Still coping with bouts of my body rejecting the pregnancy hormones. They come and go. I find most weeks that the stress of teaching on Tuesday lays me under for two to three days, during which I am pukey and can barely move. This week was rough. Yesterday afternoon I started throwing up, and it lasted all night. Hopefully that’s over now, but we’ll see. The trouble with anti-nausea medicines is that if you wait until you are sick to take them, they get thrown up.

This morning we went to the doctor and listened to the baby’s heartbeat. All is well in there. Despite my not feeling great, I am gaining weight a little at a time, six pounds in all, I think the doctor said, since the beginning. Just about at five months.

There are two doctors at this OB practice, and they work as a team. One of them is great. She is the one who gave me the medicines. The other one is not as cool. He’s an old guy who says things like, “You’re still sick? Are you taking the Zofran? [I nod.] Well, that works.”

Zofran is the medicine he gave me a prescription for in month two or so after I insisted multiple times that the things he was suggesting (ginger, small meals, etc.) were things I had tried without results, and that I was indeed throwing up as much as I was SAYING I was. He just acted like I was being dramatic or something. That’s one of the problems with bad pregnancy sickness. There’s a wide spectrum of experience, but a lot of people (even this doctor) assume every woman is having the same experience, the one that “just goes along with being pregnant,” and that, like every other pregnant woman, I should suck it up. I tried. I was not simply throwing up once in the morning. I was throwing up so much I couldn’t leave my house. At all. It was worrisome and depressing. Now that happens for a day or two at a time, then lets up, then comes back.

The other doctor, a woman about my age, is much more understanding and knowledgeable about this. When in my last visit the old guy said, “Well, that works,” I explained that no, it didn’t, and that’s why his partner gave me two additional prescriptions and advised Vitamin B6. THOSE things work most of the time if I take them every day as a preventive measure.

Today, I had an appointment with the lady, but she was running late, so it was the old guy again. Don’t get me wrong, he’s very nice and a highly recommended OB in the area. He just … doesn’t get it with the sickness. Today he said, “You’re still feeling sick? Are you trying ginger? [nod] Small meals? [nod] Blah blah? [nod] Blah blah blah?? [nod nod nod] Well, that should have eased up by now. You shouldn’t still be feeling sick, so let’s hope it goes away.” Hope. Yes, let’s hope. Then he said again, “Zofran should be working.” He added, “You’re still gaining weight, so there’s no worry about the baby.” That’s what I came to hear, so that’s good. But THEN he said this: “I’m not concerned about your health, but if you get too uncomfortable, we should check you into the hospital for a couple of days with an IV and no food by mouth.” Did I hear that right? Do a lot of people do that? Check themselves into the hospital for an IV because they are UNCOMFORTABLE? Because that sounds SO SOOTHING. Dude, we will check me into the hospital for an IV when and only when it is MEDICALLY NECESSARY. I don’t generally do that sort of thing to cope with discomfort. If he tells me the baby is fine, then we’ve addressed the primary concern here. As for the secondary concern, my “discomfort” (I prefer to think of it as fairly severe pregnancy sickness, but whatever), we will address it in ways that get me BACK to my life and friends, not in ways that sequester me away from them with no food by mouth.

So I continue the medicines and small meals and try to keep my stress level at a minimum. I am a high maintenance pregnant person for sure. It’s not how I pictured this experience being. I see super-pregnant women around town all dolled up in cute maternity clothes, wearing sneakers and walking, GLOWING. Whatever glow I’ve got to muster, I use up on Tuesdays pretending to be fine.