I Am Totally on Top of Everything
*The doc told me I’m anemic, and so now I’m on iron pills. Which should help with the fatigue.*
The doctor has me on some super spaceman iron that requires a prescription my insurance doesn’t cover and costs 40 bucks every thirty days. Even though it sucks to pay out of pocket, I guess I kind of sympathize with the insurance. The last two types of iron I took were over-the-counter and twelve bucks for a billion doses – if I don’t even understand why this iron costs an extra thirty dollars, I don’t know why my insurance would.
Unless someone in comments says Oh noez, this is the best iron evah!, I think I’m going to ask the good MD to switch the prescription next time I see her, because: Forty bucks!
Am hoping my request for some regular iron doesn’t result in a soooo- you’d-sacrifice- your-babee’s-health -to-save-a- buck type conversations. Even if that whole conversation only involves the raising of an eyebrow, the big sigh, and the whipping out of a prescription pad. Because holy shit: It’s. Iron.
And yet, I am completely vulnerable to the preshious-babee-money-pit eyebrow raise which will make me throw money down the toilet so I don’t have to wonder if I’m gestating a regular iron serial killer or something.
*In other news, we decided our family fan is not nearly poop covered enough, so we are probably going to move this month. Wheeeeee. The move is across town, it’s necessary, and it’s better to do it now than later with a newborn.
The prospective house is, in general, satisfactory. With the wild exception that for some reason? The owners decided it would be a really good idea to install white carpet. Everywhere. And when I say everywhere, I mean that stuff is in the bathrooms.** Seriously. Right up under the toilets and surrounding the tub and everything.*** Goodbye, deposit. I hardly knew ya.
Although when I think on it, it makes more sense that the owners should have to pay me some sort of stupidity tax. Every time I get out of the shower, I’m pretty sure it is going to feel like I’m stepping on one of those maxi pads they put in chicken breast packaging to sop up the E. coli juice. But you know, other than that, the house is pretty decent.
*I am so effing tired it’s kind of amazing. I spent most of yesterday crying, and then viewing houses, and then crying some more. It started off when someone in Mommy&Me said something that hit me wrong and kind of snowballed from there into a house moving expedition. The whole day yesterday, I kept reminding myself that I always have at least one crazy freak-out third trimester.**** Looking forward to some distant moment in the future when I can say, “hey do you remember when I lost my mind and thought it was a good idea to move ten weeks before giving birth? Lulz!” You know, instead of being where I am now, which is crying over packing boxes.
*Although the instructions specify I should take each pill three hours after eating and also two hours before eating. Very, very sadly, I will have to get up in the middle of the night to make those conditions work, as all waking hours are now filled with some sort of grazing behavior. Which, PS? I. Must. Stop. Eating. Every pair of pants I can fit into have perma-wedgie so damn bad they make my ass look like a toothless old man slurping up noodles.
** Also in the kitchen nook and dining area.
*** My husband wanted to know why the kitchen counters were not carpeted. Why not the garage? Damn you interior decorators and your half assedness with carpet application. Also, he asked if we can purchase some carpeted toilet seat covers (in white, natch) so that the whole bathroom can be awesome. Annnd now you will tell me that you have white carpeted bathroom in your home, and you love your carpeted toilet seat covers, and I am a total bitch for making fun of completely awesome bathroom decorative choices. Yes I am. But soon enough, I will be folded into your carpet flock, and isn’t that punishment enough?
****The First Annual Anne Pregnancy Freak being six years ago, when I called my mom at two in the morning and insisted she come over right. that. minute so I could tell her how my aunt hated me and I never wanted to see her again: That bitch coughed in the baby’s new room, thus infecting all the new stuff with illness and death. I mean, anyone could see that.
34 Responses to “I Am Totally on Top of Everything”
Guinness. Trust me on this one.
(See, now I’ll take the bitch slap. I’m awesome like that.)
lol!!!
I also went through an anemic stage during my pregnancy that was not cured by over-the-counter doses. My OB prescribed the “bad-ass” iron (which, even after being subsidized by insurance, was more than the grocery store stuff.)
I asked him a couple visits later if there was any difference and he said, “No, you could just take more of the OTC pills… I gave you a prescription to make it quicker for you and easier on your stomach.”
