Absolutely wretched. That's how I feel right now. The nausea has partly given way, only to make room for indigestion, gas, and bloating. Eating small, frequent meals was the only thing that really helped with the nausea, but now those same small meals make me just as miserable. I can eat nothing. It all sounds positively horrible.

I'm living on plain vanilla yogurt and bananas. I'm not sure, but I really don't think that's a midwife-approved diet plan.

Yesterday, after a long, misery-filled day, I finally crashed into bed around 6:30, where I lay in agony until this morning. My stomach is twice the size it ought to be, and nothing I do helps. Today I'm calling my old midwife to see if she has any suggestions for things to try. I really can't live like this for another six weeks; Sam doesn't appreciate the need for Mommy to be inert, and I'm pretty sure that Beta needs a more varied meal plan.

At least I haven't thrown up yet. I'm reminded of that old Seinfeld episode where Jerry talks about his no-puking "streak." Well, I haven't puked since my sophomore year of college (why, yes; it was alcohol-related), and I don't mean to start again any time soon.

In any event, I don't even have the luxury of spending many nights in a pile of uselessness. We close on this house sale on April 15, which means we need to be out of here by then. Four weeks! Yikes! It can be done, as the relocation package pays for movers who'll even pack for us, but it would be much more comforting to know that we actually have a specific destination into which we can move.

Ergo, our plans for this week entail a plane trip to Wisconsin. We're heading out Thursday, and our realtor will spend five days taking us on a whirlwind tour of all the available properties. We were much less hurried about this whole idea while we were still operating under the notion that the company would pay for a limited time for us to live in a hotel or apartment while we looked. Turns out that while they do pay for that, it's only offered for people who haven't yet moved. They won't put us up in temporary housing while our belongings are in storage. Now the plan has to be to find a place, and find a place quickly.

Luckily, Eric's already had a chance to see a dozen or so properties up there, so he has a pretty good feel for the market. Our realtor came with high praise from one of Eric's coworkers, so I have faith in her abilities. What I fear most is my own ability to keep up with this whole process. What if I'm too doubled-over in pain to pay much attention to the details of the houses? What if I need to retire to the hotel before we can see much? This could not be more poorly-timed. (Well, I suppose if I were in my third trimester, with the same back pain I suffered last time, it might count as "worse." Not by much, though.)

Just in case you're curious, here are the links our realtor sent us to what's currently available in the two areas in which we're mainly looking. I know there's probably more for sale than this, but things are moving very quickly in real estate right now, so there could even be a whole different collection of houses for sale by the time we get there this weekend.

In unrelated news, Sam has had a cough now for a really, really, really long time. It started a couple of months ago, I believe; he would cough himself silly, to the point where he would throw up. The puking ended, but the coughing never did. He'd have bad days, then seem to recover; a few days later, the cough would return. Every time I'd get worried enough to take him to a doctor, he'd pull one of his recoveries, and I'd relax and cancel the appointment.

In Hagerstown, it came back with a vengeance. One of the things that can set him off into a coughing fit is a lot of physical exertion; my parents are fond of getting him running around outside, so he spent a good deal of time hacking away. It's a wet-sounding cough, too, so it sounds particularly nasty.

Anyway, I resolved to get this looked at immediately upon my return, and I made an appointment with his doctor to do so. (At which point, of course, he promptly stopped coughing.) Yesterday afternoon, we made the trip, and the doctor examined him. Sam loves doctor trips, the weirdo, so it was like a special treat for him. He didn't cough the whole time we were there, despite the fact that he was racing around the room and pushing the doctor in her wheeled chair, but the doctor got a good look at what she though might be the problem, anyway.

"His nose is very congested," she said, "and I saw some drainage down the back of his throat. It might be allergies." Well, that wouldn't be a surprise; he's always been Eczema-Boy, and Eric gets nasty seasonal allergies. She gave us some Zyrtec samples and had us make an appointment to come back in a couple of weeks to see if they helped.

Now, that's all fine and good, but, as I had told the doctor, his bast friend Zach has the same thing going on. In fact, we thought Zach had passed it to Sam. Either it's not allergies, or else Sam and Zach are reacting to the same thing. As far as I know, allergies aren't contagious. The doctor seemed convinced that this was the best way to go for now, though, and after one dose, Sam hasn't coughed a lick. We'll see what happens, I suppose.

I just hope he doesn't resume coughing before our trip. I'm already fearing how his poor little nose will feel when we're ascending. Poor Sam!