We've now arrived at right about 20 weeks gestation, so Little Monster is half baked (unless hir decides to follow suit after the Kid and wait around until well done at 41 weeks). New trick this week includes kicking me in the ribs and being enthused about green beans or the terrible music playing here in the student union. Who likes this music anyway? Bad hip hop with lots of cigars in the music video? Blech I'll pass.
I survived the 24 hour stomach flu and the horrid cold at the same time, and I'm still trying to get caught up on water intake after that dehydration. I was pretty impressed actually that I could throw up that often for 15 hours straight, and now my ribs hurt a great deal because I got to cough AND vomit. Yowser.
At the halfway mark, I'm intrigued that SRB over at Little Chicken Nuggets has been having the exact opposite experience as me on the blogging front re: child 2. She expresses very eloquently what I am feeling, that's for sure. It's a weird deal, awaiting a surprise baby after much anxious waiting and worrying and weirdness of wandering in the ALI community online while having a (not going to say that adjective, but it starts with an n and rhymes with blormal) pregnancy. The other piece that is SO HARD is accepting the loss of control. Treatments give you some sense of control that you lose when you first realize it's not as easy to get/stay pregnant as chucking the birth control. It's totally an illusion, but "knowing" that you can't get pregnant until you make an effort is sort of comforting, until it turns out to be a total lie...
I'd say that there's less, in my view, to post here about the Kid because of three factors:
1. She's 4 and a chatterbox and bound to start reading any minute now. Also with the anonymity, it's hard to describe the Kid without getting into personal detail since she's quite the character.
2. She's been exceedingly frustrating lately following the trauma of moving and now being usurped as sole child, so I have been avoiding discussing this because it would be a short walk off a plank into a deep pool of me grouching that my slow-to-transition kid is, well, being herself... hmm... who's got the real problem? ME...
3. I am talking pretty close to zero about being pregnant in real life. I'm not a thin person, so it's probable that I'll get to the hospital to check into L&D and have to explain what I'm doing there. Aside from the obvious general dislike I have of being overweight, there is a great benefit to plus-sized pregnancy, which is that NOBODY TOUCHES MY BELLY! I despise being touched so it's great to be able to be stealth-pregnant.
In the realm of stealth-pregnancy, I sort of enjoyed the "so when are you due?" chat with the lab tech when I had my glucose test. I just loathed the ultrasound though, and then the doctor visit, because both involved the dreaded "Which pregnancy is this?" question. Ugh. Yes, fifth pregnancy, yes 2nd child, yes, I know. The frown and "ohhhh" are really gratuitous and make me uncomfortable. More uncomfortable. This whole thing makes me uncomfortable, thanks. I'm hopeful that I'll get to stick with a doctor in the practice soon, although I have been trying to see the bunch just to discover if there are any I loathe, because that will mean no more introductory conversations where we rake over my history of not so successful pregnancies.
On the professional front, ooooooooh lifestyle modification in drug therapy... Sweet! It's a really exciting new direction and possible job opportunity. This has been a lovely conference and I am really excited about this prospect. There will be more!
I love how much you love your field, and I love that you write about it. I've been thinking about you the last couple of days when I've been having problems with medications. My thought isn't, "I should ask my pharmacist," it's "I should ask Ms. Future PharmD" but then I figure that's inappropriate. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you feel comfortable blogging about your pregnancy. Are you not talking about your pregnancy IRL on purpose or is it something that's just sort of happened?
1. You could ask. I might be helpful, but probably not. It's National Pharmacists Month and the slogan is "Know your pharmacist, know your medicine" so I'm a big fan of that. I also like to point out when I talk to teens that somewhere there's a 24 hour pharmacy, and if you call at 2am when you're worried about some health condition or whatever, someone will answer your question. My other first line for "good pharmacist to make friends with" is someone who you'd be willing to be friends with or who looks like your mom (assuming she's someone you'd like to talk with).
Delete2. The not talking IRL has been for two reasons, I think. First, we just moved and know nobody in town, so there's nobody to talk to... Second, I do chat a bit about it to my classmates (which reminds me to briefly discuss my super fertile class sometime) but we are so busy with school that we don't do much aside from school and grumbling about school. I do most of my communicating with my IRL friends on facebook and that's not a space where I'm super giddy about sharing that I'm pregnant, so it's been complex and quiet.