Head above water
This is the second day that I feel like my head's above water finally, with the nausea and dizziness, fatigue and general malaise easing up considerably. All this month I've felt submerged and getting more and more depressed, praying for the hyperemesis gravidarum to end.
I'm still on Zofran (I tried getting off it and ended up spending most of the day running from bathroom to kitchen sink) and actually drove around yesterday without the dreaded grocery bag clutched in my hand.
I am considering naming Baby No. 3 after all you who have e-mailed me with words of encouragement, advice and horror stories of your own nausea-filled pregnancies. Thank you, thank you. (It helps to know so many other moms had it worse than me. Selfish, I know, but it helps!)
These e-mails have been as good as hand-holding, a warm hug or a nice, moist slice of chocolate cake with super-thick icing. (I'm sorry, did I say something after "chocolate?")
Thankfully, I have an excellent helper in Hubby these days. The week that I suffered the worst of my symptoms, Hubby got laid off. He was able to do the drop-offs and pickups, grocery-shopping, dishwasher-loading and child-tending (everything but the laundry, which explains the mountain of clothes mocking me from the corner of our bedroom.)
The first time Hubby got laid off was seven years ago, shortly after Firstborn Son was born. Not only did he get ample warning of the dismissal, but each employee got an excellent severance package, which allowed us to have a couple of months of 100 percent family time before Hubby lined up a new job.
This time, with news of other parents losing their jobs in our ever-crumbling economy, Hubby isn't so optimistic. The first few days, he reported slim pickings in openings online and through his networking grapevine. He's finding more leads these days and is up for one position (with a one-hour commute, but we're not complaining!) but I can tell he will have a harder time balancing work and family when he does go back to work.
He's convinced he has to work longer hours and prove himself so he doesn't get in line to be laid off again. With job offers few and far between, he doesn't have the leverage to ask for better pay, too.
For now, the boys are just thrilled that Papa is home more, since he's the one who wrestles with them and gives them upside-down piggyback rides. Hubby is reveling in spending time with them, too, marveling at Wonder Boy's vocabulary, volunteering at Firstborn Son's school, playing I Spy Bingo, watching Discovery Channel as they snuggle on the sofa.
Hubby and I aren't too worried yet, either. In a one-income household, you learn to live within your means (which is true for Hubby and not so much for me.) But my dear better half has squirreled away enough savings to keep a roof over our heads for some time. We're studying our options so we can have medical insurance for the whole family, including Baby No. 3. And of course, our spending has become a science of finding sales and convincing ourselves we don't really need (fill in proposed item to purchase here.)
We have an army of friends and family storming the heavens with prayers for us, too. And I think when you have children, especially younger ones, you can't help but be optimistic about the future.
If things get really hairy, maybe we have to sell the house. Fine. We'll get a smaller one. We won't be able to buy a new car for awhile. OK. Let's declare a moratorium on new clothes. Thank goodness for cousins and their hand-me-downs. We're all still healthy. We're all still together. We can still laugh (although my in-laws' laughter may have been a tad bit nervous when Hubby joked about us moving into their newly-cleaned out garage.)
We tell our children all the time not to give up, to keep trying to find solutions and to have faith. As one of my favorite moms, Karen Maezen Miller says: "We carry on, coming and going, into the inconceivable. This is how we live in faith--- faith not in what we claim to know but in what we never will."
Intersting story.