everything you never wanted to know about morning sickness

Dear Internets: Sorry I haven't written lately, but as you have probably suspected, I have been vomiting. Actually, I don't vomit that much. I just exist in a haze of nausea, interrupted by frequent gagging and retching and occasional full-scale puking, and accompanied by dizziness, exhaustion, and malaise. Max brews coffee in the kitchen, and I am overcome by the fumes. A babysitter shows up wearing hand lotion, and I feel as though I've been dropped into a bottle of perfume. Cooking smells permeate the building and disgust me. BJ's Wholesale Club sends me an email advertisement, and my mind fills with the vile smell of the store - factory farmed chicken and aisles of Hot Pockets. Noise, being touched, moving, smelling anything, looking at food, thinking about food, talking too much, being alive: all of these are too much for me. I lie in bed and read Larry Niven novels that I've read already. Babysitters and family members play with my child while I nap and nauseate. And it goes on. And on. And on. And I think "why don't I have cancer so it can be chemotherapy that's doing this to me, and I can just roll a big joint and smoke my pukes away?" And then I think "Oh god, don't babies with something horribly wrong with them sometimes make their moms especially pukey? What if I lose this one, and have to do this whole thing again?" And "Why the hell did I want another child anyway?" And "Oh god, where's the toilet?"

Oh, and don't you rush out to buy me some of those seasickness acupressure bands, Internets! I know you just want me to feel better, but they don't work - I've tried them already, several times. Along with pretty much every other home remedy in this universe, and five alternate ones I've contacted using Ari's talking alphabet puzzle/Ouija board.

Oh, I know I'm lucky, comparatively. I'm eating and drinking enough, so I won't end up in the hospital with a tube down my nose. (Would I get to pick the color, do you think?). No Hyperemesis Gravidarum for me. Nothing any sane doctor or midwife would give me any meds for, in other words. Which is fine, I guess, since I'm already pressing my luck in that regard.

The thing about nausea, though, is there's no getting away from it. If evolution was looking for a way to put a pregnant chick completely out of commission, it couldn't do much better than nausea. No gathering roots and berries for me, thanks. I'll stay back at the camp with the old folks. I suppose you could lose an arm when you got pregnant, instead, but then you'd have to grow it back, which would be kind of a pain.

So here I sit, pukey, sweaty, sickly, bored, and bitter. What do you think? Can I be on the cover of the next edition of "What to Expect when you're expecting"? Or perhaps I should just hire myself out as a poster child for abstinence-only sex ed. Oh wait, I hate those people.

Oh well, I guess I'll just find some wallpaper to stare at until I lose my mind.

Hope things are going great for you, Internets. Write soon. Love, Amy