Pregnant sick wife + Miserable sick husband = Nuclear reaction

It's been a few days since I've been on here...we were a couple of "Sick Hicks" for the last few days... (say that 5 times fast!)

Gotcha Dad heehee:) you know you can't resist!

Anyway...Ricky and I woke up Monday with sore throats, sinus migraines and the feeling like we got hit with a brick which usually means allergies gone wrong, WAY wrong! Ricky was running a fever and thankfully I was not...which I was praying non-stop to keep away as there is very little I can take medicinally while pregnant.

Neither of us moved from our horizontal positions until 1pm when the baby finally decided that it needed something to eat...I made it to get a snack and then fell back to sleep until 4pm... At this point we decided we needed to get some kind of real sustenance and raided the refrigerator for leftovers.

As you can tell the 2 most productive things we did all day were eat a real meal and watch a couple episodes of Chuck… We were back in bed by 11pm having done no dishes, no laundry, no housework…the house looked like who did it and ran…and both of us were still feeling punky!

Ricky was still running a fever and was freezing. I seemed to be trying to compete with him in the opposite direction! I was SWELTERING! Come night time, after about an hour in bed I was down to my skivvies with no covers the fan blowing and I still couldn’t get cool. Ricky on the other hand was a furnace! But he was freezing of course since he had a fever. He kept trying to get close to me since I felt warm…the most I could stand was to put my feet on him and even that got to be too hot!

Ricky continued to freeze (my fan was not helping of course) so he got up and put more clothes on, then got up to get another blanket…mind you the time is getting later and later…I HAVE to go to work in the morning, sick or not, because I have a training that I’m required to attend the next 4 days… Being a light sleeper, every time he moves around it keeps waking me up (or gets too close to me in his sleep and I start dreaming that I’m sun burning on the beach in July!)

Finally Ricky decides he’s gonna make some tea to try to get warm and goes to the kitchen. I roll over and doze off thinking, “If I get into a deep enough sleep before he gets back…” You get the idea… the next thing I know, I hear “sip, sip, sip, clink, clink, sip, sip” and I’m like what the hell is that?! After about 3 seconds it registered exactly where the offending noise was coming from! All I can think is “You have got to be kidding me…?! It’s 4 AM!” It continued, “sip, sip, clink, clank, clink, clink…”

I had had enough…there were 2 choices that immediately surfaced in my mind.

1. Smother him with the pillow
2. Beat him senseless with whatever was closest

Neither were GOOD choices, but hey when you’re pregnant AND sick…the last thing you’re thinking is sensibly! (The sensible side did kick in shortly thereafter so I’m happy to report, my child will still have a father!: P) I grabbed my pillow, blanket, fan and marched my little self to the couch…

Where it took me another 40 mins to fall back to sleep because I had to cool down the nuclear reactor…

(In his defense if I had asked him to go back to the kitchen, he would’ve. BUT I had enough for one night and figured it was easier to move me then try to deal with any more…)

Me and baby's day off...

Ah Saturday, yay! What a very necessary day to the week… Everyday seems to be a little bit longer with the ongoing “joys” of pregnancy as my constant companions, but Saturday means I get to sleep in, hang out in my pj’s (something I have come to adore in the last 3 weeks) and catch up on things like homework, reading, and the occasional bit of housework…

There are a couple of disadvantages to having one car again… 1. I have to take the train to and from work which depending on the day can be not so fun! (Like earlier this week where I spent 30+ mins in the rain waiting for a late train at a station that for some reason demolished the only covering on the outbound side, yes I’m talking about you Glenside: P) 2. Getting possession of the car on the weekends requires an hour drive to drop Ricky off and an hour drive to pick him up…when you get car sick easily, it’s just easier to stay home.

