I can't express what it means in difficult circumstances to have a place to call home.
Showing posts with label pregnancy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pregnancy. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
The Quilts of the Ronald McDonald House
A year ago right now I traveled to Rochester, Minnesota to live at the Ronald McDonald House while my baby boy was in the hospital. I took these pictures to show others just how amazing this place is. I focused mainly on the artwork and quilts, but there is so much more to say about such an amazing place. The artwork and quilts are only one small part of what RMH does to make people feel at home, even in the most difficult of circumstances.
I can't express what it means in difficult circumstances to have a place to call home.
I can't express what it means in difficult circumstances to have a place to call home.
Friday, May 11, 2012
12 Months
In about 3 weeks, my early bird, who weighed 1 pound 15 ounces at birth, will be 1 year old. I am working on the slideshow below to show how much he has changed; the 11 and 12 month photos have not been taken yet. I also want to create a "Year in Review" slideshow with more pictures. I have so many pictures of the neonatal intensive care unit, the special care nursery, the Ronald McDonald house, and coming home.
A year has passed and yet I feel like I am only starting to regain my energy. I don't mean physical energy, as in, I felt up to cleaning the house or exercising (although that has only recently improved as well). I mean vital energy, like the type of energy that drives you to pursue your passions or do something for yourself or even to be in tune to what is going on around you, so you can be an advocate for yourself or someone else.
I remember May 2011 like it was yesterday. I remember Memorial Day weekend, and I had just made the season's first batch of rhubarb jam. We had a particular vision of what the summer would be like...working in our garden, preparing our baby's nursery, attending the birthing classes.
But a few nights later, while sitting on a birthing ball in our first Labor & Delivery class, I felt a warm gush and....suddenly I was on a helicopter to a hospital with a neonatal intensive care unit. Everything gets a bit fragmented after that, but I hope to spend some time these next few weeks looking back at my journal and remembering the events surrounding the arrival of our little early bird.
A year has passed and yet I feel like I am only starting to regain my energy. I don't mean physical energy, as in, I felt up to cleaning the house or exercising (although that has only recently improved as well). I mean vital energy, like the type of energy that drives you to pursue your passions or do something for yourself or even to be in tune to what is going on around you, so you can be an advocate for yourself or someone else.
I remember May 2011 like it was yesterday. I remember Memorial Day weekend, and I had just made the season's first batch of rhubarb jam. We had a particular vision of what the summer would be like...working in our garden, preparing our baby's nursery, attending the birthing classes.
But a few nights later, while sitting on a birthing ball in our first Labor & Delivery class, I felt a warm gush and....suddenly I was on a helicopter to a hospital with a neonatal intensive care unit. Everything gets a bit fragmented after that, but I hope to spend some time these next few weeks looking back at my journal and remembering the events surrounding the arrival of our little early bird.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
The Early Bird
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| Born @ 27 weeks 5 days gestation 1 lb 15 oz, 12.9 inches long |
I don't mean to sound negative (and if you read all the way through, you'll see I'm talking about gratitude) but I am not going to sugar-coat parenthood as constant bliss, the way so many people do. I am going to be real and honest and up front. I knew going into this it was going to be hard. Turns out, I was in no way prepared for how hard it has been (premature rupture of the membranes at 27 weeks 5 days, emergency helicopter ride and c-section, baby in the NICU for 10 weeks, and all this even before we brought our baby home and began our sleepless nights...)
I feel like I am catapaulting through my days and nights at record speed, a whirlwind of working, expressing breast milk, caring for Wesley, going to doctor appointments, and stealing 1-2 hours of sleep when I can. As fast as this pace feels, parts of my heart and mind are still caught in the days just after Memorial Day, hanging in slow motion, in small spaces where I'm still trying to figure out exactly what hit us.
