Something is in the Air

Spring is kinda springing here in NYC, and even though there are only a few trees within sight distance of my apartment, they are apparently generating enough pollen or tree dust to make me miserable. I am not usually an allergy sufferer, so this is new and unusual and not-so-much-fun. I don’t quite know how to alleviate the symptoms. I am congested and have a dry cough and a sore throat from breathing through my mouth. Nighttime is the worst: As soon as I lay down I can’t breathe. When I wake in the middle of the night, I feel like my throat is closing up. And I jar myself awake because I apparently stop breathing for a few seconds, so I wake up gasping. Lovely. I took a Benadryl one night and it knocked me out, but not enough to keep me from getting up every hour or so to pee. And then woke up the next morning feeling like I had a hangover. How do people deal with this year after year?

My niece was supposed to come today to spend the night with us, but she has a 104 fever so she is staying home with my brother. I was looking forward to her being here, with her two-year-old enthusiasm for everything and her Dora addiction, but a part of me is a little relieved. I feel like crap and really need to catch up on the sleep I didn’t quite get last night. Or the night before. Or the night before that. I keep thinking, this is the last day I will feel awful. And it never is.

The babies are kicking me enough to keep me from over-worrying. Of course, I still worry about a random catastrophic act happening, but I am trying really hard to banish such thoughts (and websites) from my head. What if they wrap the umbilical cords around their little necks? What if one kicks a hole in her amniotic sack, which happened to my friend Jen, who then spent weeks in the hospital on bed rest before delivering her twins about five weeks early? I have a cervix check tomorrow and another growth sonogram on Tuesday. Hopefully, Nicole can come, which pretty much guarantees that Attila the Homophobic Technician will be the one doing the honors. My doctor’s appointments are almost weekly now, and soon I will need to add non-stress tests to the mix. Thank goodness my doctor (and hospital) are an easy ten-minute walk away. And that this is all covered by insurance for a change!

It’s strange how fertility issues still run deep. I am constantly reminded of my fertility-challenged past, especially when I see snippets of it other people. A close friend just had an ectopic pregnancy and had emergency surgery to have her tube removed. She was feeling crampy and all this pain and called her doctor’s office, who promised to squeeze her in for an appointment in four days. Typical. Thank God she pressed the issue and got in sooner because who knows what could have happened: She had a 7 cm blood clot protruding through her tube. It’s sad because she struggled for a long time to get pregnant, had m/c’s and chemicals and now this. It’s awful. I wish there was a window into the womb so that we could see why these things happen.

It’s a rainy day. Every year it shocks me, the whole April flowers brings May flowers thing. But it is true. There's rain today and on and off for the rest of the week. I wish I could go to the movies and eat popcorn. Alas, I need to use this Skye-free day to finish a paper and start another. I had to buy a five-inch binder for my final project. It cost $30 (!!) and holds about a million pages. And now I have to fill it. Only three more weeks of grad school…

Pictured above is my fevered niece, back in non-fever days.