In the woods

Ok, get ready for another profoundly negative post.  For those of you who just don’t want to hear it, (and I don’t blame you – I’m sick of myself at this point), scroll forward a few weeks to when I hopefully won’t feel like this anymore.  My wish for myself is that in September I will still be pregnant and I will start to feel normal again.  I cling to this wish every minute of every day.

Had an absolutely horrible day today, the worst I’ve had in a couple of weeks.  Basically non-stop, crushing nausea from the moment I woke up until now.  Have not been able to eat or drink hardly anything.  Finally busted out my supply of Ensure drinks because I was concerned about dehydration and lack of nutrition, but even that is slow going.  Everything, but everything, makes me ill.  Not eating, eating, taking my vitamins, wearing my Sea Bands, everything.  Oh, and guess what?  I’m supposed to get up and get on an airplane tomorrow.  That’s obviously not happening.  And I am so pissed about it I could scream. 

My entire family, including my older cousin who I haven’t seen in years, is converging in Boston for a fun get together and also to scatter my aunt’s ashes which we weren’t able to do at her memorial service back in January (too cold, and my cousin couldn’t get there in time).  I have been looking forward to this trip since then, especially the joy of getting to tell everyone my little secret, and how perfect it would be since my aunt’s passing made me come up with this idea to begin with.  I know they will all be absolutely thrilled.  And guess what?  I have been robbed of this experience by this stupid, endless, crippling nausea that follows me everywhere I go.  I am so angry if I had more energy I’d break a few things around here.

In order to go tomorrow, I would have had to take my dog to the kennel today, which I didn’t.  I tried – but halfway through the half hour drive I got so sick I had to pull off the freeway and turn around and go home…using side streets, because the freeways were so packed and claustrophobic and full of construction and noxious emissions and no shoulders and closed exits that I couldn’t stand to get back on to head back south.  That whole adventure took about two and a half hours in 99 degree heat with my car’s A/C barely puttering out luke warm air.  So now I’m really stuck – if I magically wake up well tomorrow (I won’t), I can’t get on the flight because I have the dog here.  I basically have to know how I’m going to feel 24 hours before I fly, because I have to drop the dog.  And as we know predicting anything right now is totally impossible. 

Just for the record I did call Kaiser to see if I could see anyone on an emergency basis to get some kind of medication or something, ANYTHING, to make this stop, even a little bit.  But they couldn’t have been less helpful or sympathetic.  First it took about 20 minutes and repeating my full name, full address, all my phone numbers, and my insurance number three times to three different people and then being put on hold, and when I finally did get to talk to the “advice nurse” she didn’t seem to know anything about anything – I tried to explain I am eight weeks pregnant and so sick I’m at my wits end and I have to fly tomorrow, and can’t I see someone and get a prescription medication or something, and all she (and the two people before her) could do was ask a long list of questions that have nothing to do with my situation – am I having chest pains, can I stand, do I have pains in my legs.  No, I’m not having a fucking heart attack, I’m SICK, dammit!  I’ve been wanting to puke my guts out every minute of every day for the last month and I’m over it!  But no.  It was all about “eat small meals” and “take small sips of water”.  And no, they can’t help me, and there’s nobody I can see – I have to call back tomorrow morning and make an appointment with my doctor.  I don’t have a doctor.  So now I just don’t know what to do, except that nobody can help me.  Nothing works, nothing helps, I am in hell, and nobody can help me.  I’ve never felt more utterly helpless and miserable in my life.

So tomorrow I have the lovely task of calling my younger cousin and telling him I’m not coming (he got me buddy passes through his work).  My sister and I figured we could maybe find a way to set up Skype so I can at least talk to everyone – I spent HOURS tonight locating my microphone and webcam and setting them up on this computer, but I’m not even sure any of this is going to work because I’ve never used Skype on this computer before, or the microphone, or the webcam.  It will be interesting trying to get all of that going.  We’ll see.