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| Going Home from the Hospital, 38 Weeks, 6 lb 1 oz |
After ten weeks in the hospital, Wesley came home two weeks before his due date. He weighed just over 6 pounds and he was so tiny in his car seat that we rolled up blankets and placed them around his head. I sat in the backseat with him and I have never been so nervous. It seemed like every little bump jarred him. I know he was nervous because he sucked vigorously on his pacifier the whole way home. When we got home he was wide-eyed for several hours. Our little baby had never known any world except the hospital, and all its alarms, and constant poking and prodding.
I recently saw a Facebook conversation in which some friends were discussing their kids, and one person said, “the nights are long but the years go by fast.” I know exactly what he meant. Fatigue and sleep deprivation have been the hallmark of our lives for six months now, with probably another two months to go before Wesley is even capable of sleeping a 4-6 hour stretch.
Every night when we’re up every few hours, I wonder, how long we can do this? People always say, “sleep when baby sleeps.” I just smile, but I want to say, will you come over and load my dishwasher and do my laundry, so I can sleep when baby sleeps?! Our lives seem chaotic. Some of our loved ones simply can't survive the shock. Our plants are dying. We've lost a starfish. Our cat died (she was 16 years old and in declining health for a while). We're constantly losing ground against the dirty dishes and laundry. I can tell that it will be years before my house is dusted or deep-cleaned in any fashion! Anything beyond the basics is simply unattainable right now. (And boy, did I yearn to make and can some apple butter this year...)
Every night when we’re up every few hours, I wonder, how long we can do this? People always say, “sleep when baby sleeps.” I just smile, but I want to say, will you come over and load my dishwasher and do my laundry, so I can sleep when baby sleeps?! Our lives seem chaotic. Some of our loved ones simply can't survive the shock. Our plants are dying. We've lost a starfish. Our cat died (she was 16 years old and in declining health for a while). We're constantly losing ground against the dirty dishes and laundry. I can tell that it will be years before my house is dusted or deep-cleaned in any fashion! Anything beyond the basics is simply unattainable right now. (And boy, did I yearn to make and can some apple butter this year...)
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| 5 1/2 Months Actual, 13 Weeks Adjusted, 11 lb 15 oz |
But every day Wesley does something new. It has been amazing to watch him transform from a tiny, sleepy, tube-fed noodle in an isolette to an active little baby who wants to interact with his environment. It’s like receiving a gift every day. He smiles responsively, laughs, holds his head up, kicks his legs in the air, grabs objects, and has started trying to roll on his side. He is strong and healthy. His vision exams have been normal (preemies are at risk for an eye condition called retinopathy of prematurity). He is strong-willed. And loud, opinioned, and fiesty at times! I guess this is the strength that got him so far. He weighed 1 pound 15 ounces at birth and almost 6 months later (adjusted age: 13 weeks) he weighs 11 pounds 15 ounces.
I meant to write during the 11 weeks I was home with Wesley, and yet, I didn’t often have a free hand, and when I did, I was too tired.
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| Born @ 27 weeks 5 days gestation, 7 weeks in the NICU, 3 weeks in a Special Care Nursery |
I did manage to write a 1500-word essay called “Liquid Gold,” which I adapted from a previous blog entry called Pumping, Pumping, Pumping) and submitted it to Real Simple magazine’s “when did you first understand the meaning of love” essay contest. This essay is about milk! Breast milk, specifically. About my experience expressing breast milk around-the-clock for almost three months, for my tiny baby who was too weak to eat on his own.
(Protecting my milk supply, by the way, is the most important thing I have ever done. If today was my last day, this is the one thing that I would be the most proud of, the one thing I would never change, and I would do it all over again if I had to.)
I think I wrote most of the milk essay in my head, during many hours in the rocking chair nursing Wesley. Then I managed to type most of it one-handed. When Wesley was that little he needed to either be held or fed (or both) virtually all the time. After the essay deadline, fatigue from sleep deprivation set in, and Wesley's colic intensified and didn’t begin to subside until he was about 7 weeks adjusted age. During that time, everything in my life disappeared except for my daily walks with Wesley, and feeding, holding, soothing, and rocking.
