The "Glow"

But in the meantime…the lows of pregnancy began…the constipation today, the diarrhea tomorrow.  The acne—I awoke one morning to the face of a 13 year old! I needed zit cream!  And I needed it FAST!!!!

And then, to make matters worse—my head hurt!  And the only thing I can take, is Tylenol Regular Strength…which, by the way, is the equivalent of running into a war against a thousand soldiers, with a stick!! 

And the cravings…they are a source of trickery!  I craved red meat…makes sense since my iron levels were very low…so I ordered a steak.  Well, that didn’t work.  I mean, it was awesome going down, but somehow grew claws coming back up!

At my next primary care visit, I mustered up enough courage, and I asked the doctor, “When do I get the ‘glow?’”

She looked at me with this confused, blank stare and asked me, “What are you talking about? I’m sorry. I do not know of this glow in which you speak.”

I looked at her, and said, “You know, the glow that everyone claims pregnant women have!  Right now, I have THE gas, THE constipation, THE acne, THE nausea, THE cravings, THE nosebleeds, THE gas—did I mention that already? Because I’m losing friends here…but I have yet to get THE glow, and I want to know when do I get mine?”

If you could have seen this woman’s face as she slowly began to realize what I was asking her. Her face went from bewilderment, to this jovial expression, and you could tell she was fighting back laughter, but I was serious!

And then she did it—she burst out in laughter at me!  She actually had the unmitigated gall to have tears rolling down her face from laughing at me!  She leaned over, grabbed a tissue, took off her glasses, and dabbed her eyes. 

When she finally had her composure back, she looked at me and said, “the glow, as you called it, comes later on. Not now. Later.”

“Well.” I began. “if that’s true, then there should be a disclaimer to this whole pregnancy thing because right now, I’m not going to lie to you, doc, I feel cheated!” 

That did it…she laughed again!  This time for not as long, and then we went on to a more sobering discussion: my blood pressure was not responding to the medication, and she wanted me to add another to the rotation in an attempt to bring it down quickly. 

I tried to explain to her that I didn’t feel this fair—I was sure that part of the issue, was that I could not keep the pills down. I was taking something called Methyldopa, three times a day: breakfast, lunch, and dinner…and wouldn’t you know it? Those were the exact same three meals I was NOT keeping down! So if I can’t keep my food down, how can I keep my meds down?

But she was not hearing it.  She wrote me another prescription for something called, labetalol, and I was going to have to take that once a day, on top of the other one at 3 times a day.

So I left her that day, preparing for my appointment with my ob—which was the next week.  And I must admit, I was getting excited…