Last Saturday, the day before I officially turned 17 weeks, I went off my meds again. I think this was the 4th attempt? I’ve lost count. Anyway, I spent Saturday feeling pretty nauseous and again on Sunday.
My aunt sent me this watch that I place over the acupressure part of my wrist that can help ease nausea. I used it for the first time on Sunday night. Usually, the mornings are bad, and then towards evening (always when I need to take my pills, of course) it gets bad again.
I think it’s working enough to take the edge off.
I’ve been wearing it off and on now. However, Wednesday night I was brushing my teeth before bed, and from out of nowhere did a huge dry heave and basically upchucked toothpaste everywhere. And then I cried.
Brushing my teeth has always been a precarious task in all my pregnancies. It takes serious concentration, usually focusing my gaze on some object, easing up when I’m brushing my back teeth and I feel my stomach hitch. Many times, I’ve gagged while spitting or brushing my tongue (something I’ve completely backed off from for this pregnancy). But until now, I haven’t just hurled up toothpaste from out of the blue while brushing (and of course I was sitting in bed while doing it this time).
And dry heaving always puts a damper on my mood. There are many times I cry after because omgi’msosickofthis.
The next morning, I gagged while trying to take my blood pressure medication and threw up a bunch of water.
Yes, I teared up again at that.
I had just picked up my prescription for the new blood pressure medication, Procardia, and needed to taper off my old meds for two days before starting it. Chris had plans to go out with his friends tonight, Saturday, and I didn’t want that to be my first dose because I was concerned it would tank my blood pressure and I’d have two kids to take care of alone. My plan was to wait another day.
But this dry heaving was enough to say fuck it and I decided to go ahead and wean off these flat, circular medications that I’ve been needing to cut in half anyway. I took a half dose instead of the full one.
I’m still off my nausea medications and some days are better than others, but I think the symptoms are more or less manageable now. If that’s not the most ambivalent sentence ever. I’m not going to lie, after those two gagging episodes I wanted to go back on the meds, but at the same time, it’s just more medication I’m trying to choke down and not gag back up.
I’m starting to feel a lot bigger now and have been having the first of the pubic bone pain I remember having with Emelia. Only last time, I had a chiropractor to help with it. I haven’t been back since before COVID and my insurance, while they *say* they cover it, never seems to actually want to pay for it anymore. Actually, there’s a “chiropractor” who represents UHC who sits up there like the Wizard of Oz and is supposed to deem who needs chiropractic care and who doesn’t. And apparently, according to him, despite him being a chiropractor himself (which I still don’t believe), he doesn’t think anyone should receive care. Three years ago, I was pregnant, waddling, pelvis all sorts of fucked up and he still denied my request for services. Again, and let me be clear, despite Chris’s employer paying extra for us to have chiropractic services.
I could pay out of pocket, which I may end up having to do, but it would be nice to not have the additional expense.
The pain is holyhellfire awful sometimes. There was even one time when sitting down to pee in the morning that I felt this rhythmic pulsing right in my cervix, only it wasn’t pulsing, it was the fire of a thousand knives stabbing me repeatedly in the vagina and I wanted to yell at the baby to get off, but then realized this was lightening crotch, or pubic symphysis dysfunction. Damn.
Also, I finally was scheduled for my level 2 ultrasound, but because it’s near impossible to get an appointment right now, I can’t get in until the first week of January, when I’ll be over 21 weeks.
And as a side note, because pregnancy sucks and I need something upbeat for this blog post, here is my girl getting her second yellow stripe for her white belt. She needs two more before she can test for the next belt.
I also started Procardia this morning, 30 mg, the lowest dose. So far today I’ve been okay. Unfortunately, I needed to order a new BP cuff for my home monitor and lost the stupid little bag of adaptors somewhere in the house, so I couldn’t check my blood pressure tonight. Must find those adaptors.