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| I Just Love His Facial Expressions! |
During this week of Thanksgiving, I am filled with gratitude. For me, being a parent is at once the best and the most difficult thing ever. Just when I think I don’t have the strength to continue, Wesley smiles or giggles and everything that I’m worried about just recedes into the background. Perspective. I have gained instant, clear perspective, even during complete chaos.
I always think of the phrase, "this too shall pass." Almost as quickly as a really bad day develops, a new, amazing day takes its place. I try to enjoy the present moment, whatever it may be. Just the other day, we were talking about how quickly 6 months have passed, and Chuck said, "To tell you the truth, I don't even remember how it was before we had Wesley." He couldn't have said it any better.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Everything I Know About Wesley
Wesley James really shocked us with his early appearance on June 3rd (his due date was August 26th). In the middle of our labor and delivery class at the hospital, I felt a warm gush and I hoped I had peed my pants. Not so much. It was a “premature rupture of the membranes” at 28 weeks and suddenly I had a helicopter ride, c-section, and a tiny baby in neonatal intensive care…so many things happened so fast and so unexpectedly, there is a large, blurry hole in my life between the day after Memorial Day and just recently. But that is another story…for now I want to give an update on little Wesley.
Wesley is almost four weeks old and weighs 2 lbs 11.8 ounces (up from his birth weight of 1 lb 15.3 ounces). He is stable and just needs to grow, grow, grow. His main issues are feeding, weight, and breathing. When talking about going home, Wesley’s nurse Chelsea said it’s not so much the weight that holds you back, it’s the feeding and the breathing. He needs to progress in these areas before we could go home, which still seems to be a long way off. Doctors have told us to expect that he will go home around his due date, which was August 26th.
There are ups and downs. I learned to expect this when my mom was in the hospital six years ago. Still, it’s hard! Two weeks ago Wesley was up to 2 lbs 4.7 ounces and then he lost weight three days in a row so he was down to 2 lbs 3 ounces. It’s hard not to obsess about every ounce. The doctors had lab work done when he had lost weight for the third day in a row, and after waiting, waiting, waiting…everything came back normal. It’s hard to see him poked and prodded, and then wait for all the results, worrying. But by the end of the week he was back up to 2 lbs 4.3 ounces.
The same week in which Wesley was losing weight, he seemed unusually drowsy and was having more spells with his breathing (apnea, more about that shortly). Doctors determined that his hemoglobin was low and he needed a blood transfusion. They said the low hemoglobin was probably because of all the blood draws they had to do to check blood sugars and various other things. They draw Wesley’s blood and then he is so little he can’t keep up with making new red blood cells. Around the same time, they removed Wesley’s IV line (from his belly button/umbilical cord, through which they administered glucose, lipids, etc. until he was ready to receive breast milk). Sometimes these things just seem so invasive…when he is being poked and prodded I have to fight back the tears. I know that he is receiving the best possible care, but sometimes I wish I could just grab him out of his isolette and take him home.
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As for feeding and weight gain, Wesley is up to 11 CCs (mLs)/hour of breast milk feeding (he has a tube in his mouth). He has 3 hours of feeding with one hour of rest and then this cycle repeats itself. After each cycle they check to make sure he has digested all the milk. They are adding some fortifiers to his milk to give it more calories...and it seems to be working. This week his average daily gain was 19 grams, up from 9 grams the week prior (they like to see an average gain of 20-30 grams/day). The nurses have told me that he will probably show signs that he is ready to breast feed around 34-35 weeks, which would be mid to late July.
Wesley’s breathing is stable—after he was born, he was intubated for only about 24 hours, then moved to another type of breathing assistance known as a CPAP for a few days, and now is on a high flow nasal cannula, which consists of two prongs in his nose that send a combination of room air and some oxygen when he needs it. He has periods of apnea, where he forgets to breathe, and periods of tachypnea, where he has labored breathing. The doctors say he will outgrow this as his lungs mature, but for now they have to monitor it closely. Wesley is receiving caffeine, which is a respiratory stimulant, to help with his apnea. The doctors are also now trying to wean him from the cannula, by slowly reducing the amount of air flow that the cannula provides.
