Things were better, and were looking up. I thought I was almost done with this whole ... thing.

I cleaned both bathrooms and my office on Tuesday afternoon, late, and then I started experiencing significant amounts of pain, some of the pain in ways one only feels if there is a pregnancy involved, somehow.

I took Motrin because I'm tough.

(Yeah, go ahead and laugh -- I am.)

And then I realized I needed the real deal, but I had to wait a bit because one shouldn't mix Motrin and Vicodin -- trust me, I speak from experience. (And yes, both were supposed to be taken together -- just not that close together. It was teh creepy.)

So I howled for a while, and ommmmed and other such things, went to my happy place, etc., etc., and then I took a Vicodin, and then I did more rocking and happy placing and other things, and then I waited, and then I took my last pill, and then continued to not be horribly happy.

And then my in-laws showed up.

Rice called the OB, who over the phone, on my husband's word, prescribed me a pill to finish off the miscarriage and 20 more Vicodin, to be taken every four hours now, instead of six.

My husband went to get pills, my father-in-law kept me company and patted my hand (because what else do you do when someone hurts and the Vicodin isn't even completely fixing it?), and my mother-in-law did dishes.

So at 9:20 p.m. I took the pill, and at 10:30 I took another Vicodin (four hours after the last Vicodin I took).

It was a very, very long night.

The next day my FIL came over and weeded half my vegetable garden.

I dragged, occasionally napping all day.

Things started to slow down, in terms of the miscarriage, finally.

I slept well last night, I slept in this morning.

My FIL had come early this morning and finished weeding.

And all he wants are tomatoes later in the summer when my crop comes in. Saint, I'm tellin' you.

Today things were going better. Still pretty sluggish, but better. I even did some more cleaning.

And then things picked up again. Um, a lot.

I took more pills.

I called the OB who said to drink a lot of fluids (I have been), get a lot of iron (I've thought about it -- more on this later), and to call if I'm still gushing in a week.

Thank heavens for all the extra Vicodin.

Eating is hard right now. My stomach doesn't feel so great a lot of the time, and it's bloody hot outside, and very little sounds good, particularly if it's animal flesh. Particularly the animal flesh high in iron.

I am by nature a vegetarian. I don't currently live a strict vegetarian lifestyle, but as a general rule, in my world, most meat exists for the condiments. Ribs were made for a good barbecue sauce. That's how it is -- God said. And that's how I grew up. We weren't vegetarian, but we primarily ate a vegetarian diet just because we did, for lots of reasons (but this is another post for another day).

So my husband wants me to eat cow, and the thought makes me sick. But I need protein and iron, and fluids.

You are all going to laugh at me now.

I promise.

For dinner last night I had chocolate protein powder stirred into vanilla yogurt. I had a protein bar, with included iron. And I drank some Slim Fast -- one glass has a good amount of protein and 30% of my daily required iron. Seriously -- I don't use it as a meal replacement, I use it as a supplement because it gets the job done and it's chocolate. How can it not be good?

Talk about a back to nature diet, eh? About as natural as plastic cheese and balogna.

I may end up taking an iron supplement, not new in this household (Rice has a tendency towards anemia because of his Celiac Sprue), but for now I heart chocolate Slim Fast. Also, molasses has iron. Good amounts of lovely iron. Do you know what this means? I GET MOLASSES COOKIES!!! And GINGERBREAD!!!

I have just medically justified drinking what is effectively chocolate milk and cookies.

Also, the emotional aspect has popped up again. I got kinder weepy this morning. I suspect this will happen on and off... Another reason for chocolate milk and cookies.





And yes, I know there's two different kinds of iron, and the iron in teh cow isn't the same as teh iron in teh cookie, but by golly, it'd better cut it for now.