I swear pregnancy has turned my body into a full-time science experiment.
I (26F) am currently 5 months pregnant, and the acid reflux has gotten so bad that I can literally feel stomach acid creeping up my throat before I even eat anything. Some nights it’s so bad I can’t sleep unless I’m basically sitting upright. And apparently the baby has decided greasy food is public enemy #1.
The other night my boyfriend (30M) and I were heading to grab dinner at a Coney Island. If you’re from Michigan, you already know that means greasy diner food that was 100% about to make my reflux worse, but I was starving and exhausted and just wanted food that sounded good for once.
Before we even got there, the burning already started. Bad.
Every CVS and Walgreens nearby was closed, so we stopped at a gas station hoping they’d have something for acid reflux. The only thing they had was a small display box of individually wrapped Pepcid packets. No regular bottles. No larger packs. Just singles.
Since this has become an almost everyday pregnancy issue, I grabbed around 10 packets thinking I could keep some in my purse, next to my bed, and in my boyfriend’s car because lately I never know when the reflux is going to hit.
There were still some left in the box when I walked away.
The second we got to the register, the cashier immediately goes, “Did you leave any in there?”
I told him yes, and he actually walked over to count/check them.
Then he came back visibly irritated and started talking about how there “weren’t many left” and how he uses them himself regularly. My boyfriend apologized and quietly asked if I could maybe put a few back, but honestly… I said no.
At that point I was tired, hormonal, hungry, and already feeling sick. I wasn’t buying them to be greedy — I bought them because pregnancy reflux has been kicking my ass daily and this was literally the only place open that had anything for it.
After my boyfriend explained I was pregnant, the cashier dropped it, but the whole interaction got awkward. Then once we got back in the car, my boyfriend asked if I really needed to take that many.
Now I’m sitting here wondering if pregnancy brain made me unintentionally selfish, or if people were overreacting over 10 Pepcid packets.
AITAH?