Monday, September 27, 2010

Stupid Names for Stupid Things

My OB/GYN is a serious woman who speaks in a low, soft voice. I can never imagine her recommending either one of these products, only because the names of them are too silly to ever come out of her mouth.



This tubeworm-looking thing is called a Snoogle. I'm assuming that "snoogle" is a bastardization of the words "snuggly" and "noodle", but it's throughly possible that someone just made the name up. Personally, I think Leachco (the company responsible for the Snoogle) needs to fire whoever comes up with the names of their products, which include pillows with monikers like "Preggle" and "Boomerest".

I bought a Snoogle yesterday. It cost me $55 at Babies "R" Us. I hate Babies "R" Us. The name of the store is stupid, everything is overpriced and the store is always filled with pregnant women and screaming toddlers. Then they had the nerve to charge me over fifty dollars for a freaking body pillow, but I bought it anyway because of the giant bone bruise that had been affecting my stride all day.

My little monster is about seven and a half weeks along, and my normal flop-facedown-onto-the-bed-and-pass-out approach is no longer working so well. I've never been able to sleep on my side, because I have the boniest hips in five states and after an hour or so, the pain from grinding my hipbone into the mattress forces me to flip onto my front or, rarely, my back. After three nights of unsuccessful side-sleep, my right hip was killing me and so I decided that I was going to buy the damn side-sleeping-pregnant-lady pillow no matter how much it cost.

The Snoogle is basically just a giant, curvy, firm, tubular pillow. It's designed to take the strain off your back and hips while preventing you flipping over onto your belly or back during the night. It's pretty comfortable, but I couldn't get to sleep last night no matter how hard I tried. Part of the reason was that my hip still hurt, but I think that was because it had been ground into the mattress with all of my body weight resting on it for the past three nights. We'll see how it fares during a mid-afternoon nap, when I can flip over to my uninjured left hip and take up half the bed.

I keep referring to the thing as a Snoogle just to irritate my husband, who snapped "quit saying Snoogle!" at me approximately thirteen times as we were going to bed last night. You've got to admit that it's a little embarassing to admit to owning something with a name like "snoogle". Snoogle, snoogle, snoogle.



Here's another embarassingly-named pregnancy product, Preggie Pop Drops. In the U.S., they're made by a company called "Three Lollies", which is needlessly embarrassing in and of itself. "Where do you work?" "Three Lollies. We make Preggie Pop Drops."

Preggie Pop Drops are supposed to help with morning sickness. Really, they're just outrageously priced hard candies, as there's no drugs or magic herbs in them at all. They're made with natural ingredients, have 70 calories each and come in sour fruit flavors: sour raspberry, lemon, sour apple and sour tangerine. The sour flavor is what is supposed to help with the queasiness.

I bought a little box of 21 candies at Babies "R" Us for $5. Hey, it promised me I wouldn't feel queasy anymore, and I like not feeling queasy. I don't care for raspberry flavor, so I tried to pass those off to my husband, who didn't want anything to do with the idea. I guess he just doesn't want to be seen eating candies with the words "preggie pop" on them. Hell, I don't really want to be seen eating candies with the words "preggie pop" on them.

In the defense of Preggie Pop Drops, they're delicious. I like sour candies to begin with, though. And I did feel less queasy after having one last night, and again this morning. They're a bit like a larger, pricier, less sweet and more sour version of a Jolly Rancher.

P.S. I also hate that model on the box. I doubt she's actually pregnant; her boobs are way too small and her face is far too angular. Real pregnant women, especially ones that far along, have boobs too big for their body and chipmunk cheeks. Speaking of cheeks, where's all her pregnancy acne? Besides, I don't like the way she's smirking at me with her lipstick and perfect hair. Stupid smirky pregnant-lady model.

...

I can still never imagine by OB/GYN looking into my eyes and telling me in that serious voice of hers that I should think about buying a Snoogle and some Preggie Pop Drops. That voice is for telling me it's going to be okay while she's attaching a grounding pad to my thigh and preparing to shove an electric cauterization tool up my who-ha, not for recommending stupidly-named pregnancy accessories. If, by some miracle, she actually mentions a product with a stupid name, I think I'm going to lose it. I'll never stop laughing.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Hurry up and wait.

