In Search of a Bathroom

Disclaimer: This one’s graphic.  Consider thyself prepared.

You may or may not know by now that I am 14 weeks preggers.  Yep.  Behbeh Project is in it’s second season.  A different channel, but just as riveting (and there goes my last male reader.  Ah, well.  Ta-ta.).  We are excited and so thankful for the newest blessing and very very happy to add another real live person into this home that is needing another little mouth to help us all laugh and coo and increase in love all the more.  I am also very tired.  Like I’ve never known before (except those first three months of sleep deprivation where I could not remember to do things that were not all that important, like shower.  And eat).

So, due to the gestating and the expanding midsection and all, my bowels have been less than kind to me.  I’m not a puker.  Have never been one, really.  When things get wonky down there, it’s usually the other kind of explosion.  Neither are good, all things considered, but I hate throwing up like I hate dill and, people, that is some strong hate. 

My first sign that I was preggers was the constipation.  I never suffer that fate.  I’m a very regular gal and to have things slow down, much less, stop up, is a sure sign that I’ve got a little parasitic lovey in my tummy. Sure enough, the stick proved my theory correct.  And then things corrected.  And then they kept correcting until we’d definately reached over-correction. 

The over-correction continued to build until last Monday and Tuesday when I frequently left my 16 month old unattended as I ran upstairs to make it in time to use the little girls’ room. I was about to call off our trip to visit friends on Wednesday because I just could not imagine ten hours in a car with a billion stops along the way. 

Wednesday came and all seemed fine.  We packed up the car and drove away.  Gideon did pretty well, given all of the circumstances.  He put up quite the fight in the hotel the first night when we tried to convince him to sleep and spent two hours alternately screaming or being cuddled into quietness, but at least, from my perspective, he only wanted Jud.  At least I could lay down and pretend to be asleep.

We arrived on Thursday morning and were really enjoying our time with friends.  We went to the camp where they are pouring out their lives and were getting the grand tour when Jud was suddenly seized with the same need I’d had on Monday and Tuesday. By early evening, he was heaving in our friends’ bathroom.  We didn’t see him, save for brief 15 minutes intervals, the rest of the trip. 

I was bravely driving home on Saturday, hoping to get there without any bodily fluid issues when, about an hour north of Des Moines, I suddenly needed a restroom.  Jud took over driving. A few more stops were necessary. We made it home just before the puking began.

I missed my friends’ wedding on Sunday and it was just about the time she was walking down the aisle that Gideon filled his crib with vomit. 

It’s been an exhausting, stinky week.  I’m just glad it’s over and praying that our friends will be spared the virus that causes expulsion. 

All of that to say, let’s all be thankful for when the plumbing works correctly.  The bowels hold more power than we typically give credit.