I Want To Give Up.

Alternate title: Pity Party For One.

Alternate Alternate title: One Woman's Extremely Long TMI Rant

About three weeks ago, I woke up with four or five bug bites on the back of my thighs. The next morning, I woke up with (literally, I counted) 28 total. I freaked out, made The Hubs check the bed for bugs of any type, and made him sleep in that bed while I slept in our spare room. The Hubs never woke up with ONE bug bite.

The bites would go through several stages - they'd start out as just a little red area, then turn into what looked like mosquito bites (itchy as all get out). Then they'd turn into GIGANTIC mosquito bites with a hard lump about the size of a quarter which were extremely painful and tender. (28-30 quarter-sized bumps on my groin, the back of my legs, my vajayjay area, and my stomach. That's fun times, right there.) Then eventually, after 2-3 days of dealing with this excruciating pain, they developed pus heads (yep, I said "pus". Yummy, huh?) which would pop (yummy again, I know) and finally offer some relief and healing. This whole process takes about a week from start to finish.

Yesterday, I couldn't take it anymore, as one of the bumps that was ever-so-conveniently located on the left side of my vajayjay reached Mt. Everest proportions which resulted in that entire area swelling up so badly that I could barely pee.

At my doctor's appointment, she examined me, and when she was finished, I said "Before you even ask, we have a brand new bed (we just got last weekend) and brand new sheets." She said, "What? Bedbugs? I wasn't even thinking that. These aren't bug bites at all."

Reeeeeeeally?

Turns out, I have (get this) Infected Sweat Glands. Oh, it gets better.

It seems that my lovely pregnancy hormones are causing my sweat glands down there to react in such a way that they get clogged and infected, resulting in the lovely process described above. Do you know how many sweat glands you have in your body? Yeah, there are A LOT. Do you know what you can do to make them go away? NOTHING. Do you know what you can do to keep them from coming back? NOTHING.

So basically, she told me that until I either (1) become not pregnant, (2) stop sweating and/or (3) make the weather change, there's nothing we can do. I just get to suffer.

But wait! There's more!

She prescribed me a two-week course of antibiotics to get rid of the current infection with the caveat that the antibiotics may not actually do anything and even if they do, they won't keep it from coming back, and if it does come back, she won't put me back on more antibiotics.

Excellent. So I filled the prescription for the drugs that won't fix anything, keep anything from coming back, or make me feel better in any way. Win/win.

But wait! There's more!

I took my first pill last night, at about 7pm. I woke up in the middle of the night to pee, as pregnant ladies tend to do, and felt my hands burning a little bit, as if they were dry and chapped. I didn't think anything of it and went back to bed. When I woke up to get ready for work, I noticed that both of my hands (especially my palms) were red, swollen, and stinging like I'd just plopped them down in The Dip. (Come on, Who Framed Roger Rabbit fans, don't let me down).

As of this moment, I've had a call in to my doctor for almost five hours with no solution, and my hands are still red, swollen, stinging, and with the added bonus of itchy fingers on the back of my hands.

You know, I'm all for this whole pregnancy thing, and I realize that it basically just takes over your body. I realize that you're going to feel like shit at one point or another, and the baby does this, and the baby does that. The baby's not even causing all this! This is just whacked out crazy body issues that have nothing to do with the human in my stomach, except for the stupid chemical reaction that I'm having to him/her/it/the alien.

So, as I said before, I made it 16 weeks, and now I want to quit. I still want this baby more than anything, and you can tell me until you're blue in the face about how it will all be worth it in the end, but right now, my swollen vajayjay, 30+ infected and pus-filled sweat glands, and red, burning hands are winning the argument.

Red, itching, burning, swollen hands down.

**Edit** It only took my doctor's office 6 hours to call and tell me that the hand thing might be because of the medication, but they're not sure. They called me in a Z-pack, so I'm supposed to start taking that now. Joy.