My One Pregnancy Woe

So as far as pregnancy goes, I really do have it easy compared to most. Last time was a cinch, and I do apologize to all friends and family who read this and pregnancy wasn't easy for them. A brief lowdown of last time:
~Sleeping just fine, even up to the last day (no body pillow ever needed)
~No throwing up (except when I got some food poisoning from Aubreigh's
chicken)
~Just a little nausea at night, easily fixed with a bowl of cheerios
~Lots of energy (worked out everyday, ran and rode bike too)
~Didn't get very big belly (James was seriously straight as an arrow in me)
~Liked the bionic nose thing (good smells were 10x good, bad smells still bad)
~Baby didn't make me hot (actually I was colder than normal)
~My back hurt, but not too badly
~Didn't have any other kids to worry about
~Labor was about and hour and ten minutes in the hospital
~Cracking jokes during labor and transition (it helped me deal with the pain)
~No epidural=move legs immediately afterward

I did get a stuffy nose most of the time too, and the worst sinus infection I had ever had. Now this doesn't seem so bad to most people, but the deal is that I cannot breathe through my mouth, I feel like I'll die if forced to. Nathan just says welcome to his life with allergies. No sympathy there. Growing up mostly allergy free, I do not understand this state of being. I would try to breathe through my nose until I would feel light-headed from lack of oxygen. The sinus infection on top of the stuffy nose was so bad, I guess I annoyed the people around me in my nursing class in my feeble daily attempts to breathe. Blowing my nose sounded like an elephant trumpeting. It wasn't until during a clinical when the RN I was following suggested I called my doctor for a prescription for an antibiotic to clear it up.

It seriously never occurred to me that I could do that.

When asked by the nurse from my doctor's office why I thought I had a sinus infection, I stated that "I get at least one every year" and "because of the copious amounts of opaque green stuff coming out of my nose". I got the prescription. And I got better.

Fast forward to this pregnancy. Most of the list above is the same. I haven't thrown up, but I do have an aversion to chicken. I have gotten a bigger belly faster this time. I run around with James, and I still exercise almost everyday. My back does hurt, but the monthly chiropractic appointments totally help. And I got a sinus infection again. About a month earlier this time, but I got it all the same. How did I know again? "I get at least one every year" and "because of the ping-pong sized blob of green stuff that I just snorted and spit out"... "I'm pretty sure it is an infection". Yep. Gross. But I got the prescription. And I got better....until I met a new nemesis:

Orange blossoms. There were some in Arizona that were just opening up, letting out all of their stuffy-nose-inducing pollen. Apparently, most people get a little bit of a stuffy nose when this happens. For me, it awakened something in my nose that I loathe...stuffiness! This time it wasn't an infection, because no green stuff, just couldn't breathe. I thought that after we left AZ it would get better....not yet. My friends now-a-days are lots of tissue (I should probably invest in real tissue, and not just toilet paper which I seem to be going through a lot of on a daily basis), Sudafed, though it recently stopped working for me :(, and Afrin nasal spray, though I can't use that too often or nasal stuffiness will "recur and worsen" according to the package, and from experience.

The real remedy will be when baby number two is delivered. Until then, I look for a little sympathy for my nose from my friend.........and for more tissue.