Liver!

My quote of the day (to Bethany Moore during Amanda's baby shower): "I am so thankful for that liver.  I'd kiss the cow who gave it to me... if it wasn't already dead."

I got some strange looks, and then laughter.  "What do you say to that?"  Bethany asked me.

That's just what came out!  The liver in question is raw organic liver from some generous bovine.  Christy Fullerton, one of our pastors' wives, has long touted it as a help or cure for pregnancy-nausea.  She had several chunks in her freezer, and very generously agreed to give me some until I didn't need it anymore.  I've felt so yucky and tired in the evenings --teaching takes all the energy I have, then trying to make/eat dinner takes all the good feelings away-- that I hadn't made it over to her house (which is all of 2 blocks away) until yesterday afternoon.  "Cut off 6 pinky-nail size chunks and swallow with OJ at night just before bed, and first thing upon waking in the morning."  My friend Jenny added "lie down after eating it, to make sure it doesn't "come back up."  "

Unsure of my ability to stomach hacking off bits of raw liver, I asked my husband to do the job.  It turned out to be very easy, and I can totally handle it now.  Six chunks last night... and I slept all night without waking up from a sore tummy once!  Then at my usual bathroom-visit around 4 am (they aren't kidding about the extra fluid affecting your bladder needs), I swallowed 6 more chunks, and spent my first normal-feeling morning since week 7 of pregnancy!  I am SOLD!!! 

  Why it works for some women:  apparently the liver has iron and other vitamins (ex. Vit A) that your body craves during pregnancy, the lack of which contributes in some ways to nausea.  It also somehow helps your own liver detox, and an overburdened liver is another cause of nausea (poor little liver's having to filter extra blood and waste all of a sudden!).  Of course it's got to be organic liver since the liver is the filter of an animal's blood.  And then it's best to freeze it for 14 days to kill any parasites.  But after that, it's a super-food! So that is why I'm thankful and grateful and even willing to kiss a cow to prove it.  Mostly, I'm thankful to God for friends who know these tricks and are willing to give me a clean liver, pre-frozen and ready to ...swallow!  And all you pregnant suffering moms out there, try it!!  It works!!!  (you really do need to swallow it with juice, and lay down afterwards though.  Apparently it tastes pretty rotten going down, and much much worse coming up!)

PS- I have also been taking fish oils by capsule (3600 mg a day), and they've totally helped my fatigue level.  Except on the days when I felt too nauseated to swallow them... or threw them up.