how morning sickness almost kicked my ass

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My battle with severe morning sickness (Hyperemesis Gravidarum) technically started even before I became pregnant. My sister became pregnant in June 2012 and quickly developed horