Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ~Elizabeth Stone
I saw this quote on Facebook this morning and I really like it. This is basically what I was trying to say in my last post, The Ambivalent Parent.
However, sometimes it’s hard to stay positive when you’re retching into your kitchen sink.
I have been eating mostly fruit and toast and eggs for the past four months, it seems. I started feeling better lately so I got a little bit adventurous last night and had some Chinese food. I didn’t feel very well after that…as soon as I woke up this morning I was pretty sure I was going to puke. I ate some toast and a smoothie and felt better for a little while when suddenly I was overcome by nausea and I spewed my smoothie and toast, in a thick purple sludge format, all over my kitchen sink. Eew. It was so intense I had a headache for an hour afterwards, as if I’d strained something. Guess I better go back to my nothingness diet of blandness.
And then there’s the mucous thing. At first I thought it was a cold, but it persisted, without ever really getting worse or better. It’s the worst in the morning when I first wake up. My ears are clogged with fluid. I sneeze and blow my nose constantly. As soon as I get out of bed, the mucous starts running down the back of my throat, triggering my gag reflex, and increasing my nausea.
Smells overwhelm me. In a recent post, I described how thoroughly I cleaned my refrigerator. Last weekend, I was haunted by a nasty, rotten smell emanating from the fridge. The smell tainted everything, even the water from the Brita pitcher tasted like this putrid smell. My husband couldn’t smell it. Remove all the leftovers from the refrigerator, I asked him. He did. Still the smell persisted. A few days later, I noticed a moldy orange in the crisper. I’m pretty sure I could smell that mold long before it was visible.
Today I could smell a strong, musky cologne on a man getting into his car at least twenty feet away from me. Sometimes I walk by offices and I can smell women’s perfume out in the hallway.
Ok, don’t get me wrong…I’m not complaining. I am capturing this experience as honestly as I can. Even the things people don’t talk about. I have a new respect for women. It’s difficult to function when you’re sick for months. It’s hard to go to work and do everything you need to do when you spent the morning puking, you’re constantly hungry and nauseated, and you didn’t sleep well. I am amazed that women want to get pregnant, multiple times over, knowing they’re going to be sick and tired and challenged in so many ways. The outcome must really be worth it!
I have an even deeper respect for women who struggle with infertility. I have written an article (yet unpublished) about a woman who had five miscarriages and a son who died when he was twenty six days old. She eventually had twin boys via a surrogate. Women who are going through infertility treatments like in vitro fertilization endure tremendous emotional and physical pain, including the loss of their children and painful physical challenges such as injecting themselves twice daily with progesterone via a gargantuan needle.
I needed this reminder today: stepping outside yourself often helps put your own challenges in perspective.
