Archive for the ‘feelin bad’ Category

2018
7
Aug
21:09

that old joke

   Posted by: arcanai

i’m officially old. in the elevator today, i had a guy ask me if my purple hair was a mid-life crisis. so apparently my colorful hair that brings me so much joy makes me look like a joke. *sigh* i know it was just one random stranger but, seriously, it took a five-second exchange to deflate my whole self-esteem. and that, folks, is why you shouldn’t talk to strangers. jerk.

2017
9
Oct
9:54

plugged up

   Posted by: arcanai

i have a plugged duct. this happened several times with the turkey and i was so pleased to have avoided it with the sequel but then BAM! and it’s so much worse than it ever was with the turkey. over the weekend, it was excruciating. in all honesty, unequivocally worse than childbirth. i nearly passed out every time i nursed. i spent saturday afternoon in bed with a fever and sunday wasn’t much better. the fever finally broke last night and it seems like something must have dislodged because it’s not excruciating anymore but it still hurts. i can see a plug and i’ve been nursing, pumping, and massaging (OUCH!) as much as i can handle but it just doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.

2017
8
Jul
21:43

mammary melancholy

   Posted by: arcanai

since we’ve tried literally everything under the sun to correct the sequel’s digestive issues, i figured it was time to look at my milk supply. what i’ve found this week has depressed me beyond belief. i started with three days of supplemental pumping. since i feed the sequel every four hours, i just added a pumping between feedings so that i was expressing every two hours. for three days, i went from my usual five feeds to NINE “milkings”. i really felt like that alone would leave me floating in milk. when i didn’t see any results from that (actually, it seemed like i was getting negative results… i went from a yield of 1 oz per pump the first day to less than an oz, as little as .25 oz, by the third day), i begged my baker friend to make lactation cookies for me. she graciously did so and also gave me her supply of flax and brewer’s yeast so that i could make more on my own. for the last couple of days, i’ve been eating about 5 cookies a day and drinking oat/pb/flax/brewer’s yeast smoothies. today, i went back to regular feeding schedule but i replaced all nursing with pumping so that i could really determine what i’m producing. for the main four feedings, from wake to bed, i produced less than 12 oz. from everything i see online, that’s less than 1/2 of what he should be getting in a day! i feel like a complete and utter failure and i don’t know what to do. everything i read says i should be able to rebuild my supply but despite all of the extra stimulation and nutritional supplements, i’m not even producing half of my baby’s needs. which begs the question… was i actually producing even less before all these efforts or are they just not working at all???

2017
25
May
21:57

mom enough II

   Posted by: arcanai

i’m so glad that we decided to call it quits at two. as much as i would love to be pregnant again and have an itty bitty in my arms again, i just know that i’m not mom enough for three. days like today, i’m pretty sure i’m not mom enough for the two i’ve got. the turkey spent the whole day telling me how much he’d rather be doing things with daddy than with me. like he couldn’t stand the thought of spending time with momma. and i get it. as far as he can see, i’ve all but abandoned him to his daddy’s care over the last 8.5 months. add to that the fact that dad is the fun one who does nothing but play with him… why would he want to spend time with me? all the time that i spend taking care of the family doesn’t matter to him. all he sees is that i’m not playing with him. the fact that i spend entirely too much time in the kitchen cooking nutritious family meals because i love them and want them to eat well even though i hate cooking… who cares, i’m not playing with him. it’s so hard being the responsible one that keeps everything moving when none of that really matters to the ones you’re working so hard for. and that’s just what being a mom is. you have to do it all and get none of the credit and nobody really even cares but you know that it’s your job even though it means you’ll never get to be the fun one. and it sucks some days and i just want to cry when he looks me in the eye and asks me if he can please go play with daddy instead and i just have to suck it up and take it because he doesn’t mean it to be a personal affront to me and i have no right to let him see my insecurity. i love my two little boys. there’s no way i could possibly handle being mom to three.

