Morning Sickness and School Busses

I have been sick for far too long. I try not to be bitter about this, but my patience is waning. A more accurate statement is that I tried not to be bitter about this, but I have given up and am thoroughly irate about my current sate. It’s like the flu that won’t go away. I kind of expected that by the time I reached the I can’t tie my shoes, my wedding ring hurts my swollen hands stage of pregnancy I’d be finished with the I need to be close to a bathroom phase. People told me that I would feel better when I got to my second trimester. They lied. The second trimester has come and gone and I still find myself kneeling in the bathroom several times a week. In my more reasonable moments (which are occurring with decreasing frequency) I acknowledge that their dishonesty was probably unintentional. However, their inaccurate estimates cause me to question if I ever will feel better. I am somewhat certain that I am destined to spend the rest of my existence in an eternal state of “morning sickness.” I do think that the person who came up with that title was intentionally lying and should be punished accordingly.

As I approach my eighth month of suffering I have abandoned all pretenses of good naturedly accepting my lot and am quite unabashedly annoyed, frustrated, angry, and irritated. Unfortunately there is no easily defined target for my pregnancy enhanced wrath, and it occasionally lands on unsuspecting innocent bystanders. One day I was dropping the Texan off at school. As I approached his building the all too familiar gagging started. He quickly looked through the car, but unfortunately my plastic bag, which is normally stashed in the glove compartment for such occasions, had not been replaced since its last use. Although he was appropriately sympathetic and concerned, all he could really do was get out of the car, and wish me good luck on the drive home.

My rush home was significantly delayed when I got stuck behind a school bus on a road with almost no cross streets. I quickly became quite mad at the stupid bus driver who kept stopping to pick up kids. After only a few stops I earnestly loathed the flashing red lights and retractable stop sign. I sat in my car nearly choking. I wondered which front yard would become the receptacle of my partially digested breakfast. I cursed the unknown person who decided that all traffic going both directions must stop while children stepped from the sidewalk onto the school bus. I considered drafting a letter to the school board recommending they discontinue the bus system entirely. I tried to conceive of a way I could make one of the kids on the bus clean my car out should the need arise. I questioned why every child had to walk ever so slowly to the back of the bus only to find no open seats and walk twice as leisurely back to the front of the bus before sitting down, and I quite particularly wondered why the bus driver felt the need to continue holding up traffic for this entire process at every stop.

When I was thoroughly worked up over the inefficiencies of bus transportation and fully convinced that an anonymous bus driver had conspired with dozens of elementary students to ruin my life, I finally saw a cross street where I could turn off the horrible road and find a faster, bus-free rout home. Yards short of my escape the bus again assaulted me with flashing lights and an obtrusively insistent stop sign. I looked up the street that was supposed to be my reprieve and found instead an antagonist. A boy was running as fast as he could down the hill with his backpack in one hand and his coat in the other. I spent a full minute of my life hating this tardy child and mercilessly wishing the bus driver would leave him on the curb. The bus driver waited. If I had not been clad in pajamas (the white flannel polka dot ones) I probably would have taken more assertive action. Instead I sat in my car and angrily muttered hypocritically to myself about how late children should be left behind.

Since the bus incident the doctor has given me a new medicine that has significantly curbed the vomiting. It has also significantly curbed my ability to stay awake for more than an hour at a time. I am happy to report that, with the assistance of promethazine, I have made it as long as 10 days without involuntarily expelling my meals. I feel sort of like the factories that post how long it has been since their last accident.