WHAT TO DO?

Well, I am able to eat salads again, and occasionally even chocolate, so I must be getting better! On the other hand, the smell of coffee is still awful to me, I am nearly homicidal towards the poor dog every time he breathes in my vicinity, and I am still violently dry heaving by noon-ish if I go without the Zofran. I keep skipping it in the mornings, seeing if today will be the day I magically feel well again, and I made until twelve forty five today without getting sick. We even went outside to a playground and for a walk! ...And then I bolted indoors, ran for a trash can and started gagging, but still. Kind of a win.

I've been in a big funk lately, I'll be honest, but getting some fresh air today helped a lot. So did scheduling an appointment to get the dog's teeth cleaned at the vet to see if that might significantly help his breath. (Two! Hundred! Dollars! worth of help, so it had BETTER be significant!) We also heard back from our appraisal and it went better than we had hoped, enough that I think we're going to go crazy and switch from a thirty to a fifteen year mortgage, so that we can hopefully be done with house payments around the time the kids start college. Doesn't that just sound... amazing? Not having a house payment?

What else... trying to think positive here, so yesterday's road trip to my sister's house, during which I got a five hour headache/migraine thing, probably doesn't count. Oh but the zoo! Saturday night we took the kids to the zoo's annual Holiday Light show, and we all walked around bundled up, sipping hot chocolate and enjoying seeing the zoo from a whole new perspective. That was fun, and it was something I had been bummed about, thinking we had missed our chance over Christmas, but they had one last encore of it this weekend and we somehow got our act together and made it!

I also have a prenatal massage gift certificate to use as soon as I feel better, which has to be pretty soon, so I'm getting excited for that.

Lastly, and off of the Being Cheerful topic but big enough and time sensitive enough that I want to get everyone's opinion: my doctors are strongly encouraging me to get progesterone shots (weekly from sixteen to thirty six weeks of pregnancy) due to very encouraging research showing that it can prevent cervical thinning and preterm labor symptoms in women previously susceptible. I didn't do it last time despite their urging, and now, two years later, the research is even stronger, and I'm a little bit more eager to do anything at all to possibly avoid being on bedrest, you know? BUT said shots cost FORTY FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS per five week dosage vial. I would need FOUR of those five week dosages.

Insurance doesn't cover any of it, but it does at least count towards our deductible, so basically if I agree to order the shots we will have met our deductible for the year by... February. This seems nice, but doing this will also absolutely jack up our insurance rates again for next year, for not only our family but everyone else in the company, and I really hate that. Our family has definitely been a real drain on our small company's insurance plan, and I hate making everyone else pay for our expenses, basically.

What would you guys do? If I had ever had a preemie I would say yes to the shots in a heartbeat, do anything for my baby's health, obviously. But since bedrest HAS always worked and we've never even had a baby have to stay an extra day in the hospital or anything, I'm basically spending this money gambling that it's going to spare me, and by extension everyone close to me, from the annoyance and frustrations of bedrest. Is that worth it? Am I being selfish?