Blog It Out, Bitch

by Perez, Nina

  "You're the strongest woman I know."

  "No, I'm not. I'm a punkass bitch."

  At this point I'm bawling, writhing on the bed in pain, and I'm pretty sure I smelled bad. Saturday morning I had a glass of apple juice and threw it up in minutes. It was time to go to the E.R.

  "This baby hates me," I thought as we got into the car. And at the moment, I wasn't too fond of it either.

  The Ugly Truth – Part Three

  January 8, 2008

  I don't think I accurately described what was going on with me before leaving for the hospital that Saturday morning. So, to recap:

  - constant, heavy, nausea

  - vomiting EVERYTHING I ate or drank for four days

  - gas

  - heartburn

  - lack of sleep

  - depression

  - lack of emotional connection to unborn child

  - aversion to smells that caused more nausea and/or headaches.

  Basically, overall misery.

  My parents arrived to take Kali for the day, and Donny and I headed to the hospital. I had this thing against emergency rooms until I moved out of New York. Growing up in Brooklyn we'd go to Brookdale Hospital if we needed to go to an emergency room. The wait was always long and one particular experience has stuck with me my whole life. I had to go to the E.R. after that time I busted my knee open on a pipe in a vacant lot. I sat in the waiting area across from an older white man who had on a wife beater and those pants that janitors and garbage men wear. He had a massive amount of gauge wrapped around his head like some bloody turban. The blood was dripping from one side of his head on to his face and chest. He was sandwiched between an elderly lady with a bad cough and a young girl holding a crying infant. I think of that every time I visit an emergency room.

  But the emergency rooms in the southern suburbs are worlds apart from the urban New York ones. This particular hospital has a separate pediatric urgent care. We had to take Kali there twice over the years - sprained toe, sprained finger. There's no waiting, no stab victims, no nasty smells, loud noises, etc. It's quite nice. The regular emergency room is the same. It's like sitting in a doctor's office and it's never full.

  That Saturday morning, I sat next to Donny while he filled out the form on a clipboard. He leaned over to me, "When was your last period?" I snatched the form from his hands. "Give me that." I furiously scribbled the information. See, I know the key to being seen quickly is to fill out those forms fast. It doesn't matter who got there when or what time you put on the sheet next to "arrival time." What matters is the order in which the lady behind the counter inputs your info into the computer. So, though there were two little old ladies who had arrived before us, I was seen before them because they took too damn long filling out the forms. All is fair in love, war, and the emergency room.

  Now, say what you want about doctors and pharmaceutical companies, but when you're throwing up stomach acid and you feel like there's something inside of you sucking the life out of you, all you want is medical intervention... and maybe a little divine intervention as well. All I could think of as I watched the lady behind the counter enter my information into the computer was that behind that counter was the cure, was the answer. They were going to give me something to make me feel better. There was relief coming. Thank God for western medicine. Thank God for doctors and scientists who sat around going...

  "What causes nausea?"

  "And what can we make to alleviate it?"

  "Oh, this works. Now, is it safe for pregnant women?"

  "Let's test this shit on some pregnant rats and find out."

  "Word."

  Thank God for those guys.

  We are finally called to the back after about 15-20 minutes. A blonde woman in her late 40's takes my blood pressure, my temperature, and starts asking me questions while entering my answers into a computer. When I tell her about my constant vomiting she says, "Bless your heart." Then she starts telling me about this medicine they gave her when she was pregnant with her first child that knocked her morning sickness right out. Just as I was about to tell her to write that shit down on a piece of paper so I can pass it to the doc in the back and be like, "Hook it up," she said that by the time she got pregnant with her next child, they didn't make the medicine anymore. Fuck.

  We head to the back and I'm shown to an examining room and told to just remove my top and bra because it's really cold and put on the usual hospital gown over my jeans. I do so, get up on the table and snuggle under the sheet. Relief isn't far off I tell myself. "If you get cold, let us know. We'll bring you a blanket." After about ten minutes I tell Donny that I need the blanket and he disappears into the hall. He returns a short while later with the warmest blanket ever.

