No Pills: You don't know what you've got till its gone...

Saturday should have been a day of wonderful celebration: on saturday we finished the 12th week, and went streaking past that magical 12-week border that puts us statistically out of the reach of miscarriage. Lots of other scary things could still go wrong, but for that one worry we are out of the woods. I felt so happy that morning when I woke up I could have cried. I dont think Terry ever had any doubts about it, but I carried the chance of miscarriage heavily on me those first 12 weeks. One out of every five pregnancies ends in miscarriage. It seems like so many. And there is something that terrified me about that in particular because quietly, privately, it felt like it would be my fault. I know in my head that most miscarriages happen for hundreds of reasons that have nothing to do with anyone's fault. But in my heart, I felt like I would blame myself if anything went wrong.

So my body decided to celebrate the relief of this momentous day by giving me a giant whopping, crushing migraine. I am someone who gets headaches more than average, so when not preggers I usually dont leave home without a bottle of excedrin. Really. It lives in my backpack. Once every year or two I get about a week of crushing migraines. But usually I pop pills like they are going out of style and that is just enough of an edge to allow me to join the human race.

Not this time. Preggers = no pills. not a lot of drug options that are safely available. I had never tried to weather migraines of this magnitude without the help of pills. And to make matters worse, a number of things about being pregnant (increased blood volume, hormones) actually makes headaches more frequent and more severe. Awesome.

So this thing crushed me. And I pretty much weathered it like a 19th century wilting violet. I lay on the couch with a cool cloth on my forehead, a packet of ice. And I just...laid there. For hours. It was maddening, but moving made my head throb to the point of nausea. Later that evening I finally had to go pee, so I slowly (we're talking a mime doing a slo-mo impression) made my way to the bathroom. No dice. It was too much, so I promptly threw up. Twice. Glorious. It was just too much for me. To further my impression of a 19th century wilting woman, I then sat on the bathroom floor, cried my eyes out (which did nothing good for the headache) and then called Terry to see when he was coming home (from a bachelor party). Chivalrous guy that he is, he volunteered to come home then. Apparently he saw through my guise of "oh I'm just calling to check to see how things are going."

The headache continued full force straight through Sat night and all of Sunday. More awesome. On Sat night after about 12 hours I finally caved and confirmed with the pharmacist that I could take acetominiphen. He said yes. One pill every four hours. I almost wept again. ONE pill? Normally I would have taken at least three of the extra-strength ones. Sigh.

Monday morning it had abated somewhat. I took things slow, but made a token effort to rejoin humanity by actually briefly venturing outside.

This morning (tuesday) began with a battery of tests that they request/require for pregnant women. Which meant ANOTHER six vials of blood. The nurse in the lab chose a sort of weakling vein in a tender spot and jabbed away. It hurt like crazy right away. She smiled sweetly and told me it might bruise. I sort of wanted to punch her, but I'm trying to keep these hormonal impulses in check.

So now I'm sitting in a Starbucks, waiting eagerly for the OB appointment where we are supposed to hear the baby's heartbeat. My elbow is pressed to a cup of ice water (no baggies of ice at Starbucks) to try to calm the throbbing ache where the bruise is starting.

So I'd say so far the last four days have been on the side of "pregnancy can be a real pain in the arse. Nobody tells you about this stuff" but I'm hoping the visit tips the scales back towards "its all worth it."