Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner of Champions
March 04, 2008
So things have taken a turn for the queasy over here.
I'm not actually throwing up or anything (stretches a wan, weakened arm across the tiled bathroom floor to knock on the wood floor outside the door), but am instead walking around the house randomly gagging on air and smells and thoughts of smells and air that is full of smells and smelly smell smell smell.
The Coke keeps The Headaches at bay (I switched to Coke after discovering that coffee dry heaves taste like pine trees), and I'm about to tuck a sleeve of saltines into my (elastic) waistband and get a big dorky watch that beeps every 20 minutes to remind me to eat one. This was advice I got last time: keeping something in your stomach will actually keep you from puking.
I tried this last time. And the weirdest thing happened. I THREW UP. Food in, food out, taking the upward escape route. This (combined with some advice regarding "real" ginger ale vs. Canada Dry that we WILL NEVER SPEAK OF AGAIN) lead to a bit of Post-Traumatic-Assvice Syndrome that plagued the rest of my pregnancy. By the time we got to the c-section business, I was cowering in the corner, pleading for the Internet to leave me and my internal organs alone, pleassssse, there's Canada Dry in the fridge, just take it all and let me beeeee! I want to liiiiiive!
This time, the queasiness intensifies whenever I go too long without snacking. Snack snack snack. A couple weeks ago, this was awesome, what with the cookies and the brownies and the non-stop parade of cravings that felt so damn good to satisfy and I was probably about five minutes away from dipping pickles in vanilla ice cream or deep-frying some mini-marshmallows.
Now...it's pretty much saltines. Crunchy, salty, paste-y saltines. Mmmm.
In the interest of fairness and full-circle assvice redemption, I gave this theory another shot. Did I already say something about never speaking of this again? THIS TIME I MEAN IT.
***
In Child v.1.0 news, Noah has developed the habit of pressing his index finger on his lips while saying, "Hmmmm," and then excitedly pointing upwards and declaring, "I KNOW!" Then he runs out of the room.
It may be the cutest thing ever, except that it is driving me absolutely bonkers, because WHAT DO YOU KNOW, CHILD? WHAT?
we must see that cuteness factor in a movie type thing please... and he knows...
anyway here to feeling better... raise a glass of non-quessey time liquid!
To this day, one of my favorite comfort foods is buttered saltines. Yum! Right up there with chocolate!
Feel better Amalah!
Well, good thing this settled in AFTER the Tagalongs were properly dealt with.
I am 25 weeks preg., and I totally used your line the other night, after my husband watched me deep throat an entire sleeve of thin mints.
Kathryn channeling Amy (turning to the box of tagalongs on the butcherblock:) You're next motherfuckers.
little late here, but congrats on the pregnancy! I have saved the link for you Alpha Mom page to read along and experience this pregnancy with you week by week.
Love your writing style and your frank honesty, with the good and the bad.
Keep up the great writing, and hope you stop with the pukies sooner rather than later.
what a cutie!
Darcy here, the one who commented with a surprisingly similar due date. (It turns out that I'm more like 9 weeks along, though, and due in early October.)
I feel ya. February felt like the longest month of my life between the gray-cold-wet-weather and my not-morning-but-all-damn-day sickness. It eased up a little this week but I am still on uneasy terms with food. I now hate ginger ale and saltines, but chicken soup is okay. And I still love diet coke dammit, but I've cut way back on it 'cause everyone's all "you never know, so you shouldn't have any." Damn them and their paranoia.
Hey - I know you've mentioned Baby sign language DVDs - and that you've used them. Got a recommendation on what one to go with?
BTW - hang tough with the sickness stuff. I had a pregnancy much like your first. Threw up continuously. And if ONE.MORE.PERSON suggested "ginger-ale" or "crackers" or "keep your tummy full" - I would have thrown up on them too. I hope this is a short lived ickiness.
I would also like to request Noah's declaration of knowledge in live action... once you get off the bathroom floor, that is.
I'm so sorry for the assvice, but I swear to God this works for nausea...eat grapes. A handful of grapes. Any kind. For real. They stopped my puking and nausea immediately during those first three squishy pregnancy months.
Try it! No shit. It's awesome. And, CONGRATULATIONS!
o lord - with my second pregnancy I had to take diclectin (sp?) just to be able to eat the saltines. Feel better. And Eamon does something similar to except he yells "I have a good idea". and runs off. let me tell you that if you hear no noise - run and find the idea!
The part about Noah? Hilarious!
My kid does the same thing. He also likes to randomly yell, "I can't beliebe it!"
I love it.
