The grass grows greener still

I had a migraine this week.

You see, I've had a history of stress-induced migraines, the strength of which have waxed and waned since I first got them in college. These are not fun incidents, involving numbness, visual auras, intense blinding pain before, during, and after, and a general inability to function. Before, when I felt one coming on, I would take some ibuprofen and go to bed immediately. After the stroke (which, by the way, is most likely in some way connected to the migraines in the first place..FUN!), when ibuprofen was out, I would take a percocet and go to bed immediately. Both of these techniques helped shorten the duration and dull the pain of the migraines.

And then I got pregnant and narcotics were out (darn it!), but, fortunately, pregnancy hormones seemed to stem the tide of migraines for some reason, so, apart from a few monster headaches in the first trimester which I conquered with sleep alone, I was migraine-free for the duration. And then I had Jacob and was nursing so narcotics were still out, but the same hormones lingered on and on...until this week. (As an aside, I could also eat dairy during pregnancy and for a little while afterwards, but not as long as I might have hoped, as I found out rudely and painfully last week after eating some ice cream. vile cows.) And really, narcotics are out regardless, because percocet knocks me out, hard.

And, if you're keeping track through all these parenthetical asides, the only treatment left is immediate and profound sleep. Enter small baby. And let me just tell you, there are few things more frightening than facing childcare when your sight is mostly gone, your right side including your tongue is completely numb, your head hurts like someone mistook it for a trampoline, and you know the only way to stop the insanity is to go to bed but nap-time is over and you're sunk.

So I did what I had to do. I fed Jacob blindly (ruined his outfit and mine, by the way) and took him onto my bed with me, where I dozed and held his hand and he stared up at the ceiling fan and chatted with himself until he feel asleep out of sheer boredom.

Just one more way mommying is more complicated (and scary) than I had anticipated! Tune in next week for continued tales of motherhood's amusing little pratfalls and shenanigans!