  "They made me go get it. It was in a warmer. What kind of hospital makes you go get your own blanket?"

  I didn't give a shit. They were my saviors. They had the cure. The doctor comes in. He's this large, elderly, white man. He has a wicked sense of humor and lives in our small town. I like him immediately. He determines that I should get an IV with some fluids and a drug to curb the nausea. Because I have no cramping or bleeding he determines he doesn't need to do a pelvic. Sweet.

  Ugly Truth Number Two: When you're pregnant get used to lots of blood being drawn from your body and lots of poking and prodding in your vagina.

  We explain to the doctor that we have insurance, but they screwed up our last name and Donny's social security number in their system and it should have been corrected two days ago, but we have no idea if they did it or not and since it is Saturday we can't get anyone there on the phone. He tells me that he'll give me a referral to a good OB/GYN at the woman's center attached to the hospital and a prescription for prenatal vitamins.

  "Keep taking the over the counter ones you're taking until they run out. Prenatal vitamins are prenatal vitamins. But when they run out, fill this prescription. If your insurance company pays for them, why not let 'em?"

  Then he wrote a prescription for the medicine they were currently pumping into my veins.

  "It's called Zofran. It's expensive. Wait till your insurance cards arrive or else you'll pay out of pocket and it's like thirty dollars a pill. It's the good stuff though. One pill dissolves in your mouth and lasts 12 hours."

  And then another for medicine that helps with nausea.

  "Now this stuff is cheaper and only lasts 6 hours. And it makes you drowsy. You might want to take them until your insurance cards come. And I'm going to go ahead and order an ultrasound for you today. Just to get a look to make sure everything's okay."

  A different nurse, a young black girl named Bridget, comes in and begins my IV. I'm so fucking dehydrated and starving that my veins are barely visible. Donny holds my hand as she sticks the needle in and tries to find a plump one. She takes about four vials of blood, hooks up the IV bag, then leaves. Donny continues to sit by my side holding my hand while we watch Drumline on TV. After awhile I start to get hungry. I want lemon cake.

  "Do you think, if I talk you through it, you can make me a lemon cake when we get home?"

  "Yes."

  After about ten minutes...

  "I want a Sarah Lee pound cake. And a fork."

  "OK."

  After about twenty minutes...

  "I want a cheeseburger from Hardee's."

  "OK."

  By this time, I'd worked myself into a starving frenzy. I'm so hungry I think I'm going to throw up. I feel weak, hungry, and sick. The nurse keeps coming in asking if the medicine is working.

  "I wouldn't know. I'm so hungry I'm dizzy."

  They won't feed me though till they know the medicine is working. I try to explain to her that I won't know if it's working if I'm so hungry I die here on the table. She wasn't getting it. When she left the room I told Donny that there was a fortune cookie in my purse from two weeks ago. "Give it to me."

  "You're going to get us in trouble."

  "Give me the damn cookie."

  He gave
me the cookie in bits and pieces, so scared we'd get busted. Finally, probably for fear that I'd eat her; the nurse brought me a small cup of apple juice (4 sips worth) and three packages of saltine crackers. I wanted to punch her in the head. It was like giving a whale a Tic-Tac. (I in no way mean to imply that I resemble a whale... yet.) I drank the juice and ate two crackers.

  A male orderly comes in and announces he's there to take me to my ultrasound. He attaches my IV pole to the bed and makes sure everything is all... orderly, and we're off. It was like a ride at Disney World. I had a bed with one wheel that insisted on veering to the right. Just when I thought he was going to let my ass go crashing into a wall, the orderly would suddenly appear to bump me with his hip and put me back on course. He parks me outside the ultrasound room and congratulates Donny and me on our new baby.

  Another white woman in her late 40's comes out and looks at my chart.

  "You're just getting an ultrasound, right?"

  "Right."

  "How many weeks are you?"

