Gelato cures all (most) ills

Hello all!

It has been almost a MONTH – what horrible fate has befallen me, you may ask?  Well, I’ll tell you . . . .

 

 

 

(curious yet . . . ?)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PREGNANCY.

Yes, dear readers, a tiny parasite has taken up residence in my womb (or as Jack puts it – I ate a baby, later I will spit it out.  “Right now it’s in your belly!”  Liam will say, reverently patting my boobs.)  And since late May, I have been deciding what to eat based on how much it will hurt my throat when it comes back up.  (I recommend luscious summer fruits – easy going down and up, and with lots of added water.  Since I cannot drink anything, as liquid in the belly is the surest trigger for upchucking, getting hydrating food into me has become something of a project.)

I am suffering right now – constant nausea, throwing up 2-3 times a day, the accompanying raw throat and deteriorating teeth, and terrible headaches from the strain of the heaves.  This has made me less inclined to do anything not required for survival.  So I go to work because I gotta, I shower because I gotta, I feed and bathe my children because I gotta – but I just hired a maid, I have ceased exercise of any kind, and I’ve bought take-out more in the past month than I have in the year prior to that.  My day consists largely of working, sleeping, and in-between-times lying on the couch, usually with two very large children sitting and/or wiggling all over me (“cuddling”).  (The littlest one also often follows me into the toilet.  “What you spitting in the potty, mommy?”  He will sometimes spit in it, too, as I try desperately to wave him away.  God they leave you no dignity, do they?)

My lack of blogging can be somewhat chalked up to this, although in addition The Professor had to leave town for three weeks for a research trip abroad.  We missed him, but we also missed our home laptop, upon which I usually write my blog posts.  So be thankful, dear readers, for the fortuitous timing – you were spared the utter boredom and disgust of hearing about my gastrointestinal distress for weeks while the laptop was frolicking through the Irish countryside drinking Guinness and eating corned beef and cabbage.

The husband is home, the laptop is home, and though I am now 11 weeks the vomiting continues unabated.  I have begun to fear that it will never end, though of course in all likelihood it will, and soon.  I dearly hope so.  It has been a struggle.  Oddly enough, one of the toughest things is losing my enjoyment of food.  I (normally) love food – planning meals, buying ingredients, cooking, eating, special dinners out, special treats – especially given our limited resources for other forms of entertainment, food is one of my main sources of daily pleasure.  Right now it’s just a chore – open mouth, insert item, chew methodically, swallow it down, decide whether or not it will stay in stomach.  Lather, rinse, repeat every few hours per day (an empty belly is also a sure trigger for major nausea, so I eat constantly).  It’s a joyless and forced exercise, and I’m ready for the second trimester hunger and food enjoyment to kick in.

There’s only one fetus in there, praise the baby Jesus, and we will find out in September what flavor it is.  Later I’ll write a detailed post to share with you my midwife woes – in short, Alabama sucks and midwives are basically illegal here, so I’ve had to go with an OB and already I’m fending off test after test and I’ve heard lots of concerns about my age and such.  The contrast is so stark – midwives are so comforting, so empowering.  They keep an eye on various obvious markers (weight, proteins in urine, whether your ankles swell) but otherwise presume that you are healthy and well, and they are just there to make sure you stay that way and to usher you through the birth process in a way that is as comfortable and unintrusive as you want it to be.  My OB – who I actually like, despite my grousing – approaches pregnancy in an entirely different way.  In his eyes I am at risk at all times and he is the hero there to fend off all of the terrible things that could happen to me.  In order to preserve me from certain death, he has to know my this blood count and my that test, he needs to conduct monthly ultrasounds to check the baby’s weight and size, we are already fighting about doing regular fetal stress monitoring towards the end of my pregnancy to be sure the fetus isn’t in distress (and having a heplock inserted while I’m in labor, which I have never had before).  These all provide tons of data points that he then gets to analyze and use all of his expertise to graph and chart and figure out where I am exactly.  These are also the data points that trigger interventions – because you never know.  Fluid level is just an ounce or two below normal/baby looks a bit big for his gestational age/a woman your age is at higher risk for stillbirth.  Let’s get that baby outta there.