So, yeah, ask your doctor. If you’re willing to choke down five regular iron pills at a go that may do the trick.
E. coli maxi pad? Am never eating chicken again. And I am going to cough my bronchitis on your blog in 3…2…1…now. Please tell me that you are going to take magnesium with super iron? So you can poop before next year? Is very important. The pooping.
The pooping. Yah- that was my first thought, too.
And carpet in the bathroom is unbelievably gross. We looked at a house once that not only had it on the floor, but also halfway up the wall. Deal killer!
white carpet is the devil’s work.
just sayin’
We moved into a house with a lot of off-white carpet. Now it’s even more off-white. We’re on a mission to slowly convert all of that carpet to a different kind of flooring.
I don’t know, I think I’d rather have carpet in the bathroom than in the dining area. Been there, done that. The dining room carpet combined with 2 small kids=GROSS.
Our kitchen had off-white (I believe it was actually white at one point) carpet in it when we moved in. Needless to say, it was just one dropped rogue roasted beet away from damnation. Oddly, the only carpeted room in the entire house.
In my pregnancy induced stupidity – I read your “gestating a regular iron serial killer” as “gestating a regular iron skillet.”
With all that iron goodness you may never poop again. Good luck with that. Of course that would mean you wouldn’t have to look at the carpeted bathroom floor, so that’s a bonus.
mmm, carpety goodness. As a kid, my friends house had floor to ceiling carpet. It was all kinds of weird but it did make it easy to cover the walls with posters and not make holes in the walls.
I hope some sanity remains intact with packing and moving.
The regular iron can constipate. Which…isn’t that fun.
The carpets are just freaky. Although I did know a lady who said she carpeted her bathroom because she hated the idea of a cold bathroom floor in the morning? She did not have children.
I de-carpeted an apartment once. It was either that or die a slow, anaphalactic shock induced death from all the ick in it. I figured at that point I would sacrifice the security deposit. It was worth the peace of mind I had afterward. And wouldn’t you know that when the landlord was showing the apartment after I moved, he was heard saying “and there are hardwood floors throughout…” YEAH, thanks to ME. I hate carpeting in the bathroom in particular. Sorry you spent the day crying. I did that right at the end of my pregnancy.
I’m with Mr. Lady – my midwife was big into guinness and totally approved of me drinking a glass. In fact, i had a pint right after delivery and would have forgotten if she hadn’t reminded me! Us Irish don’t grow big, strong babies without some help, ya know!
Oh, I read “iron skillet” too! And I also just wrote a post about carpet like two days ago. So apparently I’m way too tired or something because this comment doesn’t make any sense at all. Anyway, white carpet is the devil’s playground, that’s what I always say.
Oh my god girl, I have just started reading your blog and all I can say is YOU ARE MY HERO. It is so nice to here someone speak sweet truth about life.
As far as iron goes… yeah, I’ve tried all the pills in the world… as all the comments say, just make sure you can poop in the end. But to save extra money I have eaten All Bran for three meals a day and drank 8 L of water to create the sweet regularity in order to save my extra $20 a month. Once it was under control, my doctor recommended the guiness and red wine (which by the way, he said beer was good for my kidney infections I’m prone to – flushes them out, just be careful to not dehydrate – and red wine is good for the heart)… I went back to that doctor.
I so had to google the Guinness thing because I had no idea… I guess since I didn’t have ultra-groovy pregnancies with midwives, I never heard of such a thing.
Also, I am sorry about your carpeting situation. And the moving situation. I did that at 8 months pregnant. I think the worst part is that you can’t lift anything. It is frustrating.
I didn’t read “iron skillet” but I thought it. A cheaper alternative would be to lick your cast iron skillet several times a day, if you have one that is. Or maybe nibble on it while you’re watching TV.
I totally agree with the white carpet thing. It’s nice and beautiful if you have it in a room you never use.
Good luck with the move. If I could come across the country and help you, I would. Really.
Be careful with the iron. Doctors are worried about anemia when you are pregnant, however, there is a connection between jaundice in newborns and taking iron while pregnant.
Do you REALLY need the supplement?
Can you ask your OB to hook you up with some samples of this super iron? I had anemia in my first pregnancy and had to take some crazy strong/expensive prescription too, but only had to fill it once because the nurse raided the drug cabinet for me and sent me home with a bag full of the stuff.
who the fuck puts carpeting in bathrooms??!?!
also? that maxi pad in chicken packages? EWWWWWWWWWWWW!