2016
25
Feb
12:22

12 weeks

   Posted by: arcanai

oh good gravy.  just kill me now.  having the flu is miserable.  having the flu when you’re already suffering morning sickness is just plain cruel.  it’s been a rough week with hubby and i both running fevers and feeling like something stuck to the bottom of a giant’s shoe.  my while i only dealt with nausea with the turkey, i’ve actually been getting sick with the sequel and this week it has been much worse.  the poor turkey has been looking at us all week like “is someone going to take care of me around here?” somehow, hubby is managing to function better than me so he’s been picking up a lot of my slack.  all i want to do is curl up and die until this is over.

25 Feb 2016

2016
22
Feb
8:53

calling in sick

   Posted by: arcanai

it’s bad enough that there are no sick days in parenthood, but what the heck do you do when you and your spouse are both sick?  apparently, we’re going to find out.  i woke up yesterday morning in Alabama with chills and aches that could only mean i was wracked with fever.  as we were packing to head home, hubby started feeling the same.  since the turkey is not quite tall enough to see over the steering wheel yet, we were forced to suck it up and make the long drive home, fever and all.  i say “we” – and really, i did make several genuine offers – but it was all my hubby.  i don’t even know how the heck he did it.  i spent the whole six hours squirming around my seat moaning in pain and misery.  it was possibly the worse drive of my life.  i don’t see how he made it.  this morning i’m feeling ten times more horrible.  and, naturally, so is he.  and yet i’m getting ready to put the turkey down for a nap and go back to bed while he’s sitting there working.  either i’m a huge wimp or he’s got some fever-coping super powers.

2015
16
Mar
15:25

Mommy meltdown

   Posted by: arcanai

I’ve officially had my first real breakdown.  I’ve been crying almost non-stop the last couple days.  I just feel utterly worn out… Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually.  Nearly 7 months of trying to keep all the balls in the air is catching up to me and I’m just wiped.  It’s so hard to be a full time mommy, wife, employee, housekeeper, and chef.  I’m praying fervently to find my way past this before I cause permanent psychological damage to my poor little boy.

2014
29
Dec
11:13

If it’s not one thing…

   Posted by: arcanai

This little boy is determined to worry me to death.  The reflux seems to be getting better finally and the blood in the urine has gone away but the last last week and a half he has been on a hunger strike.  he’s been super fussy about eating, almost to the point of refusing to eat.  Feeding him has just become an all-out stressor for me.  He screams and cries the whole time while I wrangle him and fight him to nurse.  Today was his 4 month physical and shots.  He did great but we did find that he has gone from being in the 50th  percentile down to the 2 percentile.  His official height is 24″ and weight is 12lbs 11oz.  The PA suggested that we go ahead and start him on some solid foods and come back in two weeks to check on his weight. 

2014
16
Oct
23:58

first family camp-out

   Posted by: arcanai

After last night’s post about how well the turkey was doing with his shots, the nonstop vomiting began. For some reason, so far, nothing has bothered me more than vomiting. I guess it’s because my only real responsibility right now is to feed him and make sure he gets enough to eat. When he loses a meal, my heart just breaks for him and I usually end up crying. Last night was far worse than anything we’ve seen yet. The poor thing ended up with dry heaves once. He also started running a fever. We broke out the tylenol at 100.1 degrees. We ended up doing our first family camp-out. I “slept” on the love seat, hubby slept on the sofa, and the turkey slept on the ottoman where we could both reach him. It was a long night.

the family that lays together...