But the advantages are that it forces me to take it easy, I get stuff done and it’s good bonding time for me and baby while we’re home alone… Trust me when you’re in a house by yourself for 7-8 hours, talking to your slightly rounded stomach doesn’t seem so strange… it’s better than talking to yourself which I was inclined to do at times…oh yes, and turn the TV on loud for background noise…

Our big mission for today was to take my Macroeconomics final which is easier said than done when baby is robbing me of short term memory and the ability to concentrate for long periods… Who would have thought pregnancy = ADD?! Anyway, we slept in late, contemplated getting up for another hour while munching on cookies and then finally got up… (I started wishing for my Honey Nut Chex which happened to be in the kitchen). Ate breakfast while watching Babar the elephant which happened to be one of my favorites in the library’s children section a lot of years ago! Put on new pj’s (a girl has to have her standards, mine consist of changing from night pj’s to day pj’s so I feel like I’ve actual gotten UP) and then sat down to my Macroeconomics book.

Now I’ve found that if you read, write and “teach” yourself key points while studying you tend to retain information so I commenced to writing out certain terms that I wasn’t clear on and reading aloud while explaining to myself important concepts…I figured I needed to engage as many of my senses as possible… this lasted for about 10 mins at which point I wandered off into the bathroom to pee, saw some dirty towels, decided to put a wash on and forgot that I was studying… After putting on the wash I saw that the dishes were dirty, stopped to clean them, found the sponge smelled yucky so I boiled it… while boiling, I discovered that enough time had passed in my wanderings to necessitate eating yet again…

My new craving… BLT’s… oh yes and most things with mayo…this is odd as my “normal” self was not a fan! There was just enough bacon and bread left for one last BLT *angel choir singing* I enjoyed every last delicious bite as I watched House reruns…after the dust had settled, I saw my homework on the desk and remembered that I was supposed to be studying for my final…back I went… As the day progressed, I realized that the first truly valuable lesson my child was learning in vitro was the concepts of Macroeconomics and I swelled with pride…

Until I had a picture of Ben Stein float into my head and I panicked… OH NO!!! What if my baby turns into a complete dork like Ben Stein, holy crap what am I thinking?!! (P.S. to those who haven’t been pregnant, this is a perfectly normal and very REAL concern that would pop into a pregnant woman’s head) Oh dear, what should I do? My kid’s gonna be the most hated kid in high school…albeit a very rich person in later life…BUT NO!!! How do I undo this?!!

Ok well, than the rational side of me resurfaced and laughed wholeheartedly at the absurdity that is the emotional irrational side of me and slapped it silly… all was well in the world again! :)

If my child turns into a world class economist, I’m sure it will get enough of Ricky’s genes to keep it from being a complete outcast in high school!  Problemed solved!  After 8 hours, Daddy-to-be came home to find me and baby back in bed napping having endured a long day of wandering and panicking and somehow managing to study and pass my darn final…

Oh yes, I went there...

As per the titles suggestion, this post is NOT for the faint of heart…nor the squeamish…please turn back now if this is you :)

Today’s topic…near and dear to those who have been pregnant, but rarely talked about openly…the fact of life we call…constipation… I keep it real (if you couldn’t tell from the rest of my posts yet). I have a “say it as it is” policy in life…so if this is one of the facts of pregnancy, we’re gonna talk about it!

This was my big ol’Welcome to the 10th Week of Pregnancy (btw for those of you who don’t know, when you are 9 weeks they say you are “entering the 10th week”)…just like clockwork, it was here…that lovely cramping in the lower abdominal region coupled by the “Are my eyes brown, cause I sure as hell feel FULL?!” And I thought I was doing everything right…

So I doubled my intake of water…which just made me feel permanently glued to the toilet seat (and NOT for the reason I was trying for, heavens…) I tried consuming more leafy greens, but my aversion to most salad dressings wasn’t helping this… My cousin Jen, who is also pregnant and Gluten Free, suggested GF cereal that’s high in fiber…so I went on the hunt… Finally found a hot breakfast cereal that fit the bill… no luck… At this point I’m beginning to wonder if what went in would EVER come out?!! Was it just going to somehow absorb into my body tissue… Was it normal to have this many problems, this many solutions and still no “Houston, we have lift off”?!!