  "Seven." Seven and one day to be exact.

  "Oh, we'll have to do a vaginal ultrasound" she says eyeing my jeans.

  Now, all I heard was vaginal so I'm thinking pap smear and poking and swabbing and I'm ready to leave. You'd think I'd be used to it by now seeing as how I've had many in my lifetime especially while pregnant with Kali, but I HATE vaginal exams. Something about the table and the stirrups that seems so... undignified. And it's uncomfortable and personal.

  I was prepared though. Before we left I'd taken a bath and made sure my toes were cute, my legs were shaved, and that the vagina was well maintained. I truly believe that vaginal hair conditions are a tricky thing when it comes to vaginal exams. You don't want to be too hairy because that's just inconsiderate. Who the hell wants to be parting palm fronds of hair trying to see into your coochie? But then I feel like being too shaven is kinda... kinky. And rude. So, I always try to find a nice middle ground.

  It wasn't until I was on the table with my legs open that I realized she meant that I'd be getting an ultrasound through my vagina. I hadn't had one of those before. She explained that she'd be using the cold gel when she inserted the wand with the camera on it because the warming gel wasn't sterile. I was just nervous when I got a look at that wand. It was long as fuck.

  "Oh, don't worry," she said seeing the look on my face, "It's just the small part. Like a tampon. The rest is so I can move it around."

  Whew.

  She covered the tip in the cold gel and pressed it against my vagina. She did that a few times to get me used to the cold before she inserted it. It was like some kinky kind of sex game. It made me feel really uncomfortable with her doing that and Donny standing there watching. Did I mention that Donny has NEVER experienced anything like this? He kept looking at me asking if I was okay and telling me how brave I was. Yeah, right.

  Then we look at the screen and I don't see shit.

  Great, I think, I'm not even pregnant. I'm going through early menopause. The tests were wrong. I have cancer. I am dying. Then I hear the lady say, "There's the yolk sac." And sure enough there's a small black circle on the screen about the size of a silver dollar. Then she says, "And there's your baby." And sure enough there was our baby. Our baby didn't look like a tadpole at all. It looked like a little tiny person but bigger than I expected. It was in the fetal position and it had a head and little limbs and right where the chest goes was this flashing thing. The heartbeat. It was moving so fast! And then I lost it. I started crying.

  "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

  "Shhhh, it's okay" said Donny.

  "Oh, honey, bless your heart" said the white lady.

  I love southern white women. They will bless your heart all day long.

  "It's just... just... I haven't felt pregnant or connected to this baby in a week. I've just felt sick and miserable and there... there... he is. And I just... I just... I feel so bad. Like a bad mother already."

  And just like that I had Breakdown Number Two, in front of a stranger who kept blessing my heart while she held a wand stuck in my vagina and my husband who was rubbing my head and hands and telling me I was amazing.

  She took measurements of the baby (crown to rump) and my uterus to determine how far along I was. According to my last period I was 7 weeks and 1 day and due on August 15th. According the measurements of the baby and my uterus I was 7 weeks and 5 days and due August 11th. So, as of today I'm either 8 weeks and 3 days into my pregnancy or 9 weeks. She then started checking out everything else down there. She asked if I had both of my ovaries and I told her yes. I noticed she was taking a really long time when she was looking at the right one and asked if anything was wrong. Turns out I have a cyst in my right ovary which she assured me meant nothing. She said women get them all the time and never know it. She said it would most likely dissolve itself. Great, just great.

  After another hour or so, I was released from the hospital. I felt somewhat better having seen the baby. We stopped at Starbucks and I got… wait for it… a slice of lemon pound cake! I napped at home while Donny ran out to fill the prescriptions. The pills did indeed knock me out and the rest of that day, Sunday, and Monday went by in a blur.

  The Ugly Truth – Part Four

  January 9, 2008

  So, when last we met I was out of the hospital and drugged up for about three days. I wasn't throwing up anymore, but I was sleeping... a lot! Apparently, during that time Donny made a doctor appointment for me, handled everything around the house, went to work, etc.

