Month From Hell
So it all started on Monday, the 4th. I'd been having some painful Braxon-Hicks off and on for about a week, and was in general sevenish months pregnant and miserable. Monday rolls around and they just will not let up...all day. I'm so crampy I'm feeling green. A couple times, it got so bad I actually had to stop what I was doing and take a couple deep breaths. Luckily, I have a doctor appointment the very next morning, so I'll have an opportunity to ask what the best way to handle these are.
So I see the doctor, and mention how awfully crampy I've been the last couple days. "Are there stretches or something...?" I ask, because it's not really realistic for me to lie down at work, and lying down at night didn't seem to help anyway. Concerned, she does a pevic exam.
Turns out they weren't Braxon-Hicks. I've been having the real-deal contractions for two days straight. My cervix is slightly dialated and a bit softer than she'd like, and after being hooked up for monitoring, we discover that my contractions are three minutes apart...a month and a half early.
To the hospital I go. A day of IV fluids, vitamins, and something to calm my body the frick down I'm released and told to take a couple days off. I do, things return to normal, and I am given a stern warning to take it easy and drink more water. Please follow up in a week.
Sure, one problem. There are no appointments available next week, or the week after. FML, just going to wait until my next scheduled appointment on May 5. Sure it's a month out, but I'm not the one who keeps canceling and moving my appointments. Grrrr.
And by that, I mean severe diarrhea and perversely, hemorrhoids at the same time. Yay, pregnancy. You are so much fun! Not.
I call the doctor. "Oh yes, that's perfectly normal to have hemmorrhoids at this stage, especially after going through a couple days of contractions and a week of constipation. The diarrhea is normal too--only that's because of the IV and vitamins we gave you. :-D"
Yes, the emoticon is deliberately inside the quote marks. I'm telling you, she was that cheery about it over the phone.
Then, on April 20th, I feel a tell-tale tickle in my throat. Desperate to not get sick (after all, I just took three days off), I drown myself in tea and vitamins.
Of course, it doesn't work, and by Thursday I feel like utter shite. At the same time, I get a text from my husband...
Our two-year-old, Kiralyn, has come down with a pretty clear and obvious case of Conjunctivitis. That is, the dreaded Pink Eye. Have you ever given eye drops to a two-year-old? Trust me, you don't want to.
Resigned about taking yet ANOTHER day off work this month (after all, she can't go to daycare), I inform my boss and spend the weekend feeling god-awful. As in, my throat has a burning poker stirring glass shards in it, whilst administering eye-drops to a cranky pink-eye infested kid.
I'm extremely worried about the baby's health, because my throat is making it almost impossible to swallow. Thus, that plenty of water I'm supposed to be ingesting to ward off pre-term contractions isn't happening.
Then I wake up this morning...and realise I slept. Hallelujah I slept! For the first time in three days with this stupid cold...I've finally hit the disgusting phlegmy stage. I'm coughing it up and blowing it out, but at least the fire in my throat has gone down. Man, I laugh, there is even mucus coming out of my eyes.
Wait a minute. Mucus. My. Eyes. I run to the bathroom, and sure enough, my lids are swollen and my scelra look bloodshot and swollen. Well, fuck. Now I have pink eye.
Today is April 24th. I'm eight months pregnant, can't move without joint pain and waddling, I have hemorrhoids, a cold that has rendered several showers a day a necessity, pink eye, a cranky toddler (also with pink eye), and will miss about a week and a half total of work that I can't afford to miss, beginning with the time I took off for pre-term contractions. I feel like I should get carried around on a palanquin or something for my suffering.
Or at least a handcap parking sticker.