Rather than dwell on the clock and tick off each minute of suffering, I decided to find out exactly what caused this…turns out this was my body’s way of allowing my baby to absorb as much nutrients as possible from every last thing I digested…how sweet!... NOW GET IT OUT!!! The baby has had ENOUGH…okay?! I promise to eat more…holy Toledo…

Anyway, finally Ricky suggested prune juice…yuck…I’ll try anything at this point! And he picked some up…low and behold…being pregnant has changed my taste buds, apparently…

I like prune juice…

Not kidding, it’s delicious…and it’s great mixer with apple juice, grape juice and pomegranate juice as well! What a discovery!

But would it work…umm…next day, sitting at the office, stomach starts rumbling like a hurricane just hit Lansdale…and yes, my friends, I am HAPPY to say, “I ain’t so full of crap as I used to be!” :)

The Beginning of it All

I tend to start things right in the middle of the action so I thought I would jump back to the beginning for today and tell you the story of how our baby came to be…

It started about a year ago when I finally found out why I was so sick…for those of you who don’t know I have a severe gluten intolerance. It wrecked havoc on my body, lost 10 pnds in less than a year…and with a very slight frame and difficulty gaining weight; this is NOT a good thing. The doctors were frank with me; my body was malnourished and damaged…having children may not be in my future and definitely not my immediate future! Ricky and I love kids, but we decided…if God wanted us to have kids then he would give them to us…either by my body or by our hearts…we wanted to adopt even if we were able to conceive so it was an easy decision. We got married on July 25th, 2009 and decided to wait at least 2-3 yrs to try to conceive to give my body time to recover.

Fast forward 7 months, it’s Valentine’s Day…and hey, we’re not huge on the “Hallmark Holidays” but for once Ricky had the day off and it was our 1st Valentine’s Day together as husband and wife…

Some background for you: While we were dating Ricky bought a shirt that had written out “The Perfect Day”… It went something like this...

The Perfect Day

1. Eat Breakfast

2. Play Video Games

3. Eat Lunch

4. Play Video Games

5. ETC…You get the idea…

Well, I took exception to this shirt…there was nothing on there about doing anything with any other PEOPLE like hey maybe your girlfriend! And it wouldn’t have been so bad except, Ricky was REALLY like that for a time…he ate, slept and played video games! So every chance I got I hid the shirt…this didn’t work very well…finally I had a better idea…I wrote my own version titled “My Perfect Day” and texted it to him…it went something like this…

My Perfect Day

1. Sleep in late snuggled up with my Ricky

2. Eat breakfast in bed with my Ricky

3. Watch a silly movie in our pj’s with my Ricky

4. Eat lunch somewhere I’ve never been with my Ricky

5. ETC…each thing ended “with my Ricky”

The idea was to make a point…apparently it did because the list magically reappeared almost a year later when we were married 7 months on Valentine’s Day. Ricky decided as my gift that he was going to give me “My Perfect Day”… It didn’t go exactly as planned but we hit some of the items on the list like eating lunch at Ooka Sushi in Montgomeryville, somewhere we had never been before. And then we took a nap since we didn’t get to sleep in since it was Sunday…and then well, we did what married people do and it seems that somewhere in the fine print of “My Perfect Day”, God wrote “Make a baby” because that’s what we did…Oops *giggles*

We of course didn’t know this so we proceeded on with the day and got ready to go salsa dancing… Ricky called me in the kitchen and from the sound of his voice I could tell he was up to something, sure enough there he stood with his “The Perfect Day” shirt and a lighter…Whoosh! The shirt went up in flames in the middle of the kitchen with me hollering, “Holy Crap! You’re gonna burn the house down!!” Thankfully Ricky had a pot and lid ready to dump the thing into so the house was saved… I was incredulous and told him he could’ve just given the shirt away, but he said this sent a better message… (yes, that I married a piro lol) but I appreciated the gesture immensely!

