Nauseous again.
This is what I’m actually wearing today. It’s my “it’s almost spring” outfit. I’m only showing you because I got dressed for once. But it’s so comfy it hardly counts. (I got it from walmart.com a while a go, they don’t have it anymore. It fit kinda weird, so me and my mom altered it a bit, so this is the first time I’ve gotten a chance to wear it.)
I don’t know how or why, but I kinda just reverted right back in to nausea this week. Not as bad as first trimester (which was non-functional) but clear nausea, food aversions, intense smells (and gross outs), and really close to throwing up Saturday night -- which I just laid on the couch and labor-breathed through till I was only nauseous, not on the very verge of puke. That took maybe an hour of breathing and eyes closed focus. And after that I just laid the rest of the night watching Gilmore Girls.
Aside: I am in season 6, and to be honest I don’t like it anymore, --- Rory has basically been confusing me/disappointing me/ making me wonder what the writers did to her, I don’t feel like it fit her personality to go this route, maybe I’m wrong but I’m not feelin it... since season 5 and I’m not sure I’ll really be convinced to like her again (this may be do to the fact that I am basically her mom’s age when watching this, even though I was her age when the show was made -- so I’m feeling parental instead of like a peer -- but honestly my younger self isn’t impressed either), and really Lorelai has been kinda annoying me the whole time on and off. Which I think is the point. But it’s honestly just not my cup of tea. But I just feel the need to finish up the show to say I did, since I made it this far. (Didn’t watch it when it was on TV.) Thankfully it seems like they focus a bit less on food once Rory is at college --- I say this because of my nausea, I had to take a break from watching it for a while there I couldn’t stand all the food and coffee imaginary smells that came with it. (During the break I watched all of How I Met Your Mother, which I enjoyed way more.) (Yes, when you always feel nauseous Netflix seems to be a good way to spend your evenings.) (And TV wise….Tears…Downtown Abbey’s season already ended. Sunday night has nothing left for me.)
Anyway, back from TV land,
I clearly lost my mind this week. Like mental breakdown crying, and whining, and pity partying, and worrying.
It was immensely not fun to go back to being nauseous. And it’s really hard to not lose all hope -- because seriously, if it comes back, how do I know it will ever go away? I don’t. I just know someday it will be July.
My progesterone creme was supposed to arrive last friday -- I have been watching the shipment tracking info like a hawk, and all day Friday it said it was on time and would get here by 8:00pm. It still said that at 10:00pm…. then they just changed it to say Wednesday. Of all the things I’ve ever waited for in the mail, why did they do this only to this package?
But a sweet friend brought some she had over to my house on Sunday, and then my package showed up on Monday.
So I’ve been using some since Sunday. I can’t tell if it’s gonna do anything or not. I think it will take some time to really do anything.
So yeah it’s been kinda of a crabby week. I’m finding myself up against not only my thoughts, but other people’s thoughts this week. It’s all well intentioned. But I just have barely enough energy to shift through my thoughts, I really don’t have it in me to add any. This week people seem to keep asking what they can do to help. Which I really do appreciate the sentiment. But I can’t think of a single thing to say -- nothing really would help. But I constantly try to reassess the situation to see if maybe there would be something someone could do. And it usually leaves me feeling worse off because I start feeling hopeless.
Then add in the advice of what helps with nausea -- or articles, links and posts -- and I’m back to that feeling I kept getting when we first found out about all our children’s food allergies. SO many theories. SO many “dos and don’ts.” None of them actually apply. But you try to make them make sense for a while because you are desperate. And it only makes you feel alone, because you realize one size doesn’t fit all, and maybe right now nothing at all fits. Maybe right now you just survive.
.
.
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Hugs and flowers. Can’t go wrong with hugs and flowers. Those help.
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Or maybe like really fancy soap? lol. Good smells are nice.
...(But we have milk allergies. No milk soaps.)…(see, even the easy stuff….never easy for me.)
Besides the emotional baggage that comes with nausea, I also kinda freaked out about my abs separating.
Here’s how that went down….last week I asked my midwife if I should stop doing the core exercise on my DVD because my abs looked like a lump was coming up in the middle between them.
My belly looked like this video -- which isn’t me.
(Showed her, she agreed don’t do it anymore.) But then she went on to describe (after telling me to work on getting them back together after pregnancy) a client she’s seen who hasn’t cared to get them back together and how strange it feels to palpitate her baby because there is nothing at all between her skin and her insides. This seriously freaked me out so much. I don’t know why, it just is disturbing to me. I like my body to be the way it’s supposed to be. Lacking it’s natural protection between my guts and the outside world kinda just horrifies me.
This lead me to think, “Well, I know I will have less time to figure this out once baby is here, I’m not doing anything now, why not study up and figure out the way to fix this now, so I’ll be ready.” (All while I’m cringing to think my guts are falling out.)
This lead to me an overwhelming amount of information.
When I get too much information concerning my health, while I don’t feel healthy, I end up in a dark place. Even if it’s kinda just trivial health stuff, it starts to feel life and death to me.
Wednesday was the height of these things combined. And I cried and got really crabby. Poor Blake.
But the good news is, after I had my cry-fest, I could think more clearly. I shifted through the information more sanely. And I made some wise choices. And I am very close to being an expert on diastasis recti. (Ok I’m not really an expert, but I know a lot all of a sudden.) I actually think I’ll do a whole blog post on it, because it’s actually a pretty important topic.
But until I write that up let me give you this word of caution.
If you are pregnant, or have been pregnant please do not do these exercises.
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| Photo Via |
You can really mess your body up.
