Love Hotel

Let's Get Ready to Rumble

I was unprepared for a lot of things about pregnancy. Heartburn, constipation, early contractions, immune suppression... But I have to say there was one thing I really did not think about. Abject Humiliation.

Today I went to the doctor to have another glucose test and to check in about some contractions I'd had on Sunday. I had to be fasting so went in early for me. Around 9:30 am. SGNP and I had been sniping at each other since he was tired and I was too and wasn't looking forward to three blood tests over three hours and drinking icky sugar crap, so he left the clinic abruptly to go to an appointment he had. Both of us sad and angry and tired and hungry. I sat in the waiting room for about a half hour and started to feel nauseated. It wasn't too bad, nothing worse than taking a big honkin multivitamin on an empty stomach. Then my eyes started to water and do this blinky thing they do right before I throw up. I got up as quickly as I could. Made it about three steps and threw up copiously and noisily into a trash can. Then again. Then again. Then again. I hadn't imagined I had so much water in my stomach on top of that little icky drink they gave me. It went all over the garbage can, the floors, the walls, my shirt, my pants and my hair. Still hanging onto the trash can, I looked up and there was a nurse at the counter, her lips curled in obvious and understandable digust and she leaned over to the receptionist and said loud enough for me to hear eight feet away "Is she even a patient here?" I also admit I did look like a homeless person, as I had just gotten back my German Army coat that I love, but is really pretty nasty looking.

The receptionist said,"Oh that's Jennifer. Jennifer who are you seeing today?" And I started to bawl. I howled, "I dont KNOW!" Because I really couldn't remember. I was covered in vomit and appalled and had the post-vomit weepies anyway. I just stood there with my hands over my face and sobbed. Three more nurses came out with towels, washclothes, an emesis basin and some tissues and hustled me into an exam room.

I saw the doctor a little while later and cried the whole time. I told her I didn't want to take the medication they'd given me in the hospital. She asked me why, and the bawling started again. Once I had collected myself enough to speak I told her that I take 9 pills in the morning and five at night right now and I didn't want to add another one because the ones I was already taking hurt my stomach and I had been on a medication like this one before and I'd gotten really sick and I just didn't know if I could handle another one anyway, and I was tired of feeling bad all the time and my stomach hurting and being tired and all the medicine, and going to the hospital and having tests. You get the idea.

She left the room a couple of times during our visit, to get this and that, and check on this and that, and each time she came back she kept saying "Tears still?" Surprised that I still hadn't gotten it together? Surprised at how bad I was really feeling? Who knows.

Now here comes the making of a good doctor, maybe. She sat there and talked to me for a bit, rubbing my back saying "You're so close. I know you feel bad and your sick of all these medicines and everything, but you are so close. Look at how far you've come. You're going to have a baby in six weeks! You're almost there and you've had some problems that you and we have been trying to take care of. There is no way someone could have the hematocrit you have and not feel bad all the time. And you're struggling with depression. And that's just really hard all the time anyway. You're tired and you feel crummy all the time, but you are not alone and you're almost there. You're going to be a great mom."
I cried some more and said "I'm tired of feeling bad all the time." She thought I had said "I'm tired of feeling FAT all the time." So she said, "You are NOT fat. You look really good. You're slender and pregnant." Which, even though she misheard me made me feel good. And made me cry some more.

Then they gave me a shot of the immune globulin I need so I don't get antibodies to my other babies, which is a painful shot, and a lab order to go in tomorrow and have a different glucose test. No drinking sugary crap this time.

Paul came back to the clinic and we had lunch and I couldn't even speak. I still felt so bad. I still feel pretty bad right now. I'm thinking, I'm not going through this alone. I call my mom and my sister and Meaghan and Jaye and I have Paul and I'm still not okay. I can't do this alone. I can't do this with all the friends in the world. I can't do this. So at lunch I said to Paul, "Let's just give up. No more classes. No more medicine. No more appoinments. I'll just lay in my room and wait and evenually I'll have a baby. I can't do this anymore." He said, "But we have our last Childbirth Class tonight." And I said, "I'm not going. I'm NOT going to hang around for two hours with a bunch of people who treat me like I have some kind of contagious terminal disease they'll catch if they even talk to me. I'm not going. YOU go." He said, " I don't want to go alone. We'll go home and you can rest and we'll see how you feel later." To which I said LOUDLY, " I'M NOT GOING!" And cried into my Quizno's napkin.

I'm thinking in my head on the way home it'll be more like this:
I'll lay in my bed and go into labor and we'll go to the hospital and say I want to have a baby and for them not to mess with me or stick anything in my spine or give me surgery and then something will happen and they'll give me medicine I don't want and tell me things aren't going how they should and they'll tell me I have to have surgery anyway and then they'll just do it and we'll all feel terrible about it. Which is kind of what Childbirth class makes you believe is what will happen.

And then I'll end up back in bed. This time with a baby who I'll want to breastfeed, but the baby won't like it or whatever and we won't be able to and then we'll all feel terrible. Which is what Breastfeeding class makes you believe will happen.

And then I'll end up with a colicky baby who will cry all the time for no reason and won't sleep through the night until s/he's ten at which point s/he'll hate me because actually s/he'd just had some undiagnosed hiatal hernia or ear infection the whole time and I didn't get it taken care of and then we'll all feel terrible. Which is what reading too much makes you believe will happen.

I've peed my pants in public. I've pooped my pants in public. I've vomited in public. I've bawled and howled in public.

Perhaps I'm just a schizophrenic street person really and this is all a terrible meaningless delusion. Or it's all really happening. I have no idea which is worse.

Posted by jlp716 at January 10, 2006 03:27 PM