He did much better today. He kept his meals down and even started to get back to his normal appetite by this evening. He was still sporadically howling and super lethargic. The only real awake time he had all day was shower time. I took his bandaids off and washed/massaged the injection sites and he never even flinched. He was fever-free all day until just a bit ago when he spiked to 101.1 and had his first real diarrhea diaper. It’s so hard to see him feeling bad even though he’s staying in great spirits. He smiles through all his diaper changes and laughs and chatters while we’re trying to get tylenol in him. But he’s just not himself and I know he doesn’t feel good. I think he may already be figuring out that he can make us feel bad for him or worry about him to score some living room naps throughout the day.  i just hope that he’s feeling better in the morning when we take him on his first road trip.

tummy naps around momma and daddy are so much better than napping alone in my crib

2014
19
Jun
21:35

have plague, will travel

   Posted by: arcanai

the good news is that i only had that one night of slight fever.  the bad news is that i feel like crud with sinus and respiratory congestion and coughing fits that are not making baby happy at all.  i called in sick Monday and slept almost all day in the hopes that it would all just go away.  obviously, that postponed our travels too and made the furniture haul an impossibility for this trip.  that means hubby will have to make another trip on his own sometime later on.  Tuesday morning, after a night of coughing fits so severe I was sure I’d end up giving birth before daylight, I got up at 04:00 and went to the store with my trusty dr’s book in hand to stock up on cough and congestion medications that were on the approved list.  I still had no voice and felt pretty cruddy but i was determined to make the trip to ga so that hubby could meet his boss (who is ca-based so this was the only chance for them to meet in the foreseeable future).  we made the long drive after work (got a call from the dr office on the way letting me know that I am not diabetic – yay!!!) and ended up getting a hotel room around 23:00.  I’m glad we chose to go to a hotel, where I could keep my yuck quarantined, rather than staying with our friends like usual.  I’m sure I kept the entire hotel awake with my coughing.  I probably spent half the night in the bathroom breathing shower steam to get some relief.  poor hubby was frantically worried about me and the baby and kept asking if we needed to go to the hospital.  I had to assure him many times that there was nothing they could do for a bad cold and that I would immediately let him know if I saw any danger signs (bleeding or abnormal pains).  as for my son, he was just not happy at all.  after every coughing fit, he would just go into a kicking fit to get back at me.  poor kiddo.  we took our time getting around in the morning, working from the hotel while the cough calmed down.  happily, the steam must have loosened up whatever was killing my voice and I could actually talk a little. we got to the office mid-morning and found the break room all decked out in monkey baby cuteness.

leave it to beth to go all out with a crazy beautiful, impromptu office shower (more office pix below the fold).  we got to see most of the old gang plus hubby’s new boss, and the kids.  it was such a nice day and, again, I am completely blown away by the generosity of our co-workers and friends.

after work, we went to my brudder’s house for dinner.  my SIL made her yummy shepherd’s pie, just for me 🙂  my niece played very shy but I was actually happy about her keeping her distance this time since I really didn’t want to get the poor little cutie sick. we had a great visit and received some more terrific gifts, which my brudder was very proud of shopping for himself 🙂


we left at a reasonable time so that we could get to the hotel and try to get some sleep but, again, it was not meant to be for me. *sigh* this morning, we got up and went into the restaurant to work and visit some more. halfway through the morning, we looked up to see beth and the girls walk in. she is just all about the surprises! turns out they had to go to the university to have their bunnies fixed so they were near the area and figured it was time to try out my SIL’s wonderful cooking. They hung out for a couple hours while we worked and we enjoyed some great conversation and food with our friends and family all at once. after work, we made our way to ‘bama where I will hopefully get to recover and feel some better before hubby’s high school reunion and our baby shower on Saturday.

Read the rest of this entry »

2014
23
May
11:23

27 weeks

   Posted by: arcanai

23 May 2014

I’ve been feeling all kinds of great about this pregnancy until I got a phone call yesterday from the dr office saying that I failed the glucose screening and have to go back for the 3 hour test.  anything over 126 requires advanced testing; mine was 148.  looking back over labs from the last few years, it looks like my pre-pregnancy glucose level stays right around 90.  insert major funk of depression here.  I know that this doesn’t necessarily mean that I have gestational diabetes and I know that, even if I do, it’s fairly common and easy to control and blah blah blah… but I just can’t shake this disappointment and melancholy.  I’ve been trying so hard to keep us healthy – I’ve been eating nutritionally, I’ve largely avoided junk food and fried food, I’ve been exercising – and all for what?  just a big smack-in-the-head reminder of how much my body hates me.  just like when I lost forty pounds and my cholesterol shot up instead of getting better.  it feels like I’m already failing my kid as a mother and that’s a lousy feeling.  so it’s going to be 2.5 weeks before I can get in to do the long glucose test.  here’s hoping that I can pull myself out of this funk and learn to deal with whatever comes because there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about it.

2013
6
Aug
18:21

kindly remove your foot from my right rear panel

   Posted by: arcanai

UTIs suck.  it started friday night/saturday morning.  it made my life miserable saturday until we got home that night and i could take some azo.  other than some minor suckiness, the symptoms have been successfully masked whilst i’ve been chugging water and cranberry by the tub-fulls.  in the past, this has been a winning strategy.  apparently not this time.  this morning, somebody kicked me in the kidney with a steel-toe boot.  by noon, i couldn’t take a deep breath without my kidney feeling like it was going to explode.  i called and begged to be squeezed in at the dr office where they confirmed the kidney infection and gave me an antibiotic.  holy cats, the pain!  she said i should start to feel some relief by the morning.  i’m inclined to go to bed, pull the covers over my head, and not come out until it stops hurting.

2013
30
May
8:20

praying for sleep

   Posted by: arcanai

the hot flashes/night sweats have been back with a furious vengeance these last couple weeks.  consequently, I’ve gotten almost no sleep and I am completely and utterly exhausted.  I counted it up and, in the last five days, I’ve gotten three hours of sleep.  that’s just not sustainable.  last night, my tossing and turning woke up hubby.  he asked if I was okay and I immediately started bawling.  I mean full-on hyperventilating wracking sobs.  poor hubby was so freaked out by my outburst that he started choking up and praying over me.  I love that man.  sadly, I still didn’t get any sleep last night but his prayers were such a comfort.  i’ll be praying all day for some relief from this sweaty streak of insomnia.

2013
31
Jan
21:14

i’ve had better birthdays

   Posted by: arcanai

yep, that was how i spent my birthday this year… all drugged up in the er. i’ve had serious stabbing pains in my lower right abdomen for the last few weeks. i figured it was no big deal but two nights ago, i spiked a wicked fever out of nowhere. it was odd because it went away on its own after a few hours so i still figured it could hold off until my previously scheduled dr appointment that was supposed to be today. yesterday morning, i woke to severe pains, nausea, and bouts of dizziness and shortness of breath. i called the dr office, they brought me in, she said appendix and told me to go to the er where my fever spiked again. happy birthday to me. after six hours and countless tests, it was determined that i am not pregnant (duh!), my appendix is fine, but i have a large ovarian cyst that is going to continue to hurt until it ruptures at which point it will really hurt and then be fine. fabulous. i still don’t understand how all the crazy symptoms figure into that but i guess it was a coincidental bug. nutty.

so, yay! that it wasn’t a bursting appendix but boo! that the pain will continue. although, in the grand scheme of things, i can deal with pain pretty easily… i just freaked out about all the other stuff that was going on. i’m still dealing with nausea but i figured it was time to dig into my birthday cake.

2011
28
Feb
15:25

whine? yes, please.

   Posted by: arcanai

i’m feeling so despondent about my half marathon coming up in six days.  for six+ weeks, my training was going awesome and i was truly feeling GREAT about my running.  i just KNEW that i was going to kick that ½’s butt!  after two weeks of knee and hip pain, and only managing to put in a whopping four miles total last week, and another not good feeling three miles today… i think all of my hopes for this 13.1 are gone.  in fact, i have grave concerns about even being able to match last year’s time.  i’m trying to look at the silver lining and resign myself to the fact that i can still go out there and have fun with all our peeps and cross the finish line when i can but i can’t get over the disappointment in my heart after all of the hard work i’ve put in and how fabulous i was feeling about it just a short time ago.