Change for a dollar

This post was previously published on Barefoot Foodie in April of 2008, and it being re-published today, for your enjoyment.

If you have ever been pregnant, you can totally relate that the first few months are stressful, I mean, you are in a state of constant miscarriage worry.

Every little cramp? You freak the fuck out.

You stare at the toilet paper after every wipe, looking for even the slightest twinge of pink.  Yummy, I know.

You’re all, wait…I suddenly don’t feel like vomiting until I piss myself…holy christ, what’s wrong with the baby!?

You become a psychopath.

So, in an effort to tone down the crazy, and to convince my husband he could continue to live with me for the remainder of my first pregnancy, I began researching dopplers online, so I could listen for the heartbeat every second of everyday in the comfort of my own home.  Turns out, you need your OB’s permission to rent a doppler, and my OB, clearly sensing that I was a fucking lunatic, opted to not sign the permission slip.

Son of a bitch.

Out of complete desperation, I bought myself a lame ass fetal heart monitor from Target.  It promised that some woman were able to hear the heart as soon as 12 weeks. So, I took it straight home to find the heartbeat of my potentially miscarried fetus.

My husband found me an hour later, bawling my eyes out on the bedroom floor, contorted myself into numerous cirque de soleil-esque positions, trying desperately to find the damn heartbeat, but all I heard were my own intestines taking care of the Taco Bell I ate earlier.

I even tried using some ultrasound gel…ok…it wasn’t ultrasound gel, exactly…more like some old strawberry flavored lube I had on hand…but, the point is, it still didn’t work.

Fuck.  Fooled again pregnancy Gods.

Anyways, I now use the cheapo monitor for other medical purposes.

Which brings me to the point of this long tale.

Yesterday, my youngest possibly, probably, I was totally watching Dirty, Sexy Money so it very well may have happened I have no fucking recollection, swallowed a coin. And because being rash is kinda my M.O., I proceeded to freak out that, I don’t know,  it would get lodged in his innards, and would require some scary emergency surgery.

So, I called the doctor, and he was so laissez faire about the whole ordeal, telling me to just “keep an eye on him.”

Keep an eye on him!? That is your advice?  What if he is allergic to coin, and goes into shock? Or it gets stuck and  his bowels explode?

Rational, I know.

So, I decided to take matters into my own hands.

I got out the doppler and my super trusty strawberry ultrasound lube, and went to work listening to his insides, looking for signs of coin related distress.

Hmm…everything seemed to be swishing around ok in there.

I even had hubby shake him around a bit, seeing if I could hear a jingle…nothing.

Guess I’ll just keep an eye on him.

Tagged as: health, kids, lube, parenting