Over the last few weeks, I’ve been hearing a lot of remarks along the lines of “Wow, your pregnancy went by fast!” While it may feel that way to everyone else, each day of this pregnancy has felt like an eternity. My day-to-day life lacks variety: I wake up, feel sick, say goodbye to Logan, fall back asleep, maybe go on a walk, maybe run a few errands, go back to the couch to watch TV for hours, feel even more sick, watch Logan and Donnie eat dinner, watch them go to bed, make myself food when I finally get hungry around 9-10pm, feel sick/get sick, take a bunch of medicine, and go to sleep. On my best days, I’ll use my energy to take a shower or clean and organize some part of the house. On my worst days, I’ll give in to one of my cravings or attempt to eat a “normal” meal and then vomit for 3-5 hours straight.
Passing the 30-week mark should be like passing “Go” in Monopoly, complete with some kind of award, but instead for me it’s brought on the loveliest parts of pregnancy: insomnia and heartburn. I remember at the end of my pregnancy with Logan, water gave me heartburn. Now that I’m rarely drinking water, it seems that breathing air has the power to give me heartburn. My amazing pregnancy pillow I enjoyed for a few glorious weeks has now been banished to isolation on the bed while I sleep on the couch propped up almost completely upright with pillows so I can breathe and not be plagued with acid in my throat. I eat Tums like candy and have an arsenal of other products to try to help, but sometimes, nothing works. The heartburn has brought on one of the extremely unpleasant aspects of hyperemesis gravidarum: being insanely thirsty, drinking water, and immediately throwing it up. Sometimes I daydream about the days ahead when I’ll be able to eat like I used to, but most of the time, I just fantasize about being able to drink a huge glass of ice-cold plain water.
I was pretty happy to have made it 2 weeks without needing a check-in with my OB, but by the time I got to my appointment on Thursday, I felt like I was on death’s doorstep. I hadn’t kept down food in days, I wasn’t sleeping well, I had a horrible headache, and was extremely dehydrated. He was concerned enough to send a nurse over to Urgent Care to pick up all the supplies needed to give me an IV fluid infusion right there in the OB department. The appointment was the usual: I dropped another 5 pounds, there were ketones in my urine, and somehow my body is still measuring on track for the baby’s gestational age and he was doing cartwheels as we listened to his heartbeat on the fetal Doppler. I have another growth ultrasound in a week to check on how he’s progressing.
My OB has been desperate to find a way for me to gain weight. Unfortunately, most solid foods make me sick at this point. He basically told me to pack in the calories however I can: adding protein powder to my
smoothies, eating soup with more substance to it than broth and water and lemon, and trying higher-calorie foods like ice cream. Yes, my OB told me to eat ice cream. Under normal circumstances, I’d run to the nearest Cold Stone and eat to my heart’s content. And for the record, I have gotten pretty brave over the last few weeks and have tried high-calorie foods like burritos, nachos, Pop Tarts, cereal, soda, and chips. They just all made me sick. I can’t wait to be able to eat normal food again.
Meanwhile, I did discover two new wonderful things I can stomach: lemonade slushees from Sonic and fresh-squeezed lemonade from Chik-Fil-A. Both restaurants use nugget ice, which for some reason tastes heavenly to all pregnant women. My husband bought me two huge bags of ice from Sonic that should last me at least a week…maybe.
Since we have literally tried everything else, my OB also suggested trying hypnotism or acupuncture, so that’s on the to-do list for this week.
Lastly, on a happier note, the baby finally has a name. It only took us eight long months but we were able to settle on one that has immense meaning to both of us. Choosing a name for your child is harder than it seems. With Logan’s name, I didn’t choose it based on the meaning, and I’m not even sure it means anything. I just really liked the way the name sounds. Now I think it’s in the top 10 names for boys. I wanted his middle name, James, to be a “J” name to honor my grandpa, Jack Baker, who passed away when I was 16. James also just so happens to be my brother’s middle name.
It turns out that choosing a baby name when you’re in a loving marriage relationship is a lot harder than when you’re a single mom and have all the power! In the beginning, we both threw out names left and right, and it seemed like all the names he loved, I hated, and all the names I loved, he hated. During one of my hospitalizations in December, I took some time and wrote out a long list of names I liked, and eventually we were able to narrow it down to one or two on that list. Basically, I chose the first name and Donnie chose the middle name, and the two flow well together. It’s definitely not a common name, but it’s not so unique that he won’t be able to spell it or he won’t be able to find a good job later in life. In an effort to avoid drama, we are keeping it a secret for now, but everyone will know in just 4-7 weeks!
