Week 22: Spaghetti Squash and Immunity

Week 22...


I have come to the conclusion that I have a lousy bedside manner.  I honestly thought that people who were sick were pansies.  I would still help... ...begrudgingly give them tissues, make soup, run errands, but the entire time my silent monologue went something like "Oh-for-the-love-of-God-can-you-please-grow-up-or-grow-a-pair-and-not-be-such-a-helpless-imbecile."  You get the picture.  I may have portrayed an image of a doting Florence Nightingale, but inside I was a merciless demon. 

Let me explain.  It wasn't really my fault. 

I am a teacher, and have an immune system of an ox.  I never get sick, or rather, if I did get a little sick, it cleared up in a few hours or so.   Since I never really experienced the need to lay around on the couch with a conveyor belt of tissues, barf basins, and hot compresses to cope, I thought that other people who required that kind of attention were weak.  And then?  Then I got pregnant.

CNP, 2015

Pregnancy books warn that "you may experience decreased immunity during pregnancy."  FYI, this is code for your body saying that it "doesn't have time to investigate any trivial little sniffle because it is busy doing important things, like making another human."  Outcome?  The common cold becomes the plague.  I spent three days on the couch, went through a box of tissues, fell in love with neti pots, and slept for fifteen hours in a row.


I realized that I've had a lousy bedside manner because I had never been sick before.  Now I know.  I henceforth pledge to be a little more Nightingale, and a little less petulant... or at least not call you names in my head.

Little miss thing this week is about the size of a box of sugar or a spaghetti squash.  She is sprouting all kinds of hair, but it is albino white.  Like her pigment-less hair, her irises also lack color, but she is able to sense light and dark even though the lids are fused.  Finally, at 22 weeks she has a pretty hefty grip!  I could see her hanging on her umbilical cord in her 20-week ultrasound!  

CNP, 2015

Until next week, 
Cat

p.s. Thanks to my friend Laura who made me first have a sense of humor about getting sick for the first time, and being the inspiration for this week's cartoon.