No assvice from me. Every bit of assvice i tried with the last one (ginger tea, saltines, small regular mouthfuls of inoffensive nosh) made me retch. Pretty much all the way through the pregnancy. Even walking past the kitchen or supermarket.... bleeerrrrrrgggghhhhh.
Upside: I lost 4kg in the first trimester and hubby had to do all shopping and cooking.
Downside: It all came back to find me again, with interest, after the baby arrived. Gah.
I survived my entire second pregnancy on nothing but Zofran, pringles and Coke.
I seriously lost in it the hospital when the nutritionist asked me if I had tried Saltines? Like that was a new concept? At 5 months when I had done nothing but throw up all the live long day. By that point I had tried everything and the only thing my body liked was the pringles. That nutritionist was lucky to make it out of the room alive.
Best remedy--peanut butter! It keeps your blood sugar at a steady level, so nausea is kept at bay. Especially right before bed to keep "morning sickness" away.
note to self: do not read amy's blog while eating lunch until after october. the end.
The nausea of both pregnancies justified me eating a bag of potato chips (nearly) each day because something about the salti-greasiness of plain potato chips chased away the nausea. Miss Vickies worked best.
Good luck surviving :)
I'm 26 weeks prego and my son has learned how to gag. I caught him the other day. I heard him make the noise and spit. He was playing with his spit on my hard wood floors. Too many days he watched and heard me sick in the bathroom. I sure hope Noah doesn't pick this habit up.
My sympathies. I teetered on the verge of violent retching 24/7 for the entire nine months I was pregnant with Child #1 (boy). Strangely enough, I hadn't so much as a gurgle of nausea with Child #2 (girl). When I complained to my OB of never-ending nausea with #1, she smiled and said, "Good, it means your body is doing what it's supposed to." She was lucky she made it out of that exam room without being smacked upside the head. lol Hope you feel better soon!
I think we need video of Child v1.0's newest verbal entertainment!
I am sorry- I was hoping you would not feel sick this time.
I am pregnant with my second (another boy) and due in May. I was so much sicker with this one.
My first was just 24 hour nausea for about 8 weeks. This second was throwing up, Zofran pills and weekends in bed until week 18-19.
Some of the foods I could tolerate were:
chocolate milk, matzo ball soup from Parkway deli, white toast, little mayo and munster cheese.
I have NO idea why these foods were somewhat ok. Oh also root beer sometime helped.
Good luck I hope you feel better soon!
More belly pictures! Ye must be fawned over continuously until the fall! And afterwards, of course. BELLYBELLYBELLYBELLYBELLY!!!
(Too much Diet Coke. Sorry. :D)
Funny - exactly what happened to me my second pregnancy. Which resulted in beautiful identical twin girls :)
Noah is way too cute!
i so don't miss the first trimester nasty. i'm so very sorry you're hanging out with the nausea. i did the natural ginger ale bidness, but it didn't really help. fizzy water with lime (or lemon sometimes) was a better bet for me. and the coke. and oddly enough, salad.
oh, and delicious buttery toast. mmm.
The nausea nasties are different for different people. So for some women, eating consistently helps lots. And for others, it doesn't. I guess all I'm saying is that there is no one-size-fits-all cure for it. It sucks though.
Hope you get through it quickly.
I am so sorry all that cell division is gettng you down. The wonderous beauty of assvise is that it is right for someone somewhere. So, I will tell you to... hmmm... uh, EAT PROTEIN. Yeah. That's what always worked to cure my nausea. Of course, it was the least-appetizing-sounding of all the food groups, but if I could just. choke. it. down. I felt so much better. Best of all, even if it doesn't work for you... eh - it'll work for someone else and I'll STILL be right. Gotta love assvice. ;-)
I remember that "real" organic twigs and berries crap ginger ale. Nope. Canada Dry all the way. The other stuff was like drinking lighter fluid. Hub wanted me to eat all organic and food co-oppy. He ended up buying me Annie's mac and cheese, and that's all I ate for 4 months.
Except this, which I hope for you isn't assvice. These got me through teaching middle schoolers (smelly) who play instruments they don't often clean and blow spit into (super smelly) in a lunchroom (extremely smelly).
Lemon Drops and some organic fancy schmancy cheez doodles. "Baked Cheetos" the nurse told me. I thought she was on crack, but she was right. It totally worked. As long as I was eating them, I wasn't puking. (And I puked a LOT.)
Happy you're sick. It means things are developing well. :)
Does Noah watch Pinky Dinky Doo? KayTar used to do that exact same thing and we finally figured out she was copying the show.
Pregnancy sucks. But the babies are pretty cute, so it balances.
