Wednesday, October 02, 2002

Month Six- I thought only old people had Siatica!!!

I woke up one morning in the middle of September and I knew something wasn't right. My right leg was hurting. This was a pain like nothing I had ever experienced before. My best description of this pain was as if someone took a metal coat hanger, straightened it out, put it in a fire and got it burning red hot and shoved it through my right buttock and down the back of my leg into my ankle. There was no relief!

Finally, we got the doctors on the phone. They decided I was having siatic pain and they called me in Tylenol 3. That did nothing to relieve the pain! I was thinking more like give me some morphine or something to knock me out. It would have felt better to just chop my leg off with no anesthesia. This was the most painful thing I have ever experienced in my life.

No one ever told me this could happen. Of all the women I have known that have had children, no one has ever told me anything about siatic pain. I have heard old folks talk about having siatica. Never ever have I ever heard a person who was younger than 50 even discuss this. If child birth is worse than this, I am going to have to be put to sleep to give birth. I have decided I am a pain wimp. I just can't do this pregnancy thing anymore.

The docs have called in a "PRENATAL CRADLE" contraption for me to wear until the baby comes. I can't wait to see this thing. It should be here in the next few days. From the photos it looks very much like a body sling! You can imagine the jokes that are going along with this. Kevin has been trying to massage the leg to help relieve the pain. I lay there and scream bloody murder the entire time. He is having to help me out of bed and into the shower. I can not stand up for any period of time without having excruciating pain. We have a stool in the shower now. I sit to take a bath. This is so not funny anymore!

This is so ridiculous, something is going to change. I have been in the bed for two weeks with this. Most days consist of laying, watching TV out of the side of my eyes and crying. This pain is unbelievable!

Sunday, September 08, 2002

Month Five- Hickups and Butterflies

Kevin passed his CPA exam. He is in high demand by accounting firms because he passed all four parts in 2 sittings. I have a feeling we are going to have to move somewhere. I finally have a little pop out belly but have lost over 16 lbs. I am still sick but the Zofran helps and has made it where I don't just have to lay in bed all day. By the way...the Zofran should be made of GOLD. 30 day supply is over $500 bucks. This month we had the joy of the Diabetes test. I do not function these days without taking the Zofran before getting out of bed. They scheduled the test for 8am hoping I would get up and be okay until 9 am when the test was over. We made it to the hospital and I was still holding it together. They brought the orange drink in at 8am. It took me about 30 minutes to get it down. They needed me to keep it down for 30 minutes and then they were going to check my blood. At 15 minutes, they had to bring me a cool cloth. I wasn't feeling well. At 20 minutes, I was feeling rather sick. At 25 minutes, I was about to explode and had asked for a trash can. At 30 minutes, one nurse was holding the trash can and one was taking my blood. I went home sick and was useless for the balance of the week. Needless to say, the blood sugar was high. BIG surprise. Since I FAILED the 1 hour test, they called and said they would need for me to do the 3 hour test....LOL! I almost laughed in their face. If I couldn't keep the stuff down for 30 minutes, how did they propose I keep it, or anything else down, for 3 hours? They didn't know, they just knew that was the procedure. I asked to speak with the nurse. They said if I didn't want to take the 3 hour test they would just assume I was diabetic and make me do the diabetic diet. I thought, well, it can't be anyworse than what I have been doing, so I opted to go on the diabetic diet. They set me up to go meet with a dietitican, Rona Wharton. Rona and I were office sweetmates when I worked at Bruce Hospital so I knew her and she knew me. Rona began by asking me what I was eating...I told her exactly what had been going on for 4 months. She assured me I was not diabetic but gave me a machine to check my sugar a few times a day anyway. She helped me come up with several ideas on foods that I might try to eat and keep down. Her suggestions included cold cuts, or cold meats, sandwiches, begals, cereal bars, sugar free ice cream, cream cheese, begals, baked potatos, noodles, veggie soup, orange juice, green beans, grapes, apples, peanut butter and salty foods. Her suggestions really helped. I was glad I went to her for help. The diet was actually more food than what I was eating before I went. My weight loss has leveled off. Mary Catherine has been moving alot this month. It feels like I have butterflies in there. It is a really neat feeling. I sing to the baby alot. I especially like the Star Spangled Banner right now. Kevin talks to her via my belly button...he thinks it is like a direct line to Mary Catherine. I love it when he does this. One morning when we were out in Tennessee at the Celebration, I was laying in bed. My belly kept twitching. It was the oddest thing. For a minute, I layed very still and wondered what in the world was happening... then it hit me ...she has the hickups. It was a precious moment. I did really well at the Celebration. I was not sick at all. I loved the country ham sandwiches...I ate one every night at the show. I also ate the homemade ice cream they sell at the show. It was wonderful! Those 10 days I actually gained 1 lb.

Tuesday, July 23, 2002

Month Four...IT'S A GIRL!

On July 23rd, 2002 Kevin and I went in and met with Dr. Chapman for an ultra sound test. When they turned the machine on, I just knew you were a girl. The moment, I saw your little face, I knew it. It was so amazing to see you in there. You had all of your tiny little parts. I checked them all off one by one as they labled them. Kevin squeezed my hand everytime they would label a different part. At the very end, Mrs Cathy, the ultra sound tech told us...all indications are that it is a GIRL! We were so excited. She pushed on my stomach to get you to turn over...you got mad and kicked back at the ultra sound machine. A girl...her name will be Mary Catherine Rawlinson. We will call her Mary Catherine. I am going to have a daughter.

