if it's not one thing...

Well, I caved and got a prescription for the nausea. After it started getting worse again this weekend, and after my doctor told me I needed to start gaining more weight (which would sound more appealing if I ever wanted to eat anything), I decided I had waited long enough.

I took the first pill yesterday afternoon. One more this morning. And, let me tell you, this stuff is a freaking miracle. No nausea; my breakfast stayed down for the first time in 11 weeks; a girl could get used to this. I practically cried with happiness.

Until the constipation.

I have decided that pregnancy, otherwise known in my house as the Festival of Gastro-Intestinal Distress, is a nine-month exercise in losing control. This is okay, because parenting is probably an 18-year exercise in the same. But my innards are getting a little worn out, to say the least.

After no relief well into the afternoon today, I came home and googled the name of the drug I'm taking and "constipation." And proceeded to read a MOUNTAIN of horror stories from pregnant women involving the length of time before this resolved (6 days, sweet Lord), enemas (help me), some odd suggestion involving milk of magnesia and dark karo syrup (almost tried that one) and enough complaints to make me weep at the prospect of having to give up my sweet miracle drug. Without getting even more TMI than I already have - Houston, we no longer have quite as significant a problem.

The whole time in the bathroom, all I could think was, "oh my god, this is by far the smallest thing that's coming out of my body in the next five months and if I can't handle this, WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?" I may have been converted to the epidural as of today.

In better news, I want to eat! I'm hungry! So that's good. Let's hope everything else...works itself out.

the truth

Maybe I'll delete this post later so my child doesn't read it someday and hate me.

The truth is, I'm not really enjoying this pregnancy. I want to. So, so badly. I wrote my last post, about that magical moment of feeling the baby move, because I need a moment like that. I need to hang onto them.

Because I'm still sick, almost all the time. I throw up every morning. Nearly 18 weeks, and I'm still queasy most of the day. I threw up my dinner the past two nights. I have no appetite.

I try to tell myself that it's okay, that it's all for a good cause, and I believe that with all my heart - but truthfully, I'm exhausted. I'm miserable. I have looked forward to this experience for such a long time, and I hate the fact that, so far, I hate being pregnant.

This is very likely my only shot at this, my only pregnancy. We have one frozen embryo, but frankly, the way this is going, I may never want to do this again.

And if one more person tells me, "this part will be over soon," I will kick their well-meaning ass into next week. It was supposed to be over weeks ago. I was supposed to feel better weeks ago. And instead, I just feel guilty all the time, because I feel miserable, and I hate feeling miserable, and I hate that I'm not enjoying this pregnancy. I'm crying as I write this because I hate admitting all of these things, and I wouldn't do it, except that a.) I have to get it out somewhere and b.) I suspect there might be some other miserable woman out there who would appreciate knowing she's not alone.

Infertility, among all its other curses, makes you feel that you should never, ever, ever complain about being pregnant. That you should bask in every single second, because you know how hard it is to be here, and you know how hard it is for the women who aren't here yet, and who may never be. I was never going to complain about this. Ever.

But the truth will out, as they say. I'm probably just having a bad day. But now you know the truth. The ugly, hard, horrible truth. Maybe letting it out will stop the vomiting. God knows, I've tried everything else.

scene from an airport

I spent the last few days in the middle of the country, spending time with 5 amazing, wonderful girlfriends. Lots of talking, laughing, crying, drinking (lemonade for me, sigh) - best. week. ever.

Last night, I flew home. The flight didn't leave until 9pm, and I got to the airport unusually early. So I sat in the waiting area, with my Sex & the City 2 edition of Entertainment Weekly, and waited. People came in and out. The gate agents finally got to the desk. All those airport announcements - "will Bob Smith meet his party at the baggage claim," "this is the last call for flight 1264" - floated in the air.

And then I felt it. Either that, or I was having an extreme stomach moment, but I'm pretty sure - I felt movement. All around me, people were texting friends and reading magazines and snipping at the gate agents because they didn't like their seat assignment, and the woman sitting next to me was shooting nasty looks at the kid seated behind her who kept banging against the seat back, and I was feeling this baby move for the first time. Ordinary life just kept going on, and all I wanted to do was grab the microphone from the irritated gate agent calling up standby passengers so I could say it out loud: "I can feel this baby move! Do you people know what a freaking miracle this is? DO YOU?"

I think I've felt it a few more times since then. I had thought maybe I was feeling it over the past few days, but it's so hard to tell - baby, or gas? Trust me, there's plenty of the latter (the romance of pregnancy continues). But this was real. In the middle of the airport. Where nobody cared. And my life was changing, right there, and nobody knew.

Who knows what's happening in any of us when we run into each other on the street, see each other in cars, walk past each other in airports? Who knows when someone's whole life is changing, right then, and you just can't see it?

The world is charged with the grandeur of God, wrote poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. Sometimes even the airport.

can't touch this

Today on Faceb.ook, I saw that someone had become a fan of the page, "I hate it when you're hanging out with MC Hammer and he won't let you touch anything."

I should have taken MC with me to the hospital today.

I went to visit a parishioner who is having a variety of medical problems: near-kidney failure, irregular heartbeat, possible sleep apnea, all on top of diabetes. Surprisingly, despite this rather depressing list, she feels fine. And people who are stuck in the hospital for endless tests, but who feel fine, are generally one thing: CHATTY. As was she.

So she told me in great detail about all these ailments (side note: I never really understood this tendency people get, while they're in the hospital, to tell you whole bunches of things you did not wan to know about the insides of their bodies, until I went through fertility treatments. Lots o' medical treatments must give you amnesia when it comes to remembering that people may not want to hear all that stuff). And we talked about various other things. And then she said, "I hear that congratulations are in order!" so we chatted for a minute about that, until she said, "well, my son and daughter-in-law are trying, but they're not having any luck, so I told them to just relax," and I took a deep breath and said something gently about how we had tried for a long time, and how hard it is to not be successful. And she said briskly, "well, I told them to pretend they were going steady and sneaking around and that would do the trick in a heartbeat!"

So I said a short prayer under my breath for her son and daughter-in-law.

As I was leaving, she said, "now when is the baby due?" And as she said it, she leaned out of her hospital bed and reached over and tickled my stomach.

DUDE. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? I have a very small bump, somewhat more distinguishable today because of the top I'm wearing, but still - I'm not at the stage where you look at me and think, "pregnant." You might look at me and think, "too many cheeseburgers," but that's about it.

I know that pregnant women have to deal with the belly-touching thing, but I really thought I could wait awhile for that. It creeped me out. I felt like leaning over, scratching her abdomen, and saying, "good luck with the kidney thing!" but that didn't seem particularly helpful.

MC, if you're available, I could use you for the next five and half months or so. Give me a call.