We fell into bed that night, exhausted and happy…it really was perfect because we just had a grand ol’time being best friends and lovers…

Fast forward 2 weeks… I’m in Target’s baby section buying a baby shower gift for a friend with my sister and suddenly double over the Dunkin Donuts bag that we had in the cart… My vanilla chai latte wanted to come back up… Maria was very concerned, but I told her not to worry it was probably a cross-contamination thing and I was just having a gluten reaction…”or maybe I’m just allergic to the Baby Section lol” (yes, I had jokes)…

Fast forward 3 more weeks… no period, ok I think that’s probably because I got contaminated with gluten and my body’s recovering, it’s just late… 5 days… still nothing… Okay, maybe this is NOT a gluten thing…hmmm…so I go to the pharmacy to get a test and I want to use cash so Ricky doesn’t see the purchase on the bank account and ask questions… I only had $9…low and behold, the test came to exactly $9… <- This is the first moment where I go, I think I know what this test is gonna say when I take it…

That night I dreamed that I was pregnant <- second moment…so when I woke at 7 am I ran to the bathroom bursting with anticipation… And not even 30 secs, there it was in all its blue lined glory…

PREGNANT!

…The next few minutes were a blur of laughing, crying, screaming silently, spinning, sitting and gazing at the little test in amazement… then came the realization, I have to tell Ricky! But I can’t, he’s barely coherent at 7 am most days and completely incoherent at 7 am on a Saturday!!! So I wait…2 and a half brutally arduous hours… til I couldn’t stand it anymore! He was getting up! So I decided to make this as pleasant as possible…I made breakfast and wrote a note to him from the baby telling of its arrival which I laid by his dish with the positive test and went to wake him up.

He stumbled out of bed with a sleepy smile on his face and sat down… his eyes caught the note, but didn’t register… then he realized it was for him and started to read it… I knew the moment he started to wake up because his eyes just got bigger and bigger…and then all he could say was “Wow”… (this is the part where you switch to his blog for his full reaction lol http://rickyhusbandfatherbboy.blogspot.com/).

The most ironic part of this whole story is that my first maternity appointment with my doctor was already scheduled…it was just scheduled as an appointment to change birth control lol! …but hey God has a sense of humor He was reserving the appointment for me, I just didn’t know it!

So there it is my friends… that’s the little caramel latte’s story…

Prego Yoga

It was always pretty ironic to me that “Prego” is the short, cutesy term for being pregnant. In Italian, Prego means “You’re Welcome”…pretty fitting wouldn’t you say?! You’re welcome, baby, for taking over my body for 9 months and wrecking havoc on my otherwise benign existence. You’re welcome, baby, for giving me a sore back, mood swings, exhaustion along with an interrupted sleep pattern of an ever expanding body with a hungry occupant who wants milk and cookies at say 4:50 am. Like I said, ironically fitting… Oh yeah and not having said cookies in the house at 4:50am…Not good people…

But anyway…Prego Yoga…so I’ve been doing Yoga and Pilates for a while off and on at the gym, but since we’re down to one car (with me taking the train to work), I have no way to get there. Rather than skip out on a very important exercise that builds strength and flexibility, something I’m told I’ll need for the “Great Stretch” of childbirth…Oooooo I can’t wait *shudders*, I figured I’d be proactive and find a substitute. Netflix obliged with a “Pregnancy Yoga” video that’s about 30 mins, perfect for after work while dinner’s cooking, right?!

Dinner’s on…took a little longer than planned, but I’m still committed…pop on the video and get ready to bust some yoga…about 11 mins into the video, Ricky (my husband for those of you who may not know) comes home.

Men & women’s exercise videos…BAD combo…

He proceeds to start his running commentary of “Who is cute enough to have his baby” (Oh yeah, Ricky’s knew standard of beauty is whether or not he would have a child with you *sarcastic smirk*) and “Holy cow, are you sure she’s pregnant, she just looks really FAT!”…you get the idea… This earned him getting kicked out of his sacred “Man Cave” where the TV happens to be, to his laptop with a “Stir dinner, please!”