I thought of the poop thing right off the bat with the iron pills. My gyno wasn’t smart enough to tell me about the magnesium though, so I was all… Um… why haven’t I pooped in like ever?!? So I just ditched the iron, and drank pepto all the time… of course that was also for the heartburn so two birds with one stone and all that.
I totally feeel your pain…I am 31 weeks 3 days and we are planning to move in 4 weeks! I am losing my mind-I cried for the first hour of work today because my boss re-edited a project I am working on.
We closed on our house Nov. 18th, moved Thanksgiving weekend and I just delivered our son on Jan. 4th. I sooooooo empathize with your crying over packing boxes, but being on the other side of it now it is infinitely better to be hugely pregnant and moving than to be taking care of a newborn and moving. You will get through it, though it probably seems like it’s not possible now. If you can afford it, I REALLY, REALLY recommend hiring movers to pack at least one room for you.
Holy Jeebus. Did you piss on someone’s karma recently?
That third trimester freak-out? Apparently more common than you thought. I like to think I only had one. My husband would nudge that number up a bit.
Too busy to read all comments, children everywhere including on my boob. But, did anyone mention “chelated iron”? Super strong, very well absorbed (that’s the chelated stuff) and you can get it at Whole foods for like 13 buckaroos.
Must tend to the pack. G’luck and godspeed. hope you can poop! The iron made it virtually impossible for me to even squeeze out a rabbit turd for months…good times.
White carpet is clearly no good, particularly in the bathroom. When we moved into our current flat it had decade-old, stained, rust-coloured carpet throughout – including the bathroom of course! Wet carpet gives me the heebie jeebies, so that shit was ripped out the day we moved in. Seriously, who puts carpet in the bathroom? Idiots.
Also – oh how I laughed at the notion of carpeting the kitchen counters. It makes as much sense as carpeting a bathroom if you ask me.
My biggest fear? The one that keeps me up at night and haunts me in my dreams? No, it’s not cancer, unemployement, pedophiles or the IRS… it’s carpeting in the bathroom. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING gives me the creeps worse than stepping on cold, wet carpet in the bathroom. God. I’d rather lick a blackboard clean.
I got some liquid ooga-booga iron stuff at the health food store called floradix. I was supah anemic and it really did help w/o the constipation situation.
Your doctor would probably not buy it, though. I got the recommendation from my voodoo doctor-slash-midwife.
I lived in an apartment with a carpeted dining room. My advice is to pick up a $20 indoor/outdoor carpet and save yourself a lot of mess in that area. It was great for my spilly two year old and I just threw it out after six months. You could also get a remnant of linoleum for the kitchen/dining areas but that’s probably more expensive.
I had to take the giant 5 gram iron pills during a pregnancy…the OTC ones are like 85 milligrams, so you know it’s heavy shit.
My 3rd Trimester freakouts seem to be sudden OCD, and luckily I have a friend who really is OCD all the time, so she doesn’t mind me calling her to come over because I have to rearrange the furniture and organize everything. Again. To her, it’s perfectly rational. It’s everyone else who isn’t thinking clearly. I don’t see why I’m doing this now, isn’t this a normal thing at like 36 weeks or something, not 30 weeks? My friend told me she started within minutes of getting the lines on the stick–had to have everything ready. Then spent the next eight months rewashing and re-sterilizing everything. Which drove everyone around her nuts too.
I’m glad my last comment cheered you up.
I think this moving thing is just an excuse to have a really clean house before the baby shows his little mug. Abondoning the old house is smart Anne, very smart.
And white carpet? Can totally be a modern art installation in no time flat. When you are ready to move again, let the owners know that you increased the property value ten fold with your kool aid and crayon creations.
oh! i have some pills like that, too. i’m supposed to take them one hour before eating or two hours after eating. when is that exactly? um, never? (i’m not even pregnant!)
i literally do take them in the middle of the night. i keep them with some water on my nightstand and when the baby cries in the night, i take my pill.
since you are big, big preggo you can probably take them when you wake up in the middle of the night to pee? or to take some heartburn medicine? or to rearrange your 8 billion pillows?
good luck!
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