So everyone is going to be horribly disappointed I’m not there, and I get to sit here and bake alone in this misery all weekend.  I had already ditched out of four or five social obligations because of this trip, not sure if I’m going to pretend I went or just tell everyone, once again, that I was sick.  Yes, sick for five days.  Yes.  Try to guess what that’s about. 

As you can see I have not made my peace with missing this trip, not yet.  I am still mad as a badger about it, and very worried about the business trip I have to take the very next weekend.  Missing out on that would be really devastating – costly, financially and personally, and would let down a whole lot of people who wouldn’t understand how sick I could possibly be to not just suck it up and go.  At least I have an ob appt on Monday and I will BEG them to give me the strongest drug they have, I don’t care.  I don’t even want to think about what missing that trip would mean.  Can’t even go there right now. 

All of this has lead me down some very dark paths mentally.  I don’t see anyone else having such a hard time with nausea as I am.  This can only mean a) I’ve been hit WAY harder than just about every other woman on earth with this stuff, or b) I’m just a big wuss.  I keep trying to cheer myself up and say things like, “hey, it’s only temporary,” or “at least you’re pregnant,” or “at least you know the pregnancy is good and strong and progressing.”  But I’ve got to be honest with you, I really don’t care about any of that.  None of that makes me feel better; I mean, sure, I’m glad on some abstract level that those things are true, but they mean nothing to me right now.  I’ve been thrust into some bizarre netherworld where suddenly all of my motives are being pulled into question.  I’ve been asking myself why the hell I ever thought this was a good idea, was I just trying to “keep up with the Joneses”, is this all hubris?  Am I just an egomaniac, is that why I wanted a child?  Did I just want to impress people with how awesome and independent I am?  Was this all for show, and now that it’s real I can’t handle it?  Was this all a horrible mistake?

I keep thinking about my mother and aunt and how neither of them had anything positive to say about having kids (*except for below) – they pretty much said it was just a huge pain in the ass (and I’m pretty sure neither of them were knocked out by nausea like this, either).  And I keep thinking about my mother towards the end there, when she was just so sick (for the record, she’s still alive, but I don’t think of her that way, hence the past tense) with this undiagnosed kidney problem, and how the sickness just became her and utterly changed her personality and made her lose her mind.  I feel like that’s happening to me a little.  This has been dragging on so long, and so unrelenting, that I feel like it has changed me (although only temporarily).  I’ve become very negative and fearful.  I wasn’t like this before (well, not all of the time anyway!), and I don’t like it, not one bit.  But now I do understand a bit how prolonged illness can change a person’s personality.  I get it.

So, ladies, I do apologize for all the darkness going on around here.  I know you want to hear happy stories and things to uplift you as you go through your own struggles, not my whiny bullshit.  And every time I think of Shannon and little Finn and his health troubles I feel so ashamed of myself I can actually feel my cheeks burning with embarrassment.  How dare I complain about having a normal, healthy pregnancy.  How dare I, indeed.

But from the beginning I promised this blog would be truthful.  And this is where I’m at.  Am I happy to be pregnant?  Of course.  I absolutely consider it a miracle, and despite how awful I feel, still take every day as a gift.  One more day, one more step towards the Promised Land (second trimester).  Do I look forward to this kid being here?  Yes!  I have had all kinds of fears lately that I’m not cut out to be a mother, I’m too selfish, and I’m going to suck at it.  But I do hope that once he’s here the best part of me will kick in and I’ll rise to the occasion.  I know I can do it; in my best moments I have no doubt this is the right thing and this kid is going to be so loved and treasured. 

Read a lovely post from a mom today talking about those little moments with your kids that are just indescribably wonderful – just a look, or a song shared, or a moment of joy.  I do remember my aunt telling me, “well, there are some moments of real joy when you’re raising kids.”  It’s just about the only positive thing any of the women in my family have said about childrearing, and I cling to that statement daily. 

I’m in the woods right now, for sure.  I can feel the hard earth under my feet and the ancient trees rising above me so high, blocking out all the light.  But someday I’ll be in the sunshine again.  This I know for sure.