Trust me, it’s hard enough for ME to take these videos seriously as it is…with all these pregnant women in spandex, strangely devoid of stretch marks, smiling like they’re getting paid…Oh wait, they are! But I was really trying here… the winter has me pretty lackadaisical in the exercise department. So I press on…finally when they all lean forward to touch their toes and barely can see them, never mind touch them…I lost it…sorry, I just couldn’t take it anymore…all I could think was “Just another centimeter and it’s gonna look like Prego dominos!”

So I’ve come to a decision…I’m switching back to Regular yoga and pilates videos until I’m at least further along to fully enjoy the “I can’t see my toes” experience of Prego Yoga…

P.S. Just to be clear I do “Power Yoga”…the other chanting type creeps me out…

What are THESE?!!

For those of us who spent all of our teens and part of our twenties wondering when our “ladies” were finally going to come in, I have some news! Get Pregnant! Holy Toledo! I went from, Yay, I finally fill out a shirt more than a 12 year old… to What the Heck are These?!! Needless to say, all of that gorgeous lingerie that you all bought me just 8 months ago will have to be put aside for a while… these “mamas” are NOT gonna fit in ANY of it! Thankfully I have 1 bra left that fits to hold me over until I can get re-sized…though from what I’m seeing, they just keep growing so I’m not sure if I should bother yet?!

Thankfully, I have a sleeping bra that makes the nights bearable…who would’ve thought that such a token of womanhood would be so darn painful! And what a shame as my poor husband thinks they are just marvelous in all of their new found glory…but they have been relegated to the “Look, but Do Not Touch” list lol! :)


So my latest past time has been looking up funny maternity t-shirts…I give you my personal favorites for consideration so far…

“I Can Grow People. What’s Your Superpower?”

“It’s Not Over Till The Fat Lady Screams”

“Yes, I'm pregnant again, yes, we know what causes it!” <- for those who are a 2nd, 3rd, or more :

“Yeah, like "OMG, you are HUGE!" is an appropriate thing to say to a pregnant woman.”

“If those are my relatives I hear out there, I’m not coming out!”

And my all time favorite (for now)... “All I wanted was a BACKRUB!”

Well time to go back to Baby Yoga, I'm sure I'll have something to say about that tomorrow! : P

The Great Pizza Caper!

For those of you who have been pregnant, know someone pregnant, have been AROUND someone pregnant, you have probably experienced the spontaneous exclamations of overwhelming desire for some food item…also known as a “CRAVING”!

Well, the future spaghetti-bender (ie: the baby) has been demanding lasagna, macaroni, and finally…PIZZA… Now a craving for pizza, most would think…cheap…easy…no problem, now I don’t have to cook dinner!

Problem #1. Has to be Gluten Free Pizza

Problem Solution – Jules Pizza in Doylestown, awesome GF Pizza…Yummy!

Problem #2. Craving has hit at 9:45pm, Jules closes at 8pm

Problem Solution – Grandma’s Grotto Pizza, not as awesome, but still…a yummy solution!

Problem #3. GF Pizza is not cheap

Problem Solution – Skip delivery and pick it up, thus saving the delivery cost…cheap’er solution!

Problem #4. Ricky doesn’t want to go out again for the umpteenth time

Problem Solution – I’ll go pick it up!

So the order is placed and the foaming at the mouth in anticipation begins…The order will be ready in about 20 minutes...The pizzeria is about 10 minutes away…

And then there it is…on the table...the red, white and green box gleaming bright…I grab plates while Ricky grabs the pizza cutter and opens the box to dish it up…

He gets a perplexed look on his face…7 pieces of pizza, with the 8th piece glaringly MISSING!?!

TINA!!!!!!!!!! (insert TINA into the sound byte for Ricky Ricardo calling “Lucy”)

Umm...pleading the 5th…

(But seriously, you try being in the car for 10 minutes smelling the very melted mozzarella, steaming tomato and basil over a thin slightly doughy, just the right crunchy crust of the thing called pizza that you've been craving, I dare you!)

