Pregnancy + Flu = Bad Combination

All things considered, this has been one of my more mild pregnancies. For the first ten weeks, I never threw up. I had some pretty intense nausea that regularly glued me to the couch every evening, but as long as I could sleep in a bit in the mornings and get a bit of a nap in the afternoons, I was mostly fine and still functioning.

And then I got the flu.

It came on a bit slow at first. Chris got it first actually, and while he was sick the house kind of fell apart. I was feeling mostly ok but I didn't have the energy to stay on top of the housework by myself. By Thursday, it was overwhelming me. I finally called my visiting teacher and asked if she might be able to come do the dishes since that was the thing that stressed me out the most. Something about standing for any length of time combined with uncovering dishes that smelled of things that shouldn't ever have to be smelled...loading the dishwasher just wasn't on the top of my list. Or even on my list.

Wonderful friend that she is, Charisse came and spent four hours cleaning the kitchen. She unloaded and loaded the dishwasher and hand-washed everything that didn't fit. She cleared off and scrubbed the dining room table. She cleared and wiped all the kitchen counters. Swept the floor. And took home a load of towels and of Jane's school uniforms to wash since our washing machine is out of commission.

As soon as she left, I went to bed...and I basically didn't get up until Sunday afternoon.

The only other time I remember feeling this sick was when I was in junior high and got sick with something--strep throat? the flu?--and went to bed on Sunday night only to wake up again on Thursday morning with no memory of the intervening time. This time around I was at least conscious of what was going on at some point each day.

I had not thrown up at all during this pregnancy until I got the flu. Then I was throwing up fairly regularly each day. Could've been worse, but it was bad enough that over this last week I've lost about seven pounds. That's a lot in a short time.

The happy positive review--we've had a lot of help! My count may be somewhat fuzzy since that's all my brain has been for the last four days, but I believe we've had at least three people bring dinner over. Two people have taken batches of my kids' laundry to wash. Our home teacher came over to help Chris give me a blessing. And someone else surprised us with chocolate cookies. It was a pretty thick silver lining.

Fingers crossed we're coming out of it now--and thank goodness all the kids had flu shots.