, but the nausea never goes away, and Zofran causes headaches, light sensitivity, and anxiety attacks.
11am Eat Breakfast #3. Take Zofran. Turn all the lights off because Zofran may help keep food down, but the nausea never goes away, and Zofran causes headaches, light sensitivity, and anxiety attacks.
12:00 pick up Quincy from school. Throw up Zofran. Take another dose.
12:30-3 eat lunch, nap Corbin, set Q up with a quiet activity. Sleep on the sofa for 2 glorious un-nauseated hours. On a really good day, take advantake of this time and go to the store, or take the kids to the sand park. When I feel great, I REALLY feel pretty great and try to make the most of it.
3:00 Reese gets home, homework, snacks, think about what I could eat for dinner.
3:15 Bring on the Zofran headache....
4:30 - 6:30 pm = sick sick sick. Aaron brings home dinner, and swoops in like a knight and feeds the children, gives them much needed attention, and helps get them into bed. Dinner gets eaten and thrown up multiple times.
7pm finally keep another dose of Zofran down. Eat a bagel and cream cheese or something equaly bland and boring.
8-9:30 pm, I usually feel pretty great. This is definitely the best hour of my day and the only time I will get anything accomplished.
10pm-12pm moan and grown on the sofa and run to the kitchen sink every 30-45 minutes. Feel extreme gratitude for Aaron for helping keep life running around here. Sip a bowl of chicken broth, eat 5 crackers, drink some gatorade.
midnight: collapse into bed, somehow exhausted, as if I done anyting other than lay around all day.
This has been our daily routine for the last (count em) 7+ weeks....except I didn't get any Zofran until 3 weeks ago.
Now, throw in a round of RSV, several ear infections and a burst ear drum, strep, pinkeye, midnight kid puke all over the beds, a lice scare at Q's school (luckily, we didn't get it, but that's probably because everything in our house was basically boiled when she got home), excess saliva (so gross), pregnancy incontinence and then of all things, I got a sinus and ear infection this week.
So it hasn't been hard because friends haven't offered to help with playdates...they've totally offered, my friends are awesome. Luck and good health just haven't been on our side long enough to send the children anywhere, this month!
I had to quit teaching my older preschool class because it was just too hard to load up on enough Zofran to stay well for the 2 1/2 hr class for two days in a row. I'm managing the other class fine for now and openly admit that I simply love it too much to give it up entirely.
My mom arrived Wednesday night, and witnessed the horror show that is my puke(/pee my pants) schedule and we couldn't be happier that she is here to help.
Now, throw in a round of RSV, several ear infections and a burst ear drum, strep, pinkeye, midnight kid puke all over the beds, a lice scare at Q's school (luckily, we didn't get it, but that's probably because everything in our house was basically boiled when she got home), excess saliva (so gross), pregnancy incontinence and then of all things, I got a sinus and ear infection this week.
So it hasn't been hard because friends haven't offered to help with playdates...they've totally offered, my friends are awesome. Luck and good health just haven't been on our side long enough to send the children anywhere, this month!
I had to quit teaching my older preschool class because it was just too hard to load up on enough Zofran to stay well for the 2 1/2 hr class for two days in a row. I'm managing the other class fine for now and openly admit that I simply love it too much to give it up entirely.
My mom arrived Wednesday night, and witnessed the horror show that is my puke(/pee my pants) schedule and we couldn't be happier that she is here to help.
I've managed to keep hydrated enough to stay out of the hospital, our baby is healthy and growing, I was well enough to make it to church on Sunday and have a few good outings last week, and for all of that we are grateful beyond words.
This is my 8th pregnancy in 8 years. You would think that each one would get easier, but for me, they don't.
Tonight, all I did was stand up, and I immediately (like, immediately) started throwing up. It was like watching Saturday in reverse.
I don't know why it is so much work for me to have a baby when it is so much easier for other women. I also don't know why those women will see me throwing up in a trash can or a bathroom or a parking lot somewhere and feel compelled to tell me how easy their pregnancies were and how "this never happened to them". Why, ladies, why? Be useful, go get me a paper towel...and some clean underwear...and second (or third) lunch.
And don't ask me, "why did you decide to have more kids if being pregnant makes you so sick?", or tell me that my wishes to feel better mean I am ungrateful for this baby. And don't assume that I have any kind of control at all over how I feel, cuz girl....you don't know my life.
Anyway, obviously want this baby very badly. The effort to have him or her here began a year ago and has involved a terrible miscarriage, a lot of heartache, and a lot of waiting. It only seems fitting that the entire process will be filled with trials and opposition until he or she arrives. We are thrilled and terrified and happy and grateful and already madly in love with who Aaron has decided must be a sassy-pants little red-head daughter to be giving me so much grief already ;)
Seriously, we will be SHOCKED if this baby is a boy. But then, we were already shocked at the first ultrasound when the dr told us there is only one baby in there, because I am bigger than I was at 20 weeks with the last pregnancy, and sick enough for 10 babies.
My mom got here on Wednesday and she has been a life saver. I've already thrown up one less time for every poopy diaper of Corbin's that "Gwamma" has changed ;), and she's held my hair back a lot more than anyone should ever do in their life. We're enjoying each other's company, too, of course, and the hours I felt really good (or was drugged up into believing I felt good) we've gotten out of the house and enjoyed. Aaron will be gone all next week for work. I would seriously be panicking if my mom weren't here to take care of us!
Anyway, that is our life right now. This post is whiny, but I don't really care. I never post how I really truly feel, and maybe if I had written a play by play of my pregnancy over the summer (where I also spent several weeks throwing up, so FYI, it's absolute bull when a dr tells you that being sick is a sign of a healthy baby. just sayin'.) we would have been better prepared and not foolish enough to actually believe that we understood what our "worst case scenario" hypermesis scenario looked like. We had no idea just how bad it could get!
Anyway, that is our life right now. This post is whiny, but I don't really care. I never post how I really truly feel, and maybe if I had written a play by play of my pregnancy over the summer (where I also spent several weeks throwing up, so FYI, it's absolute bull when a dr tells you that being sick is a sign of a healthy baby. just sayin'.) we would have been better prepared and not foolish enough to actually believe that we understood what our "worst case scenario" hypermesis scenario looked like. We had no idea just how bad it could get!
Some days do seem like it is getting better. Corbin was most definitely my easiest pregnancy and I quit throwing up by about 17 or 18 weeks, so we have our fingers crossed that relief is just around the corner.
Thanks, Mom, for still being my "Mom" and giving my husband, children, and girlfriends a much needed break from being my caretakers (I have a whole other post for them coming soon) and for never having anything but positive things to say about another baby joining our family. We are pretty super incredibly happy, too.
And also, thanks for making sacrifices and enduring the not-easiness of pregnancy one last time, 30 years ago, so I could be lucky enough to call you my Mom, today. I am grateful for you, and well...wasn't I totally worth it? ;)
And also, thanks for making sacrifices and enduring the not-easiness of pregnancy one last time, 30 years ago, so I could be lucky enough to call you my Mom, today. I am grateful for you, and well...wasn't I totally worth it? ;)
