My Baby Makes Me Puke

There are many things about babies that you could say might make you want to puke (typically figuratively speaking): poopy diapers, curdled milk spit into your cleavage. But Lucy literally makes me need to puke. OK, so it's not just Lucy. It's partially from falling at KMart and having a C-section (not at the same time). But Lucy makes it happen more frequently. I should start at the beginning (or at least a little earlier in the middle).

For a while, even before Lucy was born, I've been having what I call "digestive episodes." First, it feels like heartburn. Antacids don't help. And it gets worse as pain starts in my back and ribs. A few times it has ended with a bowel movement (which made me think it was constipation), but most of the time it ends with vomiting. The last few times I've made myself vomit after several hours of pain so that the episode would pass and let me get back to caring for Lucy. (Last time I held her to try to bring on the vomiting--holding holding Lucy makes me feel worse--but I gave her to Matt before the actual vomiting started.)  I've considered that the problem was gall bladder or poor diet. I even noticed that it happened about the same time every month and thought it might be hormonal. But I decided to ask my chiropractor about it since there's back and rib pain. He said pressure in the mid-back can cause my symptoms. Of course, you'd expect a chiropractor to say something like that, but I decided to go with that answer for now because it doesn't involve lots of expensive medical tests. And I already knew I have mid-back issues. I asked the chiropractor what I could do if an episode struck when his office wasn't open, and he showed me some stretches. On Monday, I started having an "episode" in the afternoon and was able to make an appointment with the chiropractor half an hour later. I tried the stretches before we went to the chiropractor's office, and they helped a little bit. When the chiropractor adjusted me, I popped all over the place, top to bottom, especially in my mid-back. When I got home, I took a nap and woke up feeling fine. No vomiting necessary. I think the chiropractor might be right about my back causing my digestive issues.

What would be ideal is to prevent the episodes altogether. That may be tricky. I will try to strengthen my back muscles, but my back is permanently jacked up because of an accident. When I worked at KMart after my first year of college, I fell carrying boxes and because my arms were full, my torso caught all my weight as I landed on an empty wooden pallet. I knocked some ribs out of place and injured my mid-back. For several years, I needed regular adjustments to nudge the ribs back in place. And my mid-back problems are still the ones most likely to send me to the chiropractor. (I've also had injuries to my neck and tail bone, which get adjusted at the same appointments, but which don't usually cause me to make appointments.) I asked a chiropractor years ago if there was anything I could do to fix my back, and he said that my back is hyper-flexible, which makes it easy to get out of whack. So there's no easy fix.

My only solution is to change what I do so that I can try to keep my mid-back from getting out of whack as often. And that's where Lucy comes in. My episode on Monday came after Matt had been out of town and I was the only one picking Lucy up for several days. I was also trying to get her to sleep in her crib, which meant extra lifting. I think that's why my back was in such bad shape and set off an episode. And yesterday I was carrying her to the kitchen to find myself something to eat and regurgitated into my mouth. I promptly put her down and was fine. (See. My baby makes me puke.)  Carrying Lucy puts a lot of pressure on my mid-back, so I've been trying to carry her less. I carry her directly to some place and set her down instead of holding her while I'm doing something. Fortunately, she's getting pretty good at playing by herself, so I can leave her in the living room while I heat her baby food and do other little tasks like that. I also try not to run errands with her any more than I have to. Getting her into and out of the car is tough. Matt is picking up the slack by picking Lucy up more often. He transports her like he did after I had the C-section. (The C-section didn't help my core stability and so is also part of the back problem.) Unfortunately, the inability to lift her has set back our sleeping plans a little. We were trying to get her used to the crib, but that's too much lifting for me, so she sleeps part of the time on a mattress on the floor and part of the time with me in the recliner. At least my goal of being able to put her down and get other things done is met. Today I got a lot of cleaning done in the kitchen while she napped on the mattress for an hour and a half.

Other than not carrying Lucy, the only things I've figured out to do are to regularly stretch my back as the chiropractor showed me and to go for adjustments as soon as something feels out of whack instead of waiting for an episode.

I feel bad that I can't carry Lucy around, but I try to make sure that we sit together to make up for the other holding that she's missing. There is a silver lining: she gets more practice being alone for a minute or two at a time and entertaining herself as well as more time with her daddy, both of which are good things. And a puke-free momma is certainly a good thing for all of us.