This has got to get better. I am officially not having fun! I am so sick and I do not crave anything. My only desire is for this baby to get here FAST! I am down 12 lbs. The doctors are worried about my weight loss. They are looking into new options for me. They have found another drug that might help...it is called Zofran. It is a drug they give Cancer patients on
Chemo and are sick. I will try anything at this point. My thoughts are of what the baby will be like. Will it be like me or kevin? I wonder if you will sleep all night and if I will hear you when you cry for me. I wonder what we will do together and if you will like to do the same things kevin and I like to do. I wonder if I can really do this Mommy thing. I am scard to death.

Wednesday, July 17, 2002

Month 3....Still sick

The sickness is not getting better. So far pregnancy has been the worst experience of my life. I still can't eat or be around food. I have given up on the no caffeine thing. I tried to do it for 3 months. I told the doctors and they said...don't give that up if you can keep it down. They do want me to limit my intake. So, I started back drinking one cup of coffee in the morning and having a diet coke with a meal. It seems to ease the severe headaches I have been having.

All of the sickness, nausea, and depression has caused me to start having panic attacks. It feels like I am having a heart attack. I am so worried that you are not getting the right nutrients. I am still losing weight but, I don't know what to do. I am down 9 lbs at the end of the third month. My pants are getting tight around the waist but falling off everywhere else. I do need maturnity clothes now. I borrowed some maturnity clothes from Laurie Parks because I haven't felt like shopping. Laurie is about 1 foot taller than me so her pants are a bit too long. The shirts were great thou. Mom and I are going out to the mall and see if we can find me some stuff in the next few weeks.

My eyes are blood shot because, I have thrown up so much that the vessels in my eyes have bursted. The rash on my face is worse. They call it the MASK of pregancy. It looks aweful. They say it will go away once the baby gets here. My back and sides ache so bad, they say it is from the strain of throwing up so much. My platelets and sodium are very low. They suggested I take iron tablets...yeah right...those stayed down about 5 minutes. I have allergies and they have taken me off of all of my allergy medication so I now have a severe sinus infection for which they can give me nothing. My color isn't good and I feel sickly most of the time.

The doctors have now told me to go home and not try to work. I don't know how I am going to deal with not working. However, I haven't been getting much work done anyway this last month. I have been playing classical and piano music for the baby.

Wednesday, June 26, 2002

MonthTWO- OH! I AM SO SICK...

I feel like my insides are going to come up my throat. This is aweful. I have now been sick everyday, several times a day, since week 4. I can not keep the vitamins down. I throw them up as soon as they go down. For several days, I tried to eat flintstone vitamins. I was throwing them up too. I can keep Dasani Water down and that is about it. I gave up caffeine and have been trying to reduce my intake of sugar. I have aweful caffeine head aches. I have tried all of the "wise tales" to prevent the nausea- none of them are working. I even had someone tell me to try buttermilk. The thought of that made me sick. I tried the kids throw up medicine--Ipakack? Cherry flavor got to be a staple for a while. Someone suggested eating ginger candy. This is not recommended by me. It is nasty. I went and bought the SEA BANDS-- they did not work. I honestly do not thing there is anything that can stop this.

I have named my toilet the "porceline god". I have been establishing a very intimate relationship with my toilet. I spend several hours a day and night hugging it. I actually had Kevin go to the store and buy a lemon smelly thing to hang on the side of the "porceline god". Figured, I am spending so much time there, I may as well be smelling something clean, fresh and light. It isn't helping.

My sence of smell is unbelieveable. I can smell things now that I never smelled before. Meat is the worst smell. It disgust me at this point. My hair seems to be falling out in chunks, I have this rash on my face and I am also having incontinance issues.I have a constant sence of urgency. I have to go every 30 minutes and every hour on the hour during the night. Thus, I am getting no sleep. Celia says it isn't the baby that is making me have to go. I will remind her of this when she is PG one day. No one tells you these things are going to happen to you when you get PG. Everyone talks about how wonderful being pregnant is. My favorte is I never felt better than when I was pregnant....I am not having this "wonderful experience" all the girls describe. I have never felt this bad in my life.

I think the baby is a girl At the end of the 2nd month I have lost 3 1/2 pounds. My diet consist of basically anything I can keep down. Occasionally, I can keep down chicken sandwiches, jello, dole fruit bars, soup, toaster strudles, pudding, pizza and french fries. I can not keep milk down. I gag the whole time I brush my teeth. Toothpaste taste aweful to me. Today, I threw up in the doctors office, they decided to give me phenegrin. I am drunk now and that isn't helping the nausea situation.

The doctors say the babies birthday will be January 2nd, 2003. 01/02/03---> How cool is that?

At week 7 1/2 I spotted. It was very scary for me. Kevin was in Columbia taking the CPA exam so Mom took me to the doctor. They did an ultra sound and everything looked okay. The baby looked like a little peanut. I could hear its heart beating and so did Mom. The doctors felt like everything was okay. They said it could have been all the straining from throwing up.

I ended up in the hospital on Father's day. I was so dehydrated. They gave me some IV's and nausea medication. I really relaxed and was finally able to sleep.

I am very uncomfortable wearing underware. My panties are so uncomfortable. I have been hunting bikini underware for pregant women. They are not easy to find.

We are playing the name game. I am thinking about Isabella and Annabelle. Kevin and Celia think those are awful names. If it is a boy we are going to name him Rowland Davis Rawlinson. We are going to call him Davis. We have toyed with the idea of Laughlin, Braxton and Hampton for first names. Girl names are harder. Several options are Mary Catherine Rawlinson, Elleanor Love Rawlinson, Emma Grace Rawlinson, and Lyndsey Love Rawlinson. We would call them Mary Catherine, Ella or Love, Emma, or Lyndsey. Who knows what we will come up with.