Around week 6, I started on Progesterone, a medication usually designed to increase the fertility in women who have difficulty getting pregnant. It is also used to increase the hormone responsible for maintaining pregnancies in women who are currently pregnant.
By adding this medication to my body, I began to "feel" pregnant. And, no - not in a starry-eyed, mushy, glowing new mom kind of way. But, a everything-looks-like-it-was-previously-digested kind of way. I may have mentioned this, but Progesterone is made by the devil.
It all started with soup. Pre-progesterone, I loved soup. I loved vegetable soup. Corn soup. Baked potato soup. Gumbo. Minestrone. Lentil. Just soup. Soup is a perfect compliment to many other sides. Soup is a great quick meal. Soup can be frozen for extended periods of time and then be reheated - only to taste better than it did before!
Post-progesterone, soup and I...well, we just didn't get along. I definitely could NOT look at it. At times, I couldn't even think of it. Soup and I, we still haven't fully recovered.
So, I stay away from soup. Just in case.
Morning sickness is a myth. It doesn't just happen in the morning. In fact, it happens mid-morning, after lunch, early afternoon and in the evening. They should just call it pregnancy induced nausea and vomiting. I guess that's too long for most doctors to have to say.
I don't remember the beginning of the morning sickness. I do remember all the little tips and tricks I read and heard from other pregnant women, or women who had been pregnant. Boy, do I love all those little tips and tricks.
First, there's the "eat crackers before getting out of bed in the morning" tip. I tried that. After my attempt, I know that throwing a few half chewed crumbs into my empty stomach did NOT work. In fact, I was one of those women that didn't feel too badly getting out of bed in the morning. In fact, I usually felt worse after I ate. (Cracker crumbs not included.)
My worst nausea happened after 2 things, drinking liquid and any time after 4 pm. One afternoon, I was hungry, but couldn't imagine eating anything at all, so I went to Smoothie King and picked up a fruity smoothie. I got home and drank about 1/4 of it. Immediately, my stomach felt like it was rocking back and forth in the Gulf Stream. Well, I didn't get my money's worth out of my Smoothie that day. *wink* Lesson learned.
My morning sickness was random, as I'm sure much pregnancy induced nausea and vomiting is. Some days, I would be fine. Other days, things would set me off and there was no going back.
I work in a large building. We have approximately 300 ladies, and I use that term loosely, that all share a 4-stalled bathroom. I averaged it out, and if every lady uses the restroom 1 time a day, then each stall is used 75 times DAILY. And, that's only if we teetee once. So, I'm sure each stall is used a gross amount of times each day. We have a maintenance man employed at the school. He actually does an amazing job at keeping our bathroom clean. BUT, when our school was being planned, someone decided to put the break room next to the bathrooms. So, beginning at around 11:30am and lasting about 2 hours, the bathroom gets inundated with lunch-time smells.
I can handle bathroom smells. And, I can handle lunch-time smells. I cannot handle them combined. I have not been nauseous in about 2 weeks, and even just thinking of this combo makes my stomach turn.
And, to make matters worse. My sense of smell has improved exponentially. I had a very good sense of smell before pregnancy. Now, I can smell a combination of things and determine what forms the combination. One of my students is still laughing about the time I walked in to a room and said "oh, fish and red beans" and a student had just wrapped up their lunch of fried shrimp and red beans and rice. It's like a super-power that I just don't want!
Mike, Izzy and I were hanging out one evening, when Mike remembered he had to pick up a prescription or something from the CVS very close to our house. This was about a month ago, and Izzy was still in the final stages of potty training. Final stages meaning, poop anxiety. Her and I were upstairs, using the computer, when she doubled over and said her tummy hurt. Immediately following that statement, she started craw fishing back into the hall. I knew what was happening!! I scooped her up, and ran downstairs, praying to the potty gods that she would hold her little turtle in!
I wasn't so lucky. I managed to get her pants off, and felt the little lump in her panties. She has anxiety about pooping in the potty. I imagine she thinks she'll get sucked down there or something. Well, anxiety or not, she still really hated to use it in her Big Girl panties too. So, she's crying, and my eyes are watering, for two very different reasons. My poop intolerance hasn't gotten any better in the 2 years her and I have known each other. Mike is still gone, and I am determined to help a baby girl out, so I go for the panties. As I'm trying to take them off, I get a whiff of the surprise inside and immediately lose my lunch. Thank goodness I was near a toilet!
If you've had pregnancy induced nausea and vomiting, then you know that it ain't over til it's over.
At the start of my vomiting, Izzy's crying stopped and she came close to me and started patting my shoulder, asking "Katie, are you ok?" So, here I am, trying to console her, one arm around her waist and one arm bracing myself. At that moment, I heard the door open. Angels sung. I managed a "MIKE, I NEED HELP!" He came rushing in to the fiasco that had unraveled in the 5 minutes he was gone. What a mess! But, a funny mess, if you can picture it.
One more puke story to really get you gals itching for a baby....
Mike, Izzy and I went to eat at a local sushi restaurant very close to our house. We ate our food, drove home and walked to the park on our street. We played and tried to teach Izzy how to roll down the hill. Well, Mike did that - no rolling for this woman! It began to get dark, so we went home. I went into the bathroom with Izzy and got her ready to take a bath. Mike came in right as I was about to put Iz in the water, and something about the combination of his smells at that moment immediately made me sick. I ran out of the bathroom (???????). Then, ran straight back into it, instructing Mike to get out. So, here we go again, except now I have a naked Izzy watching. As soon as she understands what is happening, she runs to the door. Mike's on the other side, but he's too afraid to open the door. So, I'm in there, losing my dinner, and in between, I'm letting Izzy out, stopping the bath water and getting the wash cloth and towel. Talk about multi-tasking. Luckily, I've never known a toddler that minded being naked in unusual places for any reason at all. So, when I was done, Izzy marched her naked butt right back in and got in the tub. Mike didn't join us.
Needless to say, Mike felt GREAT about being the source of my little problem. But, you know when you've been sitting in the grass, and while you're there, you don't smell the grass, but after, the sour grass smell mixes with what ever laundry detergent, deodorant or work smells you have on your clothes? Anyway, I've never been a fan of the smell of grass. Now, it has a whole different quality.
As of today, the pregnancy induced nausea and vomiting are gone and Izzy is completely potty-trained as of that last day she and I had our little bonding moment in the bathroom. I'm not sure if it scared her, or she just had sympathy for her pregnant step-mom, but it worked!
Oh yeah, I wouldn't change it for the world!
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