I am pretty sure this pregnancy could kill me. Is this baby a little Damian? Sometimes its hard to separate the two. This is only my second planned child out of five. Very planned. A year in advance. We said. "Come October we will ditch birth control and start trying," who was I kidding? Three of my out of four of the children I already had were conceived in one night of taking a chance. and sure enough. the very first time me and hubs threw caution to the wind, the wind directed his seed to my egg and there you go. Mambo (baby) number five.
Problem is even when you plan the actual child, you can't plan any of the next nine months or years or decades. That is what all these teen-boppers need to understand. It like you can plan the wedding but the real work is the marriage. So we are going happily along and from about week two, just days after the Clear Blue Easy declared us knocked up I felt horrible. Not just "oh isn't that cute, she's queasy" but "oh my god is someone in this house putting arsenic in the corn flakes."
My newly wedded hubs and I were both taken aback at the complete typhoon mentality of my condition. I could walk one day and the next, total devastation. Breathing made me sick, thinking made me sick. I swear to God, light and sound made me sick. It was if I was having a continuous migraine of the digestive system. The feeling was in my bones. I had constant and complete vertigo that ended in me going to throw up every time i moved. My esophagus heaved constantly like a pulse and there was a non stop bitter penny taste in my mouth. Nothing appeased it.
Nothing could stop it. every over the counter med was thrown up. every prescription med was no match for this monster, this alien that had invaded my body. No longer was there a child, our child, but a poison that had seeped into every pore of my being.
It was odd to go from (while not an Iron Man participant) but just a normal person. I could no longer move much less cook, clean, parent, make love. Or even have a conversation. While the docs weren't too concerned at first I mean when your pregnant every thing is because your pregnant. my hair could have turned blue and they would have blamed my condition. I was trying to get the rest of the world to understand that I was dying.
No food, no water, my hair was falling out. everything ached from being in bed all day. my chest hurt from heaving. This must be death.
You know being in the middle of life unless you have been faced with a serious illness it is so hard to understand why others who are ill give up, or are horrible to be around. or simply don't care if their hair is ever combed. I worked in social services in a nursing home and I would say, "even if i were sick i would never be so hateful, i would never cry all day, i would never lay around and waste away. I can tell anyone now. Not even having faced a critically life threatening condition. yes I would and yes you would.
My hubs did not understand. He seen his ex pregnant, i had four other children. Was I crazy? Was I just lazy. the house fell apart, i was a basket case of starvation and dehydration. i once convinced myself he was doing this to me. he was actually poisoning me. he wanted to rethink the marriage. i was looking into battered women shelters. Then the docs started paying attention. soon my whole body was affected. my heart, my thyroid. the sickness was taking over. "SEE " i wanted to say. "I'm dying." Finally my hubs got it. Then as we always do that is so magical. we began to talk.
He told me how his old Polish Grandmother used to say"without your health, life is nothing, love is nothing" i didn't get that until this baby came along. I could not enjoy my husbands hand in mine or my children's laughter when my heart raced as i choked over and over on my own vomit. I was just surviving. Never again will I take for granted being in good health. I am still recovering and surviving my seventh month of pregnancy. Still trying to remember this is my baby inside me, as i fight the nausea. Things are better. I no longer have to make weekly trips to the hospital for IV fluids. I can interact with my family although i have to take breaks a lot. i still spend a lot of time laying on my side and can never predict when i will puke on the kitchen floor. But when i see the heroes that deal with Chemo, Lupus, wheelchairs, Shingles ect..ect...the list is endless. i admire them so much and inwardly ask "how do you live like that" "How do you get up every morning? "
So I whisper goodnight to Mambo who is making my belly move and squiggle as I write. If I have to be sick all the time at least there is a pretty great reward in the end and at least there is an end in sight.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
A life half lived
I was addicted to pregnancy. the way some people need to buy or lease a new car every year. I was addicted in the same way that i was obsessed with moving. of starting over. I had four pregnancies between the ages of 18-23. each one a new start for me.
Each one a way for me to redeem myself. i was a failure as a mother, as an adult. so in my childish delusion i thought I would start with a new slate. That somehow the baby would sanctify me, and that holiness would drip on to the other kids and even myself. It seems so crazy now. But now I am an almost thirty-five year old woman. Newly married to a wonderful, successful husband. Surrounded by my own created family of healthy adults. Then i was a scared kid with no one. I mean no one. the people i was drawn to and that were drawn to me were just a pool of mental defects, losers if you will. We were all on the Titanic and trying to hold on to each other to prevent a drowning, all the while refusing to let go of our luggage. Our baggage. That word is the understatement of the century.
