In praise of the Kegels

I spent 2/3rds of the holiday weekend sick, really as sick as I've been in a while. This has been the kind of cold that keeps you up all night then requires a nap during the day; the kind of cold where coughing is a necessary but fruitless task, because you keep on having to do it, sometimes every couple of minutes all day long. The cough is semi-productive; not enough to make a difference to the mucus-rhino nestled in your chest very comfortably. Sometimes there's a little lung butter offered up to the tissue gods, but not as often as I would like. My nose is raw from constant, fruitless blowing, yielding little more than water. I've stuffed Vicks Vapo-Rub up my nostrils in a futile effort to open up the passages, allowing for a steady stream of air while I sleep to eliminate mouth-breathing and the subsequent snoring that G gets to enjoy for the few minutes that I can sleep. It's moved into my sinuses, so my ears are plugged and I can't hear a damn thing, and into my throat, so I can't talk. I've been a real peach to be around.

Being sick as an adult is one thing: call in sick to work, lounge on the couch all day watching daytime television, eat some ice cream, take a nap, drink plenty of fluids, take some Nyquil and halluncinate a little bit before passing out for 10 hours, read some of whatever book you're into. Being sick as an adult with a small child, that's another story. Because the small child, she doesn't WANT to watch daytime television, she wants to watch Spongebob or Clifford for the eleventh hour. I'm so lucky to have G to run backup on the days when I can't rally and be "mom". It's hard to take a nap with P around; she came in a few times yesterday to check on me which really means she came in to wake me up.

But being sick as an adult with a small child and pregnant? That.... that is a horse of an entirely different color, nature, and breed. Not only do you still have to be mommy to the child on the ground, you have to be mindful of what you can take to make you feel better - i.e. you can't take anything except for Tylenol. No cough syrup, no mucus breaker, nothing. Wait, that's not true. You can rinse out your nasal passages with saline spray. And if you're anything like me, every time you do that, it will cause you to dry-heave and cough and spit up whatever you last ate.

When you're pregnant, you really should only lay on your left side, so as not to cut the blood-flow to the fetus off if you lie on your back. When you're sick, you should elevate your head. When you're pregnant and sick, you have to elevate your left side and figure out a way to sleep comfortably. And, when you're sick, you drink a lot of fluids. When you're pregnant, you pee every 5 minutes anyway. When you're sick and pregnant, it's a constant flow of fluid in and out.... and let's not forget what happens if you happen to cough or sneeze, which you will do when you're sick. Unless you're relgious about your Kegel exercises - which, oops, I haven't been - you will wet your pants when you have a sudden forceful exit of air from your body. It's horrible. Ladies: practice those Kegels. They're annoying, but they do serve a purpose, mainly that the next time you're sick after the kid has come out, you won't leak a little every time you cough, sneeze, or laugh.

I've admited to the Internets that I have peed myself this weekend. It's a new day for me.