Tag: symptoms

pity-party.

pity-party.

by Joanne ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

tissues
We’ll return to our regularly-scheduled happy person tomorrow.

Pardon me for a moment. I’ve been trying so hard to stay upbeat, and today the façade just cracked. I’ve spent the better part of two days breathing through pain. The only things that provide relief are hot showers or hot sex. And I’m not getting nearly enough of the latter right now to make me feel better.

Having this kind of unabated pain is isolating. I mean, my parents and the boy know that I’m not doing so well, I just don’t think they understand what it is I’m dealing with. Most of my day is spent willing myself to make it through another 30 seconds. One minute. Five. Ten minutes. Half-hour. Hour. It’s certainly a test of endurance – I mean, how much longer can I do this? How much longer until I can take another Codeine? How long can I make it without one?

Tonight, while in the shower – and for the first time since this whole ordeal started – I cried. Everything just hurts so much. I know that this will pass, but I’m just frazzled. Exhausted and scared. What are all these drugs going to do to my baby? How long am I going to have to continue taking them? How will I manage without them?

Speaking of my baby, while I am a total basket-case, she (she! heh) has been a little trooper. She’s active in there, rolling and flailing about, seemingly unaffected by the hardcore drugs filtering through my system. Feeling her move reassures me that I’ve not ruined her health or turned her into a vegetable with my pill-popping.

I’ll keep holding on for now.

For her.

weekend wrap-up: bits and bites.

weekend wrap-up: bits and bites.

by Joanne ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

cc8e2448-1
Bits ‘n’ Bites. My favourite snack as a kid.

weighing in
Yesterday marked the start of my eighth week of pregnancy. According to the pregnancy app, my little one is now about the size of a raspberry, and weighs less than half an ounce.

penny for your thoughts
The boy and I both have a lot going on right now. His recent hernia diagnosis, his impending surgery, this pregnancy and a lack of freelance work coming my way. We’re both stressed and a little testy, but it’s interesting to note how differently we deal with things. He bottles up and boils over, whereas I try not to dwell, because then whatever I’m worried about festers and grows into something much bigger than it is. And he thinks that because I’m not outwardly grumpy (until I’m around him, funny that), it means that I’m not taking things seriously. Worry doesn’t change a damn thing, I told him, so I don’t much care for doing it.

mean but oh, so funny
There’s dog shaming, cat shaming and, really just pet-shaming in general (here and here). However, this one, which is kind of like kid shaming, is the best yet. What started as a blog turned into a viral phenomenon and quickly took off (resonating with parents of toddlers everywhere, no doubt), spawning  this book.

(I could totally see myself doing something like this to my kid. Poor thing).

OT: thoughts on the trayvon martin fiasco
I really haven’t said much about the case over the last few weeks, and now that the verdict has been handed down, I still don’t have much to say. It’s disappointing, but not surprising. It also makes me worry about raising a little boy child in this day and age. If I had a boy, my son would most likely be rather fair-skinned (and perhaps not even immediately recognizable to some as half-black), but there’s a chance he could be closer to brown, like me. And maybe when he’s older, and he’s somewhere, at some time (perhaps the wrong time), something akin to what happened to Trayvon Martin could happen to my him. How would I explain this to a child? Read more ›

prohibition.

prohibition.

by Joanne ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

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And so, we bid a sad adieu to my once-monthly treat of bloody cow flesh and other goodies. Pregnant ladies have no fun.

So, my bloodwork came back from the lab, and now it’s one hundred per cent official. I’m having a bean, and I’m due somewhere around the 28th of February.

After confirming the news and the estimated due date, my doctor gave me a little moms-to-be package to read when I got home, and a quick rundown of all the things I can and cannot do/eat/think/wear/imagine/try now that I am Officially With Child. She also made me my first appointment with an OB GYN. She asked if I wanted a male or female specialist, and to be honest, it really didn’t matter. So she chose Dr. Freedman – “You’ll like her, she’s good,” I was told – and rang up her receptionist to book me for the next month. During the call, she made mention of “patient’s AMA.” When she was done, I asked her what AMA stood for. “Advanced Maternal Age,” came the reply. Doctor-speak for “you’re old and your ovaries are dusty.”

I have a feeling I’m going to be hearing this acronym a lot over the next nine months.

Chez moi, I perused the whack of pamphlets and information that was given to me during my appointment. Read more ›

she’s having a baby.

she’s having a baby.

by Joanne ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

pink lines

Crazy ain’t it?

In hindsight, this makes total sense. The debilitating tiredness and the mood swings. The strange and overwhelming cravings for meat, and the breast tenderness. All month long, the boy’s been commenting that my boobs are looking bigger. At least now we know why.

Speaking of whom, he didn’t even flinch when I told him the news yesterday. I’d called him into the bathroom to show him the test. He stared at it for a second, and asked, “what am I looking for? There’s one dark line and one really light one. Does that mean you’re not pregnant?”

“No,” I replied. “There are two lines. It means that I am. It doesn’t matter how faint they are.”

“Huh.” It wasn’t a question, more like a sound. “Huh.” He said it again, and smiled a little smile.

“Are you happy?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, babe. I’m happy.” I put the test down on the bathroom vanity and reached out to him for a hug. We stood holding each other for a few minutes, letting the reality of this new development sink in. We haven’t been getting along lately – he said it was like I had PMS all the time. Hormones. Pregnancy. Duh.

It all makes sense now.