Child v. 1.0 - he's no dummy. He's not telling his inspirations until they are fully realized and copyrighted and/or patented. You can beg all you want.
well, obviously no advice from me, but maybe i'll have to ask YOU for some one day. ;)
i love the way you describe noah's new "thing"; i can just see how excited he must look. kind of like sherlock holmes cracking a case.
heh.
I did the whole organic ginger ale thing for about a week, until the mere smell of ginger ale made me want to hurl. Resorted to taking ginger tablets twice a day (along with B6) and it definitely helped (placebo effect or not, I'll take whatever I can get). I did sea bands, psi bands, the whole shebang. Stopped me from puking a lot, but I always still felt like I needed to. Good luck!
I don't even know if I ate for any of the first trimesters. I just remember lying down for about 8 weeks waiting for the nausea to pass. Although, brushing my teeth was about the worst. The gagging was usually my first pregnancy indicator.
Also, I'm not sure if this is possible, but Noah sounds even cuter than the last time you mentioned him.
Right there with ya. I am 8 wks. today. Not as far along as I once thought. I have to eat constantly. If I wait too long between feedings I basically just have to call it quits for the day because I get so sick. This is really weird.
If you can muster it, take ginger root pills/capsules (see GNC). I hate ginger ale, and these help me. I HATE nausea. This, of course, means you can actually keep anything down! Good luck, girl!
My son presses his index finger to his lips, says, "Hmmm," and follows it up with, "I HAVE A GREAT IDEA!" And then runs out of the room.
If you ever find out what Noah knows, please to be tellin' the interwebz -- it might give me some insight. ;P
Enough with the ginger ale and saltines assvice...seriously, do people think pregnant women lose their brains? We know they usually works for nausea. Hell, they even worked for us in the past, but nothing, I repeat,NOTHING, works now. Also, don't push your "keep your belly full" agenda on a sick, puking pregnant woman!
I'm so happy for your news on baby #2 and am puking along with you in week 13 of baby #1 over here. Wishing you clean, cold bathroom floors.
can you get that on video amy?
Ha! C puts her finger in the air and crows "I gotta deer!" and then runs off.
I'm 33, nearly 34 weeks with my first.
I was tremendously ill during the first trimester and for a goodish portion of second.
My worst moment came when, after trying Reglan, I was standing in line at the pharmacy to pick up my prescription for Zofran. I'm ashen, trying not to vomit because the man behind me in line smells like sauerkraut. I get to the counter and pick up the Zofran only to have the pharmacist ask, "Have you tried saltines?"
Were it not for the height of the counter, she'd be dead now.
No a*vice, just observation: That ginger stuff is crazy strong, andI think it gets stronger the longer it stands. I remember not being able to finish one bottle I tried. If it works for you, go ginger power!
I feel you. For my first pregnancy the "don't let your stomach get empty" thing worked. Not my second pregnancy. All I got down was the occasional pretzels and Gatorade for the first trimester.
No to be too assvicey, but hey, here's some assvice.
Those sea sick bands at CVS did wonders during my pregnancy. I may have them somewhere and can get them to you.
Apples. My ob told me they curb nasaeu and they worked for me.
At four months I am still on the coke and saltines diet, occasionally adding oranges and Oreos.
Sometime between dry-heaving and saltine-eating, can you please videotape Noah's "knowing"!
Noah knows the following:
What Quasi is doing inside you to make you nauseous, since he himself did it roughly three years ago...
The difference between real and fake ginger ale, and the benefits of each...
Exactly how far and fast to run to get away from the sounds of your dry heaving...
That his time as the Internet's Most Adored Child is shortly coming to an end and he will have to soon share the title with Quasi...
Where he hid the last sleeve of saltines...
I feel your pain with the ginger ale. I will never be able to see that junk again
Elizabeth: www.signingtime.com are the DVDs we use and recommend.
Melissa: I would like to go retroactively throttle that pharmacist on your behalf.
(Although I also had the flipside to that problem -- I decided against going on Zofran for a variety of personal reasons, and yet tons of people were always pushing it on me and even accusing my doctor of being negligent for NOT prescribing it. People do seem to assume that pregnant women live in caves, or something.)
Here's my assvice: Cottage cheese did it for me. Keep a spoon in fridge next to it so you can have a quick bite. But Coke and saltines is my favorite tummy remedy otherwise.
If it makes you feel any better, I recently found out I'm pregnant with my fifth. FIFTH! Due date Oct31. And my tummy is feeling mighty bubbly. So it's all pretty scary around here too. Fifth child, Halloween due date, aaagghhh.
But I love your bump. Your ass still looks small if that makes you feel any better too.