Here it goes. The post that I've been anticipating to write for the last month. Sure, it's sooner than I thought, a fact that I attribute to a Christmas miracle. No, for real, it's a miracle.
The past 43,200 minutes or so I have spent in a baby induced vomit coma, and I mean that literally. If that number doesn't put you in perspective, I could break it down to seconds...
So, I'm not trying to be dramatic with this post or come from a "poor me" place, I just want to have written proof of the state of misery I have been in as my body grows baby number four. I completely expected to have morning sickness this time, I actually feared it. I knew it would come, and just like clock work, I started to feel it just one day after the six week mark. This time would be different from the others. Even as I type this, I fear I may jinx myself back into a nauseated state of existence...even though I don't actually believe in being jinxed, LOL. With the past three pregnancies I have had morning sickness, and when I refer to morning sickness, let's be real, I mean all day/night sickness, the kind that no kind of "miracle pill" can take away.
I'll be the first to admit that the past month has not been a good one for me, emotionally and physically I have been at my worst. When I say that, I mean it in every way. Many times I would loose my sense of reality and completely have a cry fest because this kind of sickness I just could not handle. When I am in the middle of the sickness, taking a pathetic shower where I can't even wash my body because the smell is too much, it feels like I will never feel normal again. You would think that being number four I would be used to it by now, but each time has gotten progressively worse in a different way.
My self esteem is burned. I am not capable of the trials I thought I would be. I consider myself to be a woman full of faith and I stand firm with a strong testimony but the struggle of feeling sick for long periods of time is a lot for this mom to handle. Daily thoughts would run through my head about how terrible I felt as a mom, wife, and daughter of God. I lacked the energy and drive to do anything about them. It's not a good place to be, this was my reality. I could hear my family in the background, hear Nate taking care of the girls and I would think of how I should be helping. My body could not keep up, nor did it want to, with what my mind knew I should be taking care of. I have felt helpless, hopeless, you name it, I felt it. While I was there, all I could think of was how awful I felt, and yes, I tried everything for morning sickness to not feel this way. Being in this state, you would think I would constantly be thinking of being pregnant, but it's the exact opposite. It is only after feeling closer to human for two days that I remember, oh yeah, I'm PREGNANT!
Prior to getting sick this time I read through old posts when I was pregnant with Winnie, there were days when I would feel good enough to go outside, get dressed, take pictures and actually be a human being. Not this time. In the past month I have gotten presentable for the world only 5 times, three were for church, one for the doctor, and the other one was to get some essentials I needed for a stay at my mom's that wasn't planned. A stay that included me in pajamas for seven straight days while my ever so helpful mom and Kristy, my Mom's partner, fed me and took care of my every need.
Never in my life have I been stuck in my bed for so long, having to be completely dependent on someone else for every single thing I needed. I ate in bed, slept in bed, counted the hours in bed all while dreading the moment I had to pee because as soon as I stood up I would feel the urge to vomit and smell hundreds of different smells along the way to the bathroom which was only ten feet away. All of this while three small children depend on me for so much. I will say Charly and Piper really stepped up to help, but even they got frazzled after weeks, by having to take care of grown-up things. It should go without saying, but Nate has been the best ever this whole time. His calm reassuring voice and actions inspire me. No one wears all the hats of a parent like Nate when his wife is bedridden for weeks on end.
Why even write this post? I really try not to come from a negative perspective with my posts, after all this is what I want to look back on a smile at. This post is different. This is my reminder post of the conviction I had while sick that I absolutely do not want to do this again. I've always wanted to have a large family, and I think that will still happen through fostering/adoption, but this is a feeling that I don't want to inflict on my family again. Number four will be our last born. I have said this in the past when feeling morning sickness but never have I pondered it so much that it would be a reality. I absolutely can't do it again. I've gone beyond sad about this idea to feeling relieved. Nate and I have always talked about fostering or adoption and I think this realization will just put a fire under us to move forward with that in the future. There has to be a reason for me getting so sick, medicines not working, and feeling like death while early in pregnancy. I have faith that I will understand the reasons why in the future.
For now, I'm grateful to go to bed only after saying prayer with my family and tucking in the girls. I'm grateful to get to hug my husband without being afraid of the manly scents being introduced to me after him working all day. I'm grateful to be able to open the refrigerator without holding my breath. I'm grateful for being able to look at the sink without having to pray this won't be the time I loose my lunch on my floor. I'm grateful to give my kids a hug and not worry about getting a whiff of their freshly shampooed hair. Smells are the worst, aren't they? Mostly though, I am just so grateful to feel like myself again, like a contributing member of my family.
I also have advice for my future self. If there is anything I have learned from being so sick that is an obvious lesson it's this- when I see a woman, a lady who just has a look on her face that seems to make me think she's a mean grumpy person, I'll think twice before judging her and assume she is feeling the affects of her own personal struggles, which may be that her body is desperately trying to grow a healthy baby and her body suffers from the surge of hormones that it's not used to. I'm going to assume the reason she glares like that is because she has been sick for thousands of minutes without relief, or because her sense of being is being tainted by her inability to do the things she wants to do. I'm going to smile a little more, be ever so grateful of days when I am not nauseated and NEVER ever take for granted a day when I can hop out of bed, get ready, and do the things that seem so minute.
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