There have been days when the doctors tell me scary things. That Wesley needs to have head ultrasounds to check for brain bleeds and other scary sounding things like periventricular leukomalacia (a brain injury that preemies can have). I sit and wait for the results, worrying. Everything has come back normal, just some “immaturity of the brain,” which is consistent with his age.
But they also tell me he could have vision problems and he could have growth problems later on and may need to take growth hormone. Maybe, maybe not, they say. I agonized over this for a while and then I just decided to take it day by day. I cannot worry about things that could happen down the road. He will have eye exams beginning soon, which sound very invasive, involving instruments that hold the eyelid open. There are treatments they can offer to help his vision if they find something abnormal. Otherwise, they wouldn’t do the exams, they assure me.
The nurses are absolutely amazing and I am so thankful that they are amazing educators as well as caregivers! I had to tell them that I was registered for a “newborn basics” class but I missed it, due all of these unexpected events. I barely knew how to change a diaper, much less on a two pound baby with an IV coming out of his belly button and various cords attached to him! They have helped me learn so much already.
I am feeling better every day. Mostly I am just tired. But I do not have much pain from the c-section anymore and I am off the pain medication. I am pumping breast milk every two hours around the clock and it is much more difficult than I imagined, mainly just due to exhaustion. (I am not complaining though, I am so happy that I am able to do this for him!) I am still staying at the Ronald McDonald House, which is an amazing place (more on this later). I am touched, comforted, and strengthened by the many cards, gifts, emails, visits, and prayers we continue to receive from family and friends.
Sometimes I feel like I have been teleported to an alternate universe. One moment, we were living our lives in our little house in our little town, preparing for our baby the way everyone does, and then the next moment, I live in a downtown apartment in a new city and I only see my husband on the weekends. I also mourn the abrupt ending of my pregnancy. I returned home recently and looked at all the maternity clothes hanging in the closet, which I never got to wear. The birth plan I never got to fill out. The sadness that I didn’t get to have a choice about the way everything happened. I realize these are all small things in the big picture and the most important thing is that we have Wesley and he is healthy, but I can’t help but feel a bit traumatized by the way everything happened.
But everything else aside, we are just enjoying every moment with Wesley. Our first Father’s Day with him. His first bath. We’re sure we’ve seen a couple smiles. He looks different all the time. He is getting bigger! He is doing new things all the time. Recently, his fingers are finding his way into his mouth, and he tries to hold his pacifier, which is so huge compared to his tiny little hand. He has such big eyes that I swear are staring right through me.
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| First Father's Day |
There are ups and downs. I learned to expect this when my mom was in the hospital six years ago. Still, it’s hard! Two weeks ago Wesley was up to 2 lbs 4.7 ounces and then he lost weight three days in a row so he was down to 2 lbs 3 ounces. It’s hard not to obsess about every ounce. The doctors had lab work done when he had lost weight for the third day in a row, and after waiting, waiting, waiting…everything came back normal. It’s hard to see him poked and prodded, and then wait for all the results, worrying. But by the end of the week he was back up to 2 lbs 4.3 ounces.
The same week in which Wesley was losing weight, he seemed unusually drowsy and was having more spells with his breathing (apnea, more about that shortly). Doctors determined that his hemoglobin was low and he needed a blood transfusion. They said the low hemoglobin was probably because of all the blood draws they had to do to check blood sugars and various other things. They draw Wesley’s blood and then he is so little he can’t keep up with making new red blood cells. Around the same time, they removed Wesley’s IV line (from his belly button/umbilical cord, through which they administered glucose, lipids, etc. until he was ready to receive breast milk). Sometimes these things just seem so invasive…when he is being poked and prodded I have to fight back the tears. I know that he is receiving the best possible care, but sometimes I wish I could just grab him out of his isolette and take him home.
