And the countdown to 10...continues...Part 3

Part 3: This is where you stop mocking me and start doing WHATEVER IT IS I ASK OF YOU!

I really hate hospitals.  But if you had to be laid up in one for a long period of time...this one was pretty damn good.  They had fabulous ice.  I'm a self professed connoisseur of crushed ice.  On my list of "best ice EVER" this place was towards the top trailing only mildly behind The Great American Cookie Company (back in it's heyday at Clearwater Mall).  Another perk was the fact that they would make me grilled cheese with bacon for like every possible meal and they never frowned at Jon for bringing in Chic-fil-A or Marble Slab ice cream.  Even when it was well after visiting hours.

My secret suspiscion is that he bribed them in the hallway with treats but as long as I got what I was craving in the end I could give a rats ass if he was actually performing sexual favors out there.  When you're pregnant pure rational flies out the window in the face of meeting the demonic voice of satisfying whatever it is that your body wants at that precise moment only to be dissappointed 3 seconds later because now you have what you thought you wanted but your mood has changed, thus perpetuating the vicious hormonal cycle.  

Before having to be whisked off to the hospital for being in a "beautiful contracting pattern...shamefully at the completely wrong time" I was plagued by horrible cravings.  The only thing worse than my cravings was the unbelievable sickness I had.  It wasn't morning sickness.  It was 24/7 sickness.  This was NOT how I was when I was pregnant with Olivia.  I had the textbook first trimester morning sickness that would shut off at exactly 12p on the dot and once I hit the second trimester I never had issue with it again.

Not the case this time.  I would wake up nauseated and start vomitting once my feet hit the floor.  I slept with a bowl by the bed.  It was horrid.  And it didn't let up throughout the day and into the night.  Usually the last thing I did before going to bed at night was throw up.  It was magical.  Jon thought he had impregnated the exorcist.  Minus the spinning head...it was kinda true.

I would be throwing up and crying.  Then 10 seconds later I would be begging him to get me whatever it was that I was demonically craving.  It wasn't ever anything unusual.  The biggest thing was Chic-fil-A nuggets with boat loads of pollynesian sauce.  So much so that the people at our local Chic-fil-A knew him by face and would just put it into a separate bag.  Sheepishly asking, "is this enough" as if for some reason if he returned with an improper amount he may be harmed and it would be ALL their fault.  Let it never be said that those people aren't smart.

Every once in awhile he would get some zit faced punk of a teenager that would try to give him a hard time and he would be forced to say, "my wife is pregnant and if you don't give me a shit load of that sauce she may infact kill me for putting her in this state of utter misery therefore you will have blood on your hands you little fuck"...or at least that is how I imagined the speech going.  He always came home with the sauce.  Thank god.  I was too tired from throwing up to actually have to physically harm him for forgetting it.

As soon as I would start to eat I would begin to feel sick.  Again.  And then I would spend the next 30 minutes negotiating with my body in something reminiscent of the movie "The Negotiator" to just keep the food down.  I was all Kevin Spacey to my body's Samuel L. Jackson.  Finally Jon got so tired of this routine... me crying for something...getting it and taking a few bits...then crying because I was now throwing up the very thing that I had craved and begged for.  His suggestion to end this problem was instead of continuing the madness he should just take money out of his wallet and flush it down the toilet.  He said that way he wouldn't have to leave the house, drive to wherever, pick up the food, bring it home, watch me take a few bites and then have to listen to me throw it all up.  He felt it was only logic.  I did not find this funny.  He however thought it was downright brilliant and somewhat hysterical.  I punished him by making him go and get me ice cream because that is what I wanted right then.  Stupid man.

I was well into my seventh month and "morning" sickness was still a very active participant in my day.  While in the hospital the nurses tried to make me feel better saying that every pregnancy was different.  I took little comfort in that while I was heaving my guts.

Every day spent in the hospital was a roller coaster of emotions.  I felt helpless because I had another child that needed her mother.  You begin to feel torn between doing everything in your power to get the child in your belly to full term and also not neglecting the one that is already here.  I did a lot of crying.

Jon on the other hand...did a lot of juggling.  He was having his first taste of full time parenthood without someone else there to break up the stress.  He was running on all cylinders.  He'd wake up at the crack of dawn get Olivia up and off to pre-school...call and check on me see if there was any news from the night before that had occured since we talked before he had gone to sleep...then head to work...sometimes he'd sneak in to see me before he went to work...if he could break away at lunch he'd come to the hospital usually bringing me whatever I had been craving when he placed the call that he could make a stop by...then back to work...pick Olivia up from school if it wasn't a day that her father picked her up or if my mom couldn't grab her...then swing by the hospital...if Olivia was with him we would try to eat together so at least she had that interaction of family dinner, although it's not the same when monitors are going off every 5 minutes...then home for the bathtime, bedtime routine...he'd get Oliva in bed then do laundry, make lunches and call me to see how things were going since he left the hospital...if it was a night when he didn't have Olivia because whe was with her dad or staying the evening at my parents he would come back up to the hospital and stay with me for as long as the nurses would allow.  Then he'd sleep, get up and do it all over again.