I heard a quote recently that human being are more obsessed with rationalizing their choices, then food, love, or even sex. That rang true. Isn't that what baggage is? An awful assortment of our rationalizations? An assortment we carry around the way rappers do their heavy jewelry. We rehearse them to death until years and years later we can still verbatim pull them out and say "well see this is why this happened. "
maybe that is why this blog will exist. for no other reason, but for me to rationalize my life half lived. I now am 50% done with living, if i reach the average lifespan for a healthy Caucasian woman. It has only been in the last year that i have chosen sanity over drama.
On the surface one may disagree with me. After all read my first sentence and then look at my swollen body and I am indeed seven months pregnant with my fifth child. Crazy? what is my rationalization. Simple the truth. A new start with my new husband. I didn't say all things have changed what i think is different is I have earned the right to make that decision. Would others disagree?
Look around. How many people are happy for anyone. How many people spend 90% of their time ignoring their own issues or their loved ones issues to obsess over someone else's? There is a good line in the Bible that says "worry about the beam in your own eye, before you worry about the splinter in another's" I have had people in my life impaled with beams, choking on them while they chase me around with tweezers wanting to dig into my splinters. Sad part is. Sure they were right on some things. but did they ever want me to heal? Hell no. Once i got better what in the world would they do with themselves. look in the mirror? that isn't an option.
Seinfeld said "only five percent of the population was dateable." I could counter only five percent of the population was able to self reflect at all. the rest of us just bump through life like those blind tarantulas that hope they eventually bump into a like minded mate. Problem is the mate is also half blind and just bumping through life.
So what is this blog about? Ironically and maybe pathetically SELF LOVE. At the end of the day I have to bump through this life. At this time. With the choices i have made. What i can do is choose to learn from my mistakes. to surround myself with goodness and grace and hope some rubs off on me. to acknowledge my mistakes but not be owned by them. This blog is about living the second half of my life mentally sober, to work the steps of self evolution. to not drown in my stagnant pool. Unfortunetly i have had to push some of my fellow man off to swim for a life boat. It has been the hardest journey of my life, but i had and have five children to save. to teach to swim.
So here I am paddling away.
Each one a way for me to redeem myself. i was a failure as a mother, as an adult. so in my childish delusion i thought I would start with a new slate. That somehow the baby would sanctify me, and that holiness would drip on to the other kids and even myself. It seems so crazy now. But now I am an almost thirty-five year old woman. Newly married to a wonderful, successful husband. Surrounded by my own created family of healthy adults. Then i was a scared kid with no one. I mean no one. the people i was drawn to and that were drawn to me were just a pool of mental defects, losers if you will. We were all on the Titanic and trying to hold on to each other to prevent a drowning, all the while refusing to let go of our luggage. Our baggage. That word is the understatement of the century.
I heard a quote recently that human being are more obsessed with rationalizing their choices, then food, love, or even sex. That rang true. Isn't that what baggage is? An awful assortment of our rationalizations? An assortment we carry around the way rappers do their heavy jewelry. We rehearse them to death until years and years later we can still verbatim pull them out and say "well see this is why this happened. "
maybe that is why this blog will exist. for no other reason, but for me to rationalize my life half lived. I now am 50% done with living, if i reach the average lifespan for a healthy Caucasian woman. It has only been in the last year that i have chosen sanity over drama.
On the surface one may disagree with me. After all read my first sentence and then look at my swollen body and I am indeed seven months pregnant with my fifth child. Crazy? what is my rationalization. Simple the truth. A new start with my new husband. I didn't say all things have changed what i think is different is I have earned the right to make that decision. Would others disagree?
Look around. How many people are happy for anyone. How many people spend 90% of their time ignoring their own issues or their loved ones issues to obsess over someone else's? There is a good line in the Bible that says "worry about the beam in your own eye, before you worry about the splinter in another's" I have had people in my life impaled with beams, choking on them while they chase me around with tweezers wanting to dig into my splinters. Sad part is. Sure they were right on some things. but did they ever want me to heal? Hell no. Once i got better what in the world would they do with themselves. look in the mirror? that isn't an option.
Seinfeld said "only five percent of the population was dateable." I could counter only five percent of the population was able to self reflect at all. the rest of us just bump through life like those blind tarantulas that hope they eventually bump into a like minded mate. Problem is the mate is also half blind and just bumping through life.
So what is this blog about? Ironically and maybe pathetically SELF LOVE. At the end of the day I have to bump through this life. At this time. With the choices i have made. What i can do is choose to learn from my mistakes. to surround myself with goodness and grace and hope some rubs off on me. to acknowledge my mistakes but not be owned by them. This blog is about living the second half of my life mentally sober, to work the steps of self evolution. to not drown in my stagnant pool. Unfortunetly i have had to push some of my fellow man off to swim for a life boat. It has been the hardest journey of my life, but i had and have five children to save. to teach to swim.
So here I am paddling away.
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