Mommy Time

This morning I woke up to what felt like two hot rocks pushing on me.  When Adam came in the room, I realized those hot rocks were two not-so-little-anymore feet.  Emma woke up during the storm last night, came in the room, and said "I need mommy time."  She curled up next to me, and was out.  Adam moved her out of the room at some point, and she came back in about a half hour later for more "mommy time."  It was all fine until she tried to push me out of the bed during her sleep. 

The night before, she woke up hungry.  Then she thought her pillow was a skeleton, and came out of her room scared as can be.  It took awhile to for her to understand that the reason her tummy hurt was that she was hungry.  Then it took forever to figure out what she wanted to eat.  After that, she still had to calm down from the fear of her pillow shape-shifting and coming to get her.  She keeps asking to go back to the Halloween store, but I think we might just have to hold off on that for awhile. 

The little one is proving to be just as active as his big sister was while she was baking.  Emma thinks it is awesome to talk to my belly.  It is cute as heck, but it wakes up the baby at the precise time that I'd like to be getting to bed.  He moves, and dances, and wiggles around for what seems like forever.  It is cute and reassuring, but I definitely can't sleep through it.  I can't wait until she can feel him kick.  She'll enjoy that. :)

Sweet, sweet relief!

Yesterday I went to see the nurse practitioner over at Mercy.  She is the sweetest thing ever, and she's also the only nurse they have in the Sacramento area that can do an occipital nerve block.  Before getting started, she came in, gave me a big hug, and asked how my family was doing.  She spent a few minutes talking about my pregnancy and how that was going.  THEN we went into the headaches.  Now, how often do you get that kind of bedside manner?  I know that I'm a bit of a "special" case with such a rare condition, but I am SO happy to have caregivers that CARE.

The injections go into my scalp, near the occipital nerves.  Spasms and rigidity irritate the nerves, causing me to get raging migraines.  Right now we're trying to take the safest route, and injected steroids pose MUCH less risk than narcotic painkillers.  Only about 1/1000th of a dose (or less) crosses the placenta with steroids.  They've also been around for ages, so the safety in pregnancy is pretty certain.  Anyways...

The nurse injects a mix of Solumedrol (the steroid) and Lidocaine (an anesthetic) into the muscle that covers the occiput (the back of your noggin).  I get a muscle knot near that area, and it has been huge lately.  We chose to inject 2/3rds on that side, and the other 1/3rd on the other side. It actually hurts a lot less than you'd imagine.  It isn't any worse than a flu shot...if you have a good nurse.  She warned me that I might bruise a little more this time because of the extra blood pumping through my system.

I went home and iced my head, and looked forward to the sweet relief.  After having a migraine every single day for a month, anything was better than nothing.  I just realized that while my head is sore and bruised today, I haven't gotten a migraine.  Not even a hint of one!  As much as I hate having to take medication to feel better, I have to love that.