Shortly after I published my last post, Luna got sick. So shortly after, in fact, that I was still in the process of posting it when she began complaining of a tummy ache. I brushed her off (in hindsight I feel reeeaaaaallly guilty about that), telling her she was probably just hungry for dinner, and that I was going to get it for her as soon as I finished my ‘work’. The complaining continued, complete with dramatic rolling around on the couch. “No, it actually hurts” she kept saying “in real life”.
So while I got our dinner ready, I told her to try going to the bathroom, and this seemed like it could be the solution until I heard her little voice shout “I have to throw up!!” Thankfully the downstairs bathroom is right off of the kitchen, so I got there in time to help her, but oh did I ever feel awful for not really believing she wasn’t feeling well.
I layered her bed with sheets and towels (definitely the best illness related parenting hack I’ve learned so far! That way if they get sick in the bed you can just peel back a layer or two and let them go back to sleep without having to completely remake the bed), and she was out almost immediately. Now came my dilemma of getting myself dinner. I was only a day and a half into my gestational diabetes diet and meal schedule, I had just hit the two hour mark where I could eat again, and I was starving. But. This was not my first rodeo, and I knew Lu was going to be sick again sometime in the next 10-20 minutes, so I didn’t really want to leave her alone, especially asleep. I ran downstairs and added some things to a bagged salad as quickly as I could, but on my way back up the stairs I heard the saddest little “I didn’t make it…”
Poor lovey had tried her best to get to the bathroom, but only made it as far as her giant stuffed dog, so not only was that covered in vomit, somehow so was Lu’s hair. After a bath in the sink, a change of clothes, and a top knot, I got her back into bed but she wasn’t going to fall asleep so easily this time. I brought my laptop in, set up a makeshift table out of an old pull-up box, and asked if she wanted to watch a something. “Cooking show, Mama?” That’s my girl.
15 hours, an entire season of Sugar Rush, and not enough sleep later, she seemed over the worst of it, and wanted breakfast. Hahaha, no.
I went to work and by the time I got home she seemed just about better. She got sick one more time, but was in a great mood and thank goodness no one else seemed to be coming down with it. We had a lazy night in, and the next day had a wonderful dinner at the Little Schnitzel House for Adam’s birthday. All was well.
I should have known better.
I started having bad stomach pain as I was falling asleep that night, and immediately panicked that I was having contractions. It took me about 15 minutes to fully wake up and realize that my belly wasn’t tensing up, so they weren’t contractions. Phew.
Except. That meant… No, no, no, no, no…
Oh. But yes. All night long.
We were supposed to have a Dr’s appointment and hospital tour the next day, so I called the office in the morning to cancel and get some advice, since I couldn’t keep water down and had already lost 4.5lbs since the day before (all water weight I know, but the babies are kind of living in fluid a the moment) and they recommended I go to the ER to get re-hydrated.
Of course they made me wait until they’d done nearly an hour observation on the babies, and the nurse I dealt with was less than kind. “Why are you crying?” she barked as Adam helped me out of my wheelchair and onto the exam table. Oh I don’t know, maybe because I haven’t slept in 24 hours, I’m nearly 8 months pregnant with twins, my stomach is constantly cramping from nausea and dehydration, and I’ve been throwing up so hard that I have burst blood vessels in both my eyeballs. Then she got snarky about the fact that I’m not delivering the babies in Lindsay. Never mind that she’s giving me attitude instead of compassion (similar to the care I received there after Luna’s birth, actually), the Lindsay hospital doesn’t have a NICU or a paediatric centre, my pregnancy is considered high risk, AND my family doctor and midwives recommended that I deliver in Peterborough instead.
She softened a bit and finally showed some concern after I got sick in front of her. “Are you throwing up that much liquid every time?”
YES. THIS IS WHAT WE’VE BEEN TELLING YOU.
Then magically I had an IV with fluids and Gravol flowing through it. And since Gravol and I are not the best of friends – in that it makes me pretty stoned – I had a two hour nap. And when I woke up it felt like all my freckles were dancing on my skin. But at least I wasn’t throwing up anymore! It was a day and a half before I could eat anything other than saltines and gatorade, and a good 4 days before I felt back to normal. Luna was off for a total of 24 hours, then completely fine, and happy, and eating up a storm.
So yeah, I do not recommend getting any kind of stomach bug while pregnant.
From Three to Five 