My daughter also had her tiny foot permanently implanted in my ribs, causing them to bruise. Did I m...

1. Portrait of a Not-So-Perfect Pregnancy: Part Two | Natalie
Thomas
My daughter also had her tiny foot permanently implanted in my ribs, causing them to bruise. Did I
mention it was in the Valley in Southern California in September and 110 degress every day? It was.
... Had she not heard of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome? I went home and immediately started Googling
every other possible kind of syndrome. They didn't work. At the suggestion of my dermatologist (why
did I keep going to her? I've never claimed to be sane), I slathered on Hydracortisone cream, only to
have an apocalyptic reaction yet again. Instead, I split the dosage during the day, which meant I
towed the line between exhaustion and eruption. You name it, I had it. I thought I put on a good
front and since the majority of the rash was on my chest and my shirt covered it, no one had to
know. Terrified co-workers pleaded with me to go to the doctor, home, anywhere but there.
Determined as ever to work hard and be an example, I sat in a meeting pitching myself silly all the
while suffering. Every time I became sick or merely thought I was about to, I'd run to the bathroom
in Bumblefuck where I performed the charade of pretending all was well if someone was already
there or, worse, came in while I was in mid-flow.
Let's see, where were we?
Ah, yes. No more sickness, tons of energy, I could stay up past 7 p.m. It didn't make me feel any
better. I almost forgot I was pregnant. I had violent sickness in the early morning, morning, early
afternoon, mid-afternoon, afternoon, late afternoon, early evening... Several times throughout those
first few months of intense heat, stressed and pregnant, my skin broke out in severe rashes.
The vomiting got so bad that I was losing weight (hardly ideal for trying to grow a human) and I
became severely dehydrated.
Then came stage three. God, it was glamorous.
But, after ten months, three days and an extremely difficult labor and aftermath, my little girl
arrived, making each obstacle and every pain worth it. Then it was heartburn, acid reflux, Sciatica,
"Lightning Crotch" (I wish I was making that up.). My doctor put me on one set of meds to stop me
from getting sick. Round the toilet, round the clock. Terrified I had permanently damaged my baby, I
raced to the OB. Add to that the lovely little developments that come along with pregnancy and
hormones like a massive mole outbreak all over my body, back, foot and body aches, off the charts
bad breath, crazy drooling when I could actually sleep, the smelliest bowel movements imaginable,
Braxton Hicks... But as the hour-long meeting wore on, the horrified looks in my direction grew
worse. Those were not my finest hours. Each week, every day, I noticed the decline. First came the
cramps.

2. With my hormones raging, my skin became more sensitive than ever. Thankfully, Zofran was the
answer. you get the gist. I found out I was pregnant after an alcohol-laden trip to Italy, infection and
epic allergic outbreak, causing me to be pumped full of powerful meds -- prescriptions that were
definitely not pro-pregnancy -- on not one, but two different occasions. Everyone knows by zofran
settlement lawsuit now that "morning" is misleading. Not a pleasant place.
To make matters worse, I'd recently started a high-pressure, extremely active new job with very long
hours, couldn't tell anyone my secret yet and the "offices" were essentially a trailer park (an
underdeveloped, mostly outdoor part of a film and television studio lot) in which the bathroom was,
you guessed it, a trailer at the other end of the dusty, dirt road from my office. Several weeks in, the
nausea started.
Soonafter, there was no questioning whether it was "taking" or not. My stomach did the talking. I
was finally informed that the rash was climbing up my neck and now camping out on my face. Kind
of. For her, I'd do it all again. While I was still working 12-14 hour days, on my feet for most of those
and determined to work up to the due date, my body had different ideas.
I'd just maybe choose a different derm!
. It was so powerful that, if I took http://www.emedicinehealth.com/drug-ondansetron/article_em.htm
the full dosage, I passed out, which didn't really jive with my thirty-minute commute and the fact
that I was producing a daily two-hour talk show.
Thankfully, my second trimester was a joy. Almost immediately, the vomiting followed. I was like a
slowly stalling, sad little train. In a heartbeat, just to feel hers. It turned out, I was allergic to the
cream, which was like a blow torch to the already irritated and inflamed area. And I didn't buy it.
She said if it wasn't meant to be, if I had done something to truly harm my child, the pregnancy
wouldn't take. I was on pills, creams and ointments that no pregnant woman should ever go near,
and underwent treatments that specifically warned against permitting women with child to endure
them. I couldn't keep anything down. The only thing I could slightly stomach was bland starch so it
was bagels, crackers and plain pasta for me, a 24/7 carb carnival that left me super bloated, which
made me feel oh-so-much better. Moments from Middleton status, he said if the second brand didn't
do the trick, I'd be hospital-bound. She tried to assure me that everything should be OK. People were
urging me to slow down and take it easy, but I was invincible. I'm sure they were convinced their
new boss had a raging eating disorder