The Cousin's Catch Up

I'm sure Nanna has caught you all up on my 'situation' of the last couple of months but here's an exert from another blog I write that will fill in the details.....

Ouch! 3 months! I'd like to say that 'I can't believe it' but it's been a very real and a very long 3 months. My last post was written the day before I discovered I was pregnant with our second bub and it wasn't long after that that I became too sick to haul myself from the couch to the computer. Well, from the couch to anywhere really.

I decided though that I wasn't going to revel in the sickness...no, I would soldier on. I recalled the times when we were deep in the infertility journey when trying to get pregnant with Ever, and what it would do to my heart to hear the multitudes of pregnant women around me complain about their ailments...jealousy, devastation, resignation. And so knowing there were some around me going through that journey themselves, and not knowing if there were others privately carrying that burden, I decided I would be resilient and at least publically carry on as per usual. Also, there is nothing that irritates me more than 'attention seeking' which I think is a too common 'side effect' of pregnancy!

For a while this worked pretty well and then the clock struck 2010....uh ohhh....NOW I was feeling it. I was pretty prepared for the 'morning' sickness since I'd experienced it pretty badly with Ever until 32 weeks...when I say prepared I mean expecting it....hoping against hope and praying fervently that this time would be different but in my heart of hearts expecting it.

While still trying to maintain my 'I'm good, nothing to complain about...see look at my smile' public face, I was having my dear Mum look after Ever a couple of days a week and Pete taking semi-regular sick days to help out. As if the actual physical effects of the morning sickness aren't enough I was soon feeling terribly guilty about not being able to care for Ever. At the start she would cry every time I vomited...these days she hands me a tissue to wipe my mouth! Who's the mummy again?

January saw me gradually getting worse, with a bout of gastro topping it off....oh, that was a week I'll never forget! And then there were the two wedding photography jobs that had been long ago booked...shudder. Vomiting at a wedding just ain't right.

Then February....oh february. Suddenly it hit...oh no, another bout of gastro! But this time it was continuous vomiting all day long. Mum was practically living at our house, not only looking after Ever but playing nursemaid to me. At this stage I literally could not change positions on the couch without the threat of throwing up and was seriously considering attaching a ribbon to my friend the bucket turning it into something like an animal feed bucket...partly for convenience, partly because I no longer had the energy to carry it when I needed to relocate. After a few days of this, I started to think it might not be gastro and after a week my desperate Mum and husband convinced me to go to my doctor. I hadn't wanted to go because I just felt too sick!!

After being at the doctor for all of 30 seconds and telling the tales of the last week, she was on the phone booking me in to hospital with hyperemesis gravidarum...which is basically excessive vomiting during pregnancy which occurs in about .05% of pregnancies. I almost cried with relief when she suggested I go straight away! And then came the best 24 hours of the last few months!! A drip to rehydrate me, anti-nausea meds so i could eat something, a room to myself to rest and a good dose of tlc....heaven must feel like this!

After coming home Mum looked after me for another week while I got my strength back AND we managed to organise the house. Ok, she organised the house while I sat pathetically in the corner telling her where things were supposed to be. This might sound like a little task but think about what would happen to your house if you were basically confined to the couch for three months...yeah, disaster! Don't get me wrong, Pete has been so good...doing all the cooking, shopping, washing and parenting while also 'bringing home the bacon' to put it plainly. However, all non-essential cleaning and tidying had fallen by the wayside....thank you, thank you, thank you to my supermum for overhauling Cunningham headquarters!

That brings us to last week where we had cleverly booked a holiday up the coast outside of crazy kid time...I mean school holidays. We were a little bit hesitant to go, fearing it would just be the same thing, different couch, but decided that even if it was only a change of scenery it was worth it. Turns out, with the help of my industrial strength anti-nausea magic pills and a beautiful view, we had a most enjoyable week! More on the holiday later. But to top it all off we arrived home to not only an organised house but a beautifully clean house thanks to the cleaning fairies Mum had put to action! Ahhhhh........