Wesley’s breathing is stable—after he was born, he was intubated for only about 24 hours, then moved to another type of breathing assistance known as a CPAP for a few days, and now is on a high flow nasal cannula, which consists of two prongs in his nose that send a combination of room air and some oxygen when he needs it. He has periods of apnea, where he forgets to breathe, and periods of tachypnea, where he has labored breathing. The doctors say he will outgrow this as his lungs mature, but for now they have to monitor it closely. Wesley is receiving caffeine, which is a respiratory stimulant, to help with his apnea. The doctors are also now trying to wean him from the cannula, by slowly reducing the amount of air flow that the cannula provides.
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| Kangaroo care! |
But they also tell me he could have vision problems and he could have growth problems later on and may need to take growth hormone. Maybe, maybe not, they say. I agonized over this for a while and then I just decided to take it day by day. I cannot worry about things that could happen down the road. He will have eye exams beginning soon, which sound very invasive, involving instruments that hold the eyelid open. There are treatments they can offer to help his vision if they find something abnormal. Otherwise, they wouldn’t do the exams, they assure me.
The nurses are absolutely amazing and I am so thankful that they are amazing educators as well as caregivers! I had to tell them that I was registered for a “newborn basics” class but I missed it, due all of these unexpected events. I barely knew how to change a diaper, much less on a two pound baby with an IV coming out of his belly button and various cords attached to him! They have helped me learn so much already.
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| Necklace from my friend Shannon |
Sometimes I feel like I have been teleported to an alternate universe. One moment, we were living our lives in our little house in our little town, preparing for our baby the way everyone does, and then the next moment, I live in a downtown apartment in a new city and I only see my husband on the weekends. I also mourn the abrupt ending of my pregnancy. I returned home recently and looked at all the maternity clothes hanging in the closet, which I never got to wear. The birth plan I never got to fill out. The sadness that I didn’t get to have a choice about the way everything happened. I realize these are all small things in the big picture and the most important thing is that we have Wesley and he is healthy, but I can’t help but feel a bit traumatized by the way everything happened.
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| New outfit from Marnie! |
I do kangaroo care with him every day and I believe he has come to expect it…it is our special time together. Doctors say that kangaroo care (holding him skin-to-skin) is the best thing we can do for him other than providing breast milk. During kangaroo care, he sleeps deeply and hearing my heart beat and feeling the warmth of my skin makes him feel like he is back in the womb.
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| Just after his first bath |
The NICU is always busy, full of many babies and many families, and all the alarms from the monitors that track the heart rate, breathing, and oxygen saturation on all the babies, but we settle in during kangaroo care, mostly napping in our recliner. But sometimes I whisper things in his ear. Just yesterday I learned that Wesley will likely graduate out of his isolette and into a crib at the end of this week. I asked Wesley if he thought he could meet the 3 lb milestone this week as well. Then I told him he can have a puppy when he gets older, and I imagined him going fishing with his dad and his puppy. And I told him, we’ll be home soon…we have so many things we need to do.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Collisions
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| http://www.flickr.com/photos/waferboard/ |
The other day I was standing on the campus mall, waiting for a friend to pick me up for lunch, when BANG!!! I heard a loud crash behind me.
I turned around to see a pedestrian fall face forward, landing with a loud thud as his bare hands and knees kissed the concrete sidewalk. At the same time, a man on a bicycle plummeted head first into the grass and the bike went crashing on its side down the sidewalk.
It all happened so quickly. Two people going in the same direction collided. The pedestrian couldn’t see what was coming behind him. Perhaps he shifted into the path of the bike. What a shocking feeling, to be walking along, and then SLAM! Someone just nails you from behind.
As they exchanged cordial apologies, the biker put his hat and headphones back on. Sometimes we are so oblivious to what is going on around us. And we introduce so many distractions to our lives, on top of our already distracted minds that are constantly flowing with wants, needs, and to-do lists.
Recently I tried to help a friend who is going through a divorce. I was so shocked I didn’t see this divorce coming. Like the pedestrian-bicycle collision, it just hit me from behind with no warning. Why couldn’t I have seen how unhappy she was? Why didn’t I understand that her distance and isolation meant she needed help? It broke me to think of how long she had struggled and suffered alone, without help.
