The daily

***Bathroom stuff mentioned – be warned***

My current daily routine is to stay in bed as long as I can stand, then get up out of necessity by eight and have horrible, painful diarrhea (I’ve had it daily for weeks, even multiple times a day half the days, but it is now worse than it has been, and by a lot.). Then, when it seems like my belly might be settled, I have a single sip of water before climbing back into bed to sleep as long as possible before my stomach begins to ache differently from lack of nutrition.

Then, I get up and scramble with trepidation to create a breakfast that I actually can consume, let alone that won’t make me have a terrible stomachache in a few hours – all the gluten stuff does that to me, though they are the main things that ease the nausea… ironic, I know. The past two days, it has been a fried egg taco with only a bit of salt. (Oh, and I can’t actually talk about or smell food. Those both makes me sick, too. Even writing that just now made me feel sick.)

Then I remember to take my vitamins, and I get to feel extremely nauseous for a while again. Then I scramble the rest of the day to find anything I can eat and drink without repercussions, and trade back and forth between attempting to snack, holding my belly and mouth, napping to avoid the world, and rushing to the bathroom. I am both too hot and too cold all day long – too cold makes me feel common cold-like sick, and too hot makes me want to vomit. Trying to do anything on the phone makes me want to vomit. I make myself go for at least one walk. Unfortunately, it is painfully hot out this time of year here, and the sun also makes me want to vomit when it hits my skin for more than a second. And throw in a bit of irrational crying here and there, just for fun (meaning it is not fun).

And by the way, when I say it makes me feel sick, I mean in an absolutely incapacitating way. I cannot function. I can barely move and talk, let alone make my brain operate normally.

When I finally shower and get ready for bed, the hot water makes me feel sick, but the cold makes my body physically miserable. I get into bed, exhausted, and can’t lie down, because I’m feeling suddenly way more sick than I was feeling just a while beforehand. I then sit in bed, avoiding for a while, pray for some gas to release, and eventually moan and grown very loudly as I force myself to lie down, though at an angle. I then shift and moan in misery for a while, before I finally pass out for two hours. Then I wake up, needing to pee, go to the bathroom, and then get back in bed to find that I have way too much gas inside me and I cannot fall back asleep. I then struggle for the next several hours, going in and out of very restless and unsatisfying sleep, before my stomach finally seems empty around six AM, and I sleep semi-normally for another two more hours.

Then it repeats.

It feels like I’m not getting anything done and like I’m just avoiding life right now. I suppose, in a way, I am accomplishing very much – it just isn’t visible yet. And I’m not wasting my days. They just have more of a tight focus on what they’re dedicated to doing right now, and there isn’t room for anything else most of the time. Still makes it hard not to feel depressed and lazy and like I’m failing to accomplish anything at all.

You can see, I’m really not doing so well with the mind over matter here. Being so nauseous and having such intense – I mean, I look several months pregnant at certain points in the day because of the gas buildup – bloating is not going well for me and getting anything done other than crying and groaning.

If I look at the full forecast, I just start to cry. I have to do it David Goggins style. Just one more rep. I can’t even look at the whole day at a time. Just one step at a time – whatever is the very next thing on the list. Beyond that, I start to freak and feel like it is an impossible task.

Things have been immensely harder this time compared to last time. I am taking it as a good sign, that everything on the inside is doing what it’s supposed to do to grow a healthy, living human being. That doesn’t mean that I don’t grow slightly hopeless at times. It sometimes does feel impossible to get through any more of this physical misery, let alone weeks, possibly months, of it. It is said that the hormones after birth make the mother forget how hard any of it was to get to the point of having the actual child in her arms. If I can get to that point, I can accept all of this.

However, I have certainly noticed within myself these past few days that, if it somehow didn’t work out this time, I’m not sure I’d be willing to go through it yet again for an undesired outcome. Suffering is worth it when joy results. But suffering for suffering is a hard one to choose willingly. I know that God will take care of us. That doesn’t mean I have any idea how that will look, though. I can ask and do my best for certain outcomes, but it isn’t ultimately up to me. That’s sometimes very hard for me to swallow. This suffering is definitely one of those times.

Dear God, please, help me to find easier function in life throughout this pregnancy. Help me to grow the healthy child we long to have while also being and feeling well enough to operate on a functional level, please. Please, help to relieve this nausea. Please, help. Keep us both safe, make us both well and strong, please. Keep my husband always safe. Thank you for this opportunity. Please, help me to be well with it. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2024