I've known I'm pregnant for an entire week now... and my first prenatal appointment isn't until October 5th. That's 22 days from now. I am not going to make it 22 days. I want my tests done now, because I am a very, very inpatient girl.

That, and I've been taking Mucinex and Tylenol like they're going out of style and eating like crap, so I'm convinced that I'm somehow murdering the kid even though the doctor told me that it'll be okay. Also I had two sips of beer yesterday at Oktoberfest because I missed my Sam Adams and I don't know how anyone could be ever be expected not to drink at all for nine months.

I haven't gone to school since last Wednesday, which is awful. I am skipping my 9:00 AM class right now because I am still a mucus factory, but I am feeling better and so I'll go to my 10:30 class and my 1:00 PM class. My voice is still ten kinds of shot, but I won't have to do much talking (hopefully). Kind of worried about my first philosophy test on Friday, but hopefully I can beg notes off of someone...

I keep making a mental note to call the Clinic a week before my appointment and nonchalantly ask what tests they're doing and if I need to bring anything. My goal is to somehow wheedle my way into a same-day ultrasound (or at least a doppler), because the hubsters took off work and if all he gets to see is some blood tests and me peeing in a cup, he's gonna be pretty disappointed. (Also, if everything goes horribly wrong and I've managed to kill the kid via Mucinex overdose, I am NOT crying alone.)

Seriously, how am I supposed to wait 22 days for this stuff? I'm pregnant now. *stomps foot*

Friday, September 10, 2010

Six days later and I'm already sick.

I've known I'm pregnant for six whole days, and I've already managed to make myself completely miserable.

I could deal with the exhaustion, the water retention, the constant feeling of having pulled some sort of groin muscle, the heartburn and the nausea. Really. It wasn't that bad.

Then the temperature dropped from summer to fall overnight and I woke up with the tell-tale sign of an oncoming sinus infection: wicked post-nasal drip irritating my throat. It had gotten so bad by yesterday evening that I had to take a Tylenol to go to sleep so I wasn't up coughing all night. I woke up this morning with the full-blown infection: stuffy head, runny nose, sore throat, raspy cough.

The pregnancy bible--What to Except When You're Expecting, by Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel--tells me that pregnant women get sinusitis all the time because the hormones make your mucus membranes swell up and get germy. Then they mention that untreated sinus infections can last for weeks. My sinus infections last for weeks anyway.

So, I guess I should maybe call my doctor today. Get some baby-safe antibiotics, that sort of thing. Nasty decaf tea with honey (the only thing I've been drinking for 24 hours) isn't cutting it. I can't take a sinus infection of top of everything else. Now I'm not sure if I'm queasy because of the five-week-old mooch living in my belly or because there are fifteen colonies of mucus living in lungs. At least the kid had the good sense to tone down the cramp-like pulled muscle feeling today.

That's it. Doctor's office, here I come. If I can't get into my doctor, I'll go see my husband's doctor (I swear that man never has any patients, my husband always gets a same-day appointment), if I can't see my husband's doctor, I will waiting in line at the CVS cheapo clinic for two hours (like the last time I had a sinus infection and couldn't get to my doctor, actually).

*cough, cough, hack*

Update, 8:00 PM:

I ended up seeing an associate of my doctor. She was a very nice lady who looked about my age. Anyway, she didn't think I needed antibiotics and recommended treating the symptoms instead of going after the infection because I hadn't been sick very long. She recommended Mucinex and told me I got get the original, D or DM. I went for Mucinex D, because it has pseudoephedrine and I have a desire to hit my sinuses with the strongest thing possible.

You can't just waltz into a drugstore anymore and buy pseudoephedrine, of course. So I take the little card, walk up to the pharmacy counter, and hand my driver's license to the pharmacist in order to prove that I'm old enough to buy the stuff. Only, the pharmacist has some vision problems, and so I ended up reading all the information off of my license to him and waiting for him to put it in the computer.

This would not have been a big deal if I had a) not been dressed like a sick, miserable hobo and b) been able to speak like a human being. Although the doctor didn't find a mucus coating in my throat, she did say that it was red and irritated, which is why it feels so sore and why it hurts to talk. I sound like vaguely like a bullfrog, and the pharmacist kept asking me to repeat things because he couldn't understand me. Like this:

Him: What's your date of birth?
Me: Oh-four-oh-two-nineteen-eighty-six.
Him: Ninety-six?
Me: What? No. EIghty-six.
Him: Okay.
Me: Dude, I couldn't have even driven here if I was fourteen.
Him: Right.

