at the beginning

Subtitle: What not to do when you're pregnant but you do anyway because you don't know you're pregnant yet. I'm on a bit of a blogging spree today as work is in a total pre-Easter lull. For those of you who haven't heard the story of my early pregnancy so far, I will share it with you. Warning: if you don't like sick people, this is probably TMI. You might enjoy this if you are killing time at work and have absolutely nothing else to do. If you die of boredom or get grossed out, I warned you...

Around the end of January, my husband Rick returned home from a Denver family visit and then came down with a really nasty cold or flu bug. Which I then acquired. Delightful. I managed to pull through the first couple weeks of February, fortunately, as this is the busiest time of year for my work as a massage therapist in a spa. I even had a beer for our quiet at-home Valentine's celebration. I battled some cold-like symptoms, and nausea, and my sense of smell seemed super-human in spite of congestion. But, by Friday, February 16, a day when I was preparing to do at least 5 massages, with 5-6 more to follow on Saturday, I went down hard. My head and whole body ached, my throat felt like I had been swallowing knives, I was weak, congested, and had hot & cold flashes. My holistic-therapy minded boss instructed me to stay at work so I could sit in the sauna and dowse myself in eucalyptus oil in hopes of boosting my immunity and sweating the illness out. I was really hoping for the best as I sat in that fragrant sweat box, furiously working at my lymph plexuses with the magic oil....to no avail. By 3 o'clock that day, I had all I could take of the sauna, and emerged to find out it was snowing! Perfect. I already felt too weak to drive. Maybe I would lie down for a while to regain my strength before heading home and the storm would blow over in the meantime. After passing out for an hour I look outside to find it is snowing harder, and am certain by now I need medical attention. I call my doc to find they've already gone. (Banker's hours!) *%$#! Francis the receptionist at work kindly helps me find a local Walgreen's with one of those quick clinics inside. So I begin the hour long trek in a snowstorm, at rush hour, overpay for gas in Fairway, still fearing my car will stall in the crappy weather, and finally make it from the Plaza to a Walgreen's on Metcalf in OP after 5:30.

My complements to the staff of the Take Care clinic at Walgreen's, as they saw me quickly and confirmed I had a severe sinus infection, prescribing some humungoid mutant antibiotics, allowing me to give the prescription to the oh-so-enthusiastic pharmacy staff by 6:15. The snotty pharmacy tech informed me I would need to wait an hour as they were really busy. I've done a lot of service-oriented jobs, so I really try to be empathetic and patient when a store or restaurant is swamped. But snotty attitudes set me off. Fine, I feel like lying on the floor to die and I'm carrying around an emesis basin, but I'll go sit in the waiting chairs with the rest of the angry impatient customers. I inform her that I will stay in the store until they call my name. I'm not going to drive all the way home in the snow with the way I'm feeling without the prescription. Under normal conditions, I'd be happy to walk around the store, shopping for makeup, trying on lotions or reading magazines, but I feel pretty certain that hurling is eminent. So I try to sit far away from everyone else and stifle the heaving as I watch customer after customer approach the pharmacy, get impatient and indignant, but finally leave with their prescriptions. I think it was around 7 when the hurling would be stifled no longer and my emesis basin came in handy. Not that either of the 2 useless Walgreen's store managers who had been walking past me every 10 minutes gave a care. The nicest person in the store was the photo lab lady, who let me go back to the employee restroom to finish up. Ultimately, this is a lesson in assertiveness. As everyone else was already yelling at the pharmacy staff, it felt useless to add my voice to the angry masses. So, I sit waiting another 20 minutes after the embarrassing public vomiting, as the pharmacy becomes almost empty. I finally stand up and hover around the counter, hoping someone will finally get a clue and help me. It only takes 5 minutes for another apathetic pharmacy tech to notice me and drift over. She finds my prescription is already in the bin and has been filled. They just chose not to notify me in spite of my saying that I would wait in the pharmacy for it to be ready. So relieved was I that I could finally get out of there and go home and to bed, I didn't stick around to give the management the bitching out they deserved. Now I've saved up all that healthy rage for a silly blog post. Stay tuned for the next episode when I recall the subsequent doctor's appointment that led to the discovery of my pregnancy....

sex ed

I will hereby confess that one of the reasons I have been hesitant to join the blogging revolution is it just seems so personal. It is a little scary to put so much of one's life for massive consumption up on the internet. But, being pregnant is causing me to confront the fact that my body will no longer be just my own, and I have a feeling privacy will become a luxurious, distant memory.
So, let the truth come out. I am carrying a child conceived in spite of many years of careful oral contraceptive taking. Let's take a little lesson directly from detailed patient labeling of one such "birth control pill", Aviane-28. Open your eyes, ladies (cause the burden is on us!): "When they are taken correctly, the chance of becoming pregnant is less than 1.0% per year when used perfectly, without missing any pills. Typical failure rates are less than 3.0% per year....In comparison, typical failure rates for other methods of birth control during the first year of use are as follows: IUD 3%, Depo-Provera .3%, Norplant .1%, Diaphragm with spermicides 18%, Male condom alone 12%, Female condom alone 21%, compared to 85% with no methods of birth control." SO, even if you set an alarm to take that cute tiny pill every single day at the exact same time, you could have a .9% chance of getting pregnant. Believe me, I have been racking my brain trying to figure out where I could have gone wrong, as the pill was part of my daily routine. The only possible hiccup is a bout of drunkeness/possible food poisoning that led to one really awesome vomit-filled night around New Year's. Perhaps the pill was not able to make it through and had the same fate as my regurgitated chicken tacos. If you're totally grossed out by now, many apologies. Blood, gore, puke, poop, etc., are also realities I'm preparing for.
And, if I have scared the crap out of you OC loyalists, take heart. This experience has also brought out in me a newfound faith in (but never total understanding of) God. Roll your eyes if you want, but he or she seems to make some things happen for a reason. If you are an eye-roller, don't worry, I'm not going to get all Fred Phelps or Jerry Falwell on you, because believe me, I have had plenty of disagreements with God in the past. So, here's to making the best of the opportunities that are given to us, whether we ask for them or not. Hold up your beer and wine glasses and I'll toast you with my non-alcoholic sparkling grape juice.