Taking my half lived life for granted

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.