Hello world -
This blog is for every pregnant woman who is looking for someone who can relate to their situation. If you're struggling with morning sickness - I'm that woman. I am now 9 weeks 6 days pregnant, and BOY have I struggled with morning sickness. I started this blog to share my story because I often found comfort in reading the stories of others who have gone through the same thing.I found out I was pregnant on Thursday, February 27th, 2009. The pregnancy was a bit unexpected, but very welcome nonetheless. My morning sickness did not waste any time - Friday night I got horribly, horribly sick. I mean, shoot myself in the head sick. I'm talking, can't move, can't talk, can't swallow, can't think, there is only survival. I thought I must have caught something because how could I be having morning sickness already?? Saturday was still rough, but a bit better, and by Sunday I was able to sit upright and carry on a conversation with people. I figured the sickness must have been a bug, or some sort of fluke.
Then, later that week, reality struck again. I was so nauseated all the time I could hardly face the idea of waking up. Forget food, I could hardly keep water down. I work full time, and my work needed to get done. I would try to get up and drag myself into work. I could only work for a half hour at a time, and then I would have to go lay down in the conference room on the couch (thank you to my bosses and coworkers who have been very understanding during this time!). Not a moment passed where I didn't feel like dying. This lasted for three weeks. I made so many mistakes at work because every moment I was there I felt like death warmed over and I could only focus on surviving another second - details were just lost. I lost 8 pounds and had difficulty staying hydrated. My doctor prescribed a useless medication called Zofran. To be fair, Zofran might help other pregnant women, but it did precisely zilch for me. I had a wonder-drug called Phenergan that I COULD take (in fact, I took it once when absolutely desperate and at the end of my rope - it worked wonders) but it was class C, which means the risk to the baby is unknown. I'm already taking Keppra, an anti-seizure medication, daily, which is also a class C. I certainly didn't want to throw another one in the mix.
When you're this sick, the usual little remedies for morning sickness are laughable. In fact, you want to find and mame every woman who would post on websites saying things like "oh, chewing ginger candies did wonders for me" or "I just drank a little raspberry tea and I felt much better." These people have no idea what I was up against. This is not the standard morning sickness, this is in a class all it's own. I tried all of the simple little remedies - eat a few saltine crackers first thing when you wake up in the morning (keeping them down was a real challenge), ginger candies, sea bands, lemon heads or lemon wedges., vitamin B6 and Unisom, "morning sickness magic pills" (look, I was desperate - don't judge), benadryl, dramamine, zofran, ginger snaps, eating small frequent meals (take the term "meal" here very loosely - more like a cracker), eating foods high in protein like meat or eggs, I'm talking every remedy known to man. Picture trying to put out a forest fire 18 miles wide with a squirt bottle. That's about the impact these cute little remedies had on my horrendous nausea.
The worst part was, people who experienced morning sickness in the classic sense (i.e., felt sick in the morning but felt better when they ate something, felt sick when they smelled certain things, got sick off and on throughout the day) acted like they could relate. People would say "oh yeah, I had pretty bad morning sickness, but don't worry - it only lasts for the first trimester." Now, if you had morning sickness like I'VE had morning sickness, you wouldn't describe it as "pretty" bad, and you wouldn't try to comfort someone by telling them it only lasts for a trimester. Do you have any idea how long a trimester is?? When you're 5 weeks pregnant and pondering requesting to be put into a medically-induced coma for the next 10 weeks, someone saying "don't worry, by the time you're 14 weeks you'll be feeling much better!" is NOT helpful!
I can now tell you the ONE thing that worked, and allowed me to regain my sanity and function again - I stopped taking my prenatal vitamin. I have my dad to thank for this - he's the one who suggested it (don't worry, he's a doctor). It never occurred to me that the prenatal vitamin could be causing the nausea because I wasn't getting sick right after taking it and throwing it up, I was sick all day long. But, I took my dad's advice and stopped taking it, and WOW we're talking night and day. I take a Flintstone vitamin instead, and I am able to function.
I now have morning sickness in the classic sense - I feel sick when I first wake up in the morning, I have to eat before getting out of bed, the idea of most foods make me want to throw up (not to mention 90% of the smells I encounter), my husband and I are spending a small fortune buying a wide range of foods hoping one of them will be the magical food that actually sounds appetizing, I have to eat small frequent meals so my stomach never gets empty, and I feel nauseated off and on throughout the entire day (it's at its worst in the middle of the night). This is the morning sickness other women have when they say "I had pretty bad morning sickness, but I did blah blah blah and that helped a lot." I can handle this. I know there are probably women out there reading this who will try stopping their prenatal vitamin and find no relief, and to those women - my heart absolutely goes out to you. I lived through three weeks of pure hell, and I can absolutely empathize with every woman out there who is going through the same thing. The one thing we all know will help - time. As uncomforting as that sounds, we know that time will continue to pass at the same rate it always has, and the time will come when we will be free of the nausea. We just have to hang in there until then.
Lastly, I want to thank my God-send of a husband who has been my support (along with God, obviously) every step of the way. He never questioned what I was experiencing or thought I was being dramatic, he stepped in and took over every single household chore that I used to do, and has spent many a night sleeping on the couch while I writhed in the bed trying to sleep. He is an absolute blessing. Thank you hubby!!!
To all you pregnant women dealing with severe morning sickness - hang in there!!!!