If you have been pregnant, and you are very sure you do not have an ab separation (this is how you can check yourself) you can do these with caution (keeping an eye on things, making sure you don’t cause a separation), but there are actually other exercises to get a flat tummy without risking injury. (Here are a few I have found thus far in my research.)
But you absolutely know with certainty that you shouldn’t be doing these pictured exercises if, when you are doing them you see your abs looking worse mid movement, instead of better --- If your belly raises up (or if doing planks, dip down) into a strange blob in the center when you do these, you need to stop. That’s not just “needing to lose the baby weight” that’s your abs telling you “bad idea.” That blob is actually your guts popping through your muscle separation. You will only make your abs separate more and you will un-flatten your belly. Not only will you be less pleased with your figure, but this can cause other issues with your pelvic floor and your back. It’s not worth it.
So that’s my word of advice. For now. I will have more to say about it all soon, once I get a firmer grip on it all -- but if you are dying to figure this out ASAP you can see my Pinterest Board I’m compiling as I research.
So if anyone tried that DVD I mentioned before -- the entire core workout is basically made of this stuff. Don’t do it. It’s a prenatal workout, but it’s a bad idea to do while pregnant. The arms and legs part should be pretty ok. There’s a couple things you’d wanna skip in there though.
I think that’s how I was getting a diastasis -- by trying to be a little bit healthy with my DVD and making the wrong movements. After stoping and making some changes (which I’ll talk about more in my post on the subject) I got it to pretty much close back up. I think this is because I caught it early on. It may open a bit again by the end, just from getting bigger, I don’t know, but I’m going to keep making wise choices so I can be as healthy as I can later. Diastasis Recti can be hard to fix later (not always, but for some people it’s really difficult) so I want to do what I can ahead of time to keep it to a minimum.
If anyone wants to know what I did ASAP (like because they are getting one.) I used my old postpartum binder I got from the hospital after my c-section to do what they show in this video. (My binder looks just like what they are using.) If you watch this video they explain why you would splint -- it’s not the main fix, but part of the fix. And then I’ve begun to really focus on engaging my core, whether I’m wearing the splint or not, to keep the muscles together. Here’s a great tutorial on how to figure out engaging your core. (This is a good idea to do regardless of if you have a diastasis or not.)
Before this week, during this pregnancy, I had been really just almost pushing my belly out -- not exactly, but... giving it full looseness freedom. I kept thinking about how a friend of my mom’s had said she loved being pregnant because it was the only time she didn’t have to suck in her belly. And I guess I figured I’d try to embrace that since everything else has been un-fun. BUT I think that mentality was aiding the diastasis. So I’m saying goodbye to that whole thing. (By the way, this is not sucking in, this is engaging. This article addresses the difference, it’s rather important to get it right.)
So doing that and stopping any “wrong” exercises is how I’ve gotten it to mostly close. I have only a finger’s worth separation in my belly button, and the rest is closed right now. (The top of my belly still gets a tiny lump, when testing for it, which I don’t understand because the muscles close, so I’m guessing that’s fat. I don’t know. Lord knows I have some extra these days.) So that’s a ray of sunshine in my hard times, no more guts falling out.
But after I read some more stuff (I ordered a couple books, and have bookmarked tons of websites) I’ll do a more thorough post on diastasis.)
In baby news. I sure can feel this little baby move. Since I’m still nauseous, it’s pretty weird to feel the baby move so hard. I’m convinced I’m still in the first trimester, even though I only have a few more weeks left of second (how weird is that?) But baby moves almost constantly surprise me. Especially any shots to the bladder! I’m pretty sure baby is still flop flopping around in there. I know I have lots of time before it matters, so it’s cool.
Besides that I keep making plans on stuff I want to do with my life when I don’t feel so sick (and of course I realize I can’t do a lot of them with a new born either) but I want so bad to make sense out of my life. Right now I feel like there is none. I guess I’m just dreaming towards some. It’s not like huge life ambitions. It’s just simple things like “have friends.” “Spend some time with them.” lol. These are honestly just truly aspirational at this point though. I have more obstacles towards human interactions than I feel should be allowed, but such is life.
(Incase you are thinking “What is she talking about?” You moms know that having small kids presents lots of challenges towards social interacting. But seriously, when you add in “allergic to tons of foods, and pets” well, you remove (or at least majorly complicate) nearly any normal social situation from play. And then add in “getting in the car makes me sick” well -- screw it. We’ll just stay in our house till July. I’ll just have to see people later on.)
At least the snow is melting this week. That mixed with birds signing brings me hope that someday it will be summer.
And maybe at least we can play outside while we wait for this baby.
And one more random other thing. I’ve gotten a couple notes, and emails (and comments too) recently from awesome mommas just reaching out to me because of my blog. Everyone for their own reasons. And I just wanted to say they all touch me so deeply. It means so much to me when anyone emails me/Facebook messages me for whatever reason. Some c-section mommas, sometimes friends of c-section mommas (bless your hearts!), some VBAC advice seekers, some just to say they relate, or just whatever. (If I’m lucky I get birth stories in the mix. I love birth stories, the good and the hard, I love them. If you’ve shared yours with me I tuck it into my heart.) I’m always just so moved to hear from you. (This paragraph makes it sound like I have truck loads of fan mail. I really don’t, I just remember all the ones I’ve gotten over the years.) If something I’ve said means something to you I just feel so blessed to be connected to you in some way. And I love hearing from you all -- it fits the pieces of my puzzle together.
Thank you to anyone who hangs out with me here online. And thank you for sharing back with me when you can. It’s so comforting. We all need to feel less alone, and understood -- you ladies help me so much with that.
Belly Comparisons:
Since I don’t know what to actually count anymore, you get two this week. But like I said, next week is engaged all the way.
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| 25 Weeks with #2 |
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