< - Obviously not our pizza...but it looked something like this beauty here, ORIGINALLY:)




Lesson Ricky learned that night – if you send a pregnant woman to pick up your pizza, be happy if ANY of it makes it back to the house, never mind 7 out of 8 pieces!

Gestating, Regurgetating, Expanding...and more!

My decorative bed pillows have become my sleep companions...successfully putting a wedge between my husband and me, at least of the cotton stuffing variety...I've become almost impossible to sleep with and we're only 8 (almost 9 weeks) into this 40 week journey! Between the nightly potty trips, putting clothes on/taking them off due to the fluctuations of HOT & COLD, turning the fan on, off, on, off, and the constant tripping over my various store of water, crackers, chips, etc that lay surrounding the bed...my husband will need a medal by the end of this!

My mouth tastes like I have vinegar in it regularly...the smell of toothpaste makes me nauseous...and I sit at my desk with a box of Honey Nut Chex in my lap, one hand steadily going from box to mouth...this is one of the ways I break up the monotony of Crackers!

My pants DO NOT, I repeat do not close anymore unless I'm standing and not breathing deeply...or are of the spandex, rayon, polyester, elastic band variety <- ie: NOT work pants for the most part! Improvisation is my middle name as rubberbands, paperclips and any other "closure methods" are employed to make the pants last as long as possible. Acquisition of the week will be - BellyBand...this lovely little contraption allows you to wear your Pre-Pregger pants for longer, if not the entire pregnancy! Does it work, have no idea....Worth a try, Absolutely!

My energy is non-existent, there are exactly 2 hrs in a day where I feel any ounce of energy…by the time I get in from work, I take a 1-3 hour nap…make dinner, do homework, visit w/Ricky… drop into bed to sleep for 8-12 hours and wake up feeling like I barely slept… This is most likely due to the nightly dance of the pregger, reference first paragraph.

All this said…I am PREGNANT…we’re having a BABY…and I couldn’t be happier about it! (This will give me something to tell my kid when it’s acting up later…”Do you know what I went through to bring you into this world…”) Lol!;)  Thank God, for our little miracle…

8 weeks:) It graduated from tadpole to squirrel!

The Whole World Stinks!

Well the morning was the pits...started out with a lovely jaunt to the car by the open reeking dumpsters, had my crackers and a mango protein shake...then had to run to catch the train, whose brakes were smoking REALLY bad, almost lost the crackers/protein shake getting on the train, spent the whole train ride with my sweater over my nose and finally after the LONGEST twenty-five mins of my life the train arrived in Lansdale where I ran to the cafe to grab a gingerale to keep the protein shake down...

My boss, Joe, was laughing at me when I finally stumbled in the office because apparently I was green! He apologized for laughing, but I told him if I was him I'd be laughing at me too! Been trying to keep food in me since as long as I have food in my stomach, I'm okay. Problem - this kid is eating through the food like it's water! It's like an alien invasion! Plus finding enough Gluten Free snacks is always a challenge...an apple doesn't fill you as long as a box of Cheez-Its...Boy, do I miss those...

Then the craving hit...Amy's Gluten Free Mac & Cheese...must have it NOW! Problem - no car...Solution - steal Dad's. So I ran over to the cafe demanded the keys (and no one would get hurt of course) and went to Giant. There it was so beautiful on the shelf...if it wasn't a completely frozen brick, I would've eaten half on the way back to my office! Problem solved *satisfied sigh*

Still queasy on and off, but as the day goes on it generally gets better...All I have to say is pregnancy makes me think of a silly story Mom told me when I was little about a man who had limburger cheese on his mustache and didn't know it, who found that it stunk everywhere he went and finally declared, "The Whole World Stinks." Here's to the superhero senses of us preggers!:) Can't wait to get to 14 weeks!