I spent just over two weeks in the hospital.  Everyday I would hope this would be the day I'd get to go home.  I stopped asking after day 5.

I spent most of the time hooked up to what I have now deemed to be the 2nd most heinous drug in the child carrying and bearing experience...magnesium sulfate.  A step down from the horror that is pitocin, is this drug.  While I appreciate how it, combined with the efforts of terbutaline, stopped my contractions and kept our little peanut in the womb it brought with it horrid side effects and I felt worse being released from the hospital than I did going in to it.

The day that they released me I thought they were joking.  My day nurse came in and asked me the same question she did every day.  I had begun to hate her for taunting me.  She'd walk in, take my vitals and say, "wouldn't today be a beautiful day to go home"...I'd be all like..."yeah, that would be great"...to which she would say, "but I bet tomorrow would be even better".  What kind of fucked up mind game are you playing here sister??

But on this day when I solemnly said, "yeah that would be great" she said, "yeah I thought so too so I'll help you pack".  I was like...huh...what???  I thought I had won the lottery.  The doctor came in and declared that I had been contraction free for 3 whole days which I knew just from watching the monitors and said that I was good to be released albeit with strict precautions.  Bedrest.  I could get up to pee and could walk around a total of 30 minutes every 24 hours and no more than 10 minutes at one given time.

On the day I was discharged I was 29 weeks and 1 day.  I had to stay on bedrest until I was at least 35 weeks.  This was gonna be the longest 6 weeks of my life.  And on top of that it wouldn't be like being at the hospital.  I mean who would bring me yummy crushed ice or make me grilled cheese with bacon at the drop of a hat??

Jon tried to assure me that things would be fine.  He could handle it.  He would make sure that everything was taken care of.  There was only one small four legged problem.  And her name was Max (this is what happens when you assume the dog is a boy and let your child name it only to be advised it really is a girl and said child REFUSES to change the dogs name).

We had adopted a puppy for Olivia for her 5th birthday in June.  We had wanted a dog for awhile and now that we were in a bigger place it seemed perfect.  Knowing that a baby would be coming in the next few months we figured get the dog now, get it trained and comfortable in the house and it's surroundings so that there would be no issues when the baby arrived.

No one ever imagined that a little over a month after getting her I would be put on bedrest and although at home, I would not be able to care for her.  When I was in the hospital we had her staying at my parents house.  It was only gonna be a short term thing.  Or so we thought.

After finding out that this was gonna be a long term situation there was no way to expect my parents to keep the dog.  Foolishly I thought, they will stop the contractions and things will go back to normal.  I will go back to work and regular routine.  This was not part of the plan.  None of what was happening was part of how I had imagined things to go.

We attempted to have the dog stay with friends and family.  The only one willing to take her on such short notice was my grandmother who had a huge yard.  After transporting her down to St. Pete, about 30 minutes from us, we were called 2 days later to come and pick her up.  "She's too rowdy" was the chief complaint.  I didn't have it in me to argue that she was a puppy and didn't exactly prescribe to having to go to bed at 7pm.  It was a pointless argument.

I had only been home from the hospital 4 days before Jon declared we would have to find her a new home.  Another 4 days went by with no bites and me sneaking to take her out for pee breaks...Jon caught on and called me out.  It was the baby or the dog.  Olivia was heartbroken. Years later she would tell us that she blamed the baby for the fact that she lost her pet.

I bawled, partly because I felt like I had let the dog down and partly because I was a tightly wound ball of emotions.  A day later we took Max back to the shelter.  The lady who had handled the adoption was a complete bitch and made me feel like a speck of dirt on the sole of her shoe for returning the dog in order to preserve the health of my unborn child.

The baby wasn't here yet and it had already pissed off it's sister and offended the ASPCA.  Great.  Just fuckin great!  What next?

I was too exhausted to think what could possibly happen.  I began to stop planning anything and just looked at my life in a moment by moment turn of events.  My only goal became getting to the 35 week mark.  My only plan was what I would watch on television to pass the time and what list I would make for Jon to stock the fridge for my few precious moments of time moving about to forge for food.

35 became my new favorite number.  I had it locked in my sites and the countdown was anything but exciting...

~JP