I’m in a weakened state and this is all much harder for me to push back against than it would be if I were well, but I’m blessed in that this is my third child.  My grandmother had 7 healthy pregnancies and deliveries – my mother had 5 (3 of them born when she was over the age of 35), and I’ve had 2 myself.  I am extremely confident that, unless this baby is breach, I will require no more intervention or monitoring than I ever have.  But projecting this confidence onto a pushy medical team is not the easiest thing to do, even for me.  I’m learning why all of the recent articles on the expense of maternal fetal medicine in the United States show that costs and interventions are higher than anywhere else in the world.  I’ve never had more than 1 ultrasound per pregnancy – the anatomical one at 20 weeks.  I’ve already had one here to determine with exactness the fetal age, and he’s got more planned for me – and at something like $500 a pop, that ain’t cheap.  (We have a high deductible plan with a HIGH deductible, so all of this comes out of our pocket.)  I agreed to the first one because I was afraid of twins – but I won’t do any more except the 20 week one.  Ultrasounds are notoriously terrible indicators of weight, though they can tell you crown to rump pretty well, but in any case knowing my baby’s exact size/age is unnecessary information.  It’s fun to see the little swimmer, but it’s just more measurements, more time off work, more stress.  Who knows what measurements of my two prior pregnancies would have shown?  They were never necessary, because my blood pressure was great, ankles unswollen, skin color great, I felt grumpy and uncomfortable but clearly WELL, and so the midwives left well enough alone.  They had a trust in my body and the natural process, whereas now I sense a deep suspicion from my doctor that something terrible could happen at any time and we must remain on our guard.

Did you know that doctors are now advised not to check for breast lumps during your annual exam anymore, because it was leading to high rates of follow up testing and invasive procedures on lumps that turned out to be nothing, but not budging the numbers on catching breast cancer early?  It’s that same consequence that I hope to avoid by fending off excessive and invasive testing in pregnancy.  Many, many women have pregnancy problems that require a doctor’s care, and they should have access to as many interventions as they need to give them the best possible outcome.  But I am not one of those women.  As such, I do not want someone poking around LOOKING for problems.  As I told The Professor the other day – I’m sure if I put heart, temperature, and stress monitors on my sons and could monitor their vital signs all day every day while they’re away from me, I’d have multiple daily freak outs and lots of reasons to do follow up checks.  But as long as they’re eating, sleeping, pooping, laughing, developing, and seemingly chipper, there’s no reason for me to track every vital sign every minute.  I don’t think it’s any different for a healthy woman with a healthy history and a healthy pregnancy.  And I’m going to have to work hard to project that belief onto a medical system that sees me as a ticking time bomb.

Anyway.  I said I’d rant later, but I’m ranting now.  Perhaps it would be better if I took another month off of blogging – until the time when I am less grumpy.

In the meantime, I just dashed out the door through a blinding afternoon thundershower to get mint gelato from the café a few doors down from the office, and it’s settled my tummy a bit.  I got a new and interesting assignment, which is distracting me from my soapbox a little bit.  I only have to pregnant for six more months in my entire life, and even if I throw up every day of it, I can handle anything for six more months.

And, occasionally in this early miserable phase, I remember to keep my eyes on the prize.  This is all going towards the production of a new baby.  One last little chicken-legged, saggy-skinned, mewling tiny infant.  One last first smile – one last fat six month old – one last time teaching somebody to walk, to talk.  I am approaching the end of the phase in my life when I don’t yet know who all of my children will be.  I am not enjoying this particular phase at ALL, and I don’t feel guilty about that, but I will try to savor the end of my fertile years, and to look forward to the beginning of all that comes next.

(It is much easier to see the world in this rosy glow once one has had a heartening scoop of crème de menthe gelato.)