  New Years Eve we were asleep by 9pm. I was awakened a little after midnight by the family across the street setting off severe fireworks. I wanted to strangle each and every one of them. Kali comes into the room, "Can I go across the street? I was looking at the fireworks from the window and Maria waved to me to come outside."

  "Absolutely not! Go get in the bed. Happy New Year."

  The next few days were better, but still rough. I stopped taking the pills and the vomiting had stopped. Kali went back to school on Thursday, January 3rd so I had to be lucid to get her ready in the mornings. Thursday and Friday were pretty bad. Thursday night Donny told me he'd taken out chicken for dinner and asked how I wanted it prepared. For some reason a recipe he used to make a lot popped into my head and I asked him to make it. I took about five bites and knew it was coming back up. There are some times when I'm eating and my throat will literally close up and not let me finish. I have to spit out whatever I'm chewing and just wait for the vomit.

  This particular night I freaked out because the food wasn't in me five minutes before it was coming back up. I can't explain it, but I just lost it. The thought of the food coming back still whole just caused me to freak out. So I'm crying and throwing up and miserable and wailing and it's just a sad sight.

  Friday, I was hit with a new affliction. Panic attacks. It would start with waves of heat washing over me. My arms and legs would go weak and limp. My heart would beat really fast and I felt like I couldn't catch a good breath. I started crying uncontrollably. And honest to God, I actually cried out, "I want my Mommy." Donny was trying to calm me down telling me that it wasn't good for the baby. I knew it, but I couldn't stop. I was just miserable. I was tired of being sick and uncomfortable. Donny called my mother and the first few minutes of the conversation was her begging me to calm down before I had a miscarriage and me sobbing relentlessly, "I can't do this. I can't do this." It was horrible. It happened three times that day.

  Everyone kept telling me that I just needed to get through the first trimester and that one day I would wake up and not be sick anymore. Because of that, each morning before I even opened my eyes I would lie in bed and do a mental diagnostic of my body. I would try to figure out if today was the day, the day when I would feel normal, when I could finally enjoy this pregnancy. It seemed the day would never come.

  I woke up on Saturday (January 5th), and for the first time in weeks didn't feel like I was dying. It was almost too good to be true. I shoo
k Donny awake and asked if he could make breakfast. I couldn’t allow myself to get hungry. I can't explain it any better but to tell you that hunger pains now are one hundred times worse than before I was pregnant. If I let myself get hungry now, it's all over. I feel sick, weak, and I get headaches. Even after I eat it's still awhile before I can get back to feeling better. So, the trick around here has been to make sure that I eat every few hours even if it's just crackers and juice or fruit cups.

  Saturday and Sunday were very good days. There were small moments of nausea, but nothing like before. Yesterday, I was good. I wrote blogs and spoke with Sophie on the phone and finally felt normal. I had avoided talking to anyone because you feel like all people want to hear is how great everything is. And really, when you have the level of morning sickness that I have, you really just want to tell people to shut up and leave you alone and let you die in peace.

  I had a bad spell yesterday evening and had to take another pill which knocked me out, but again it beats being miserable all day. Yesterday was also the first day of school for me. Did I mention I'm taking six classes this semester? Yeah. I didn't even have my books until last night. Donny took my student ID and my driver's license and went to the campus bookstore to get them for me yesterday. You know I'm usually the girl that has her books the week before class complete with notebooks for each class and matching folders.

  This morning I had a big glass of grape juice before getting Kali ready for school. I was able to see her off to the bus stop before I started to feel weak and dizzy and had to sit on the steps for a few minutes.

  So here's the ugly truth in a nutshell. You ready?

  Not all pregnancies are roses and sunshine. Some women get morning sickness just in the morning during the first trimester only and then it's smooth sailing. That's how it was when I was pregnant with Kali. Some women get all day sickness so severe it makes them miserable. That's how it is for me right now.