This would have been slightly embarrassing but bearable if it hadn't been for my outfit. I don't bother with dressing myself or doing my hair and face when I'm sick. Any other time, I make myself presentable, even if I'm running late and only have time for some powder and mascara, but when I'm sick? Forget it.

I was wearing sneakers... okay, I'm pregnant and my feet are all swollen, so I've been wearing sneakers for the past week. Fine, sneakers, even though I hate people who wear sneakers when they aren't exercising. But I was also wearing extra-long yoga pants (the loose kind, not butt-huggers) and an oversize hoodie. Not just any oversize hoodie, either: it's from my high school, and it's about two-and-half sizes too big for me. Very good for curling up on the couch with a hot drink, not so good for going out in public when you graduated from high school six years ago. Also, I'd done nothing with my hair. Literally. I have a lot of hair, almost three feet. I'd left it down all day, so it'd gone totally limp and lifeless.

Let's recap: sick pregnant lady, too-big high school hoodie, droopy long yoga pants, sneakers, no makeup, stringy lifeless hair. I looked like a homeless person.

And I had to recite all of my personal information in a frog-voice.

...I'm taking my Mucinex and going to bed now.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Um, what?



This... was not supposed to happen.

I've always been wicked paranoid about getting pregnant. If my period was so much as a day late, or if I was feeling just a tad more bloated than usual, I ran to the medicine cabinet and whipped out a pregnancy test. No surprise, they were always negative. Also, I'm neurotic.

So this time, when my period was late (I always get late periods, no matter what), I actively decided not to be neurotic and ignored the medicine cabinet, taunting me with one remaining test out of a three-pack I'd bought months ago. And, the Monday before Labor Day, I went home from school and skipped the rest of my classes because I was nauseous, cramping and feeling, overall, like shit. I thought, yay! It's my period! There is no other reason for me to feel like crap! Hooray!

Wrooooooong. When I was still feeling nasty (and period-less) almost a week later, my husband very gently suggested I take the test. By "very gently", I mean he followed me around going "you're pregnant, you're pregnant" until I agreed to pee on the damn stick.

So I go through the motions: collect morning pee, dip stick in pee for five seconds, cap, lay flat on counter, dispose of excess pee, flee bathroom in terror for the next three minutes. Except this time, there was no fleeing in terror, because I was determined that I was not, in fact, pregnant, just like the other forty-seven times I haven't been pregnant.

I sauntered back into the bathroom after five minutes (totally not neurotic, look how long I waited), glanced at the stick, and yelled "WE'RE FINE" back into the computer room, where my husband was waiting. Then, as I was about to throw the test away, I actually looked at the result window. There had been one pink line when I'd glanced at it, but now, holding in it in my hands and actually looking at the results... there was another pink line. It was faint, but it was there.

Oh, shit.

My husband thought I was kidding. After all, I'd just told him everything was fine... but then I handed the test over and cried a little. 'Cause, you know, I'm a girl, and I cry sometimes. Like when I find out I'm pregnant even though I'm not supposed to be.

Then I made him go to the drugstore with me and buy the expensive pregnancy tests, just in case the one I'd had around for a few months was a dud. It did not help my mood any when the damn result window lit up like a Christmas tree as soon as my pee touched the stick. Damn you, plus sign! Damn you to hell!

Well, it's four days later, and oddly enough, I think I'm okay with this whole baby-making deal. A lot of is scaring the shit out of me, of course, because we are completely and totally unprepared for a child, but it's exciting. And my mother is happier than shit, because she's been bugging me for grandchildren ever since I got engaged. (I tried telling her that she was the grandmother of my dog; she didn't buy into it.) I'm pretty sure we'll manage to muddle through this somehow.

I decided to start a blog to help keep me sane. After all, it's been four days, according to this iPhone app, my baby is six weeks old, and I'm already regretting that glass of wine I had a five days ago, wondering if the cough drop I popped this morning is safe, and creating all sorts of bizarre budgeting strategies. Hopefully, someone else can laugh at my misfortune. :)