She was without clothes or basic possessions, so I went to her house to get a few things for her. It was a strange and sad and desperate feeling, trying to fill up one bag of items in the few minutes her husband would allow. What do you take? Surrounded by her pictures, clothes, jewelry, shoes, books, and various items, I quickly threw clothes and toiletries into the bag, as much as I could fit. Then I spied “A New Earth” by Eckhart Tolle on her dresser. Should I take it, I wondered. I grabbed it and shoved it into the bag. She will need this, I thought to myself.
I never fully realized how important that book was to me until this moment. Yes, I can see now, that in an extreme situation, I will choose to take Eckhart Tolle along with basic life necessities. When I was broken, this book opened me back up, just by helping me to change the way I think about things.
A few weeks later, I was talking to her on the phone, and she mentioned she was continuing the book, a little at a time. Yes, it’s that kind of book, I told her. You have to read little bits at a time and then give it all time to digest. She was dealing with her sadness, starting to make future plans and think about starting a new life of her own. The kind of life she had always wanted.
In the meantime, I worry about her safety, finances, legal issues, and more. I feel limited in what I can do for her because of my pregnancy…I’m not used to this. It frustrates me. I want to do more.
Sometimes, when I’m walking on the campus mall, I remember the collision. And I think of all the collisions that could happen. But my goal is not to fear all the collisions that could happen. Just focus on the moment. That’s what Eckhart taught me.
I blogged about two of my favorite Eckhart stories in a previous post, Ducks Crossing. Check it out.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Papasans, Food Aversions, & Other Favorite Things
I got this papasan chair--intended for my office/writing space that I've been working on (pictures coming soon), and look what happened...it was stolen from me almost immediately and never made its way out of the living room...
But really, who can blame them??? It's the sunniest spot in the house. Put a fleece blanket in this papazan and they won't get up for at least sixteen hours....it's heaven for my cats.
My weird food aversions continue but they are getting better, I think...
Although I am generally not eating meat, I did manage to make these crockpot chicken fajitas and I even ate one or two of them.
I used a combination of my friend H's technique and the crockpot chicken fajita recipe at A Year of Slow Cooking. I used chicken instead of beef, and I sauteed the peppers in a pan right before we were ready to eat, rather than adding the peppers to the crockpot. (I like my veggies more on the crunchy side, and I planned on leaving the crock pot on all day while we were at work.)
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| Fruit & Nut Plate |
The result was great--tender, juicy chicken that shreds easily with a fork, and healthy, too.
Other than some Papa Murphy's pizza (mushrooms and tomatoes only) and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (only the Ultimate Cheese Explosion), I'm not eating meals...scones and fruit it is! This is funny since normally I will eat anything except coconut and olives. Some days it's difficult to come up with anything I want to eat besides scones, fruit, cheese, or nuts.
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| Chocolate Chip Scone |
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| Mixed Berry Scone |
In other news, I had a fun shopping trip with my friend C involving some of our favorite things: Trader Joe's, Half Price Books, Chipotle, and the DSW Shoe Warehouse.
I purchased one of my last pair of Borns about ten years ago when I lived in Madison, and I just had the cracked sole glued for $5 at a local shoe repair shop (this was the best they could do...it would be cheaper to just buy a new pair of shoes, they told me). Thus, I felt I was entitled to a new pair of PURPLE Borns. Off the clearance rack. And, since they were on clearance, I got two other pairs besides these.
Having said all this, I feel that this post is relatively superficial, showcasing the enjoyment I got out of acquiring things... But sometimes you just have to go out and have a little fun. I haven't been feeling well, and I am trying to figure out--I guess--who I am even when I can't do the things I most enjoy...eating and cooking and writing. But my energy level is increasing and my nausea is decreasing. One day at a time, right?
Friday, March 4, 2011
Perspective
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.
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.
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