i'm still standing (or at least laying)

after the worst episode yet, last night about this time, i called my ob's line, which sends you to labor & delivery after hours. l&d sends you to a triage nurse, who sent me back to l&d, who finally connected me with the ob covering for my ob. he was apologetic and swore he never got my message. he was kind and sympathetic, but the best he could do for me is to agree that i shouldn't take any more zofran and offer for me to come into the regular emergency room to get pumped up with fluids. i explained to him why i couldn't go to the emergency room, and how even if i was willing to do that, friday night in the level i trauma center er meant i'd be sitting there all night waiting for my fluids, and it didn't make sense to deprive myself of sleep and sit in a dirty diaper waiting for fluid i can give myself. actually, he was helpful in one way, in that he assured me that as long as i was getting a little sugar down and my temp didn't reach 100.7, i had nothing to worry about tadpole-wise.

i sobbed for a while. while justin cleaned the tub and ran a bath for me, which made me feel better, until i realized the rest of me was sitting in the same water my polluted behind was in, but by then i felt well enough to take a shower. justin changed the sheets on our bed, and i got some sleep, and sleep always makes things better.

so i'm back to overwhelming nausea, but periodic vomiting is still better than extreme gastroenteritis and fecal incontinence. for some bizarre reason, even gatorade has become intolerable to my system now, but i've switched to decaf tea with sugar, and i'm holding on to it, as well as a couple of apple slices and a couple of bites of pesto pasta i had at our friends' house tonight.

our friend successfully defended his dissertation thursday, so his wife threw a small party to celebrate. it was good to get out of the house for a few hours, even if i was not exactly the life of the party. the hostess had asked me at the beginning of the week to make a mandarin orange cake, which the new doctor adores, and justin - bless his heart - made the cake for me this morning with a little coaching from me. good husbands seem to be hard to come by, and despite my current misery i still feel lucky to have the one i've got.

justin remarked today that after last night's despoiling, he can handle anything that shoots out of a kid. for my part, i think it will make me a more sympathetic mother. i now understand firsthand the awfulness of sitting in one's poo, and the indignity of the clean-up process. although i would like to put this whole episode behind me, i guess it will help us both to be able to remember it when the tadpole is freaking out in its dirty diaper.

*****

i've been crying for hans off and on all day. he should be here now. i shouldn't be going through another pregnancy so soon after the last one, because i should be overwhelmed with hans. i do want this tadpole, but i want hans to be here, too. he should be a part of our lives now. of course, he is and always will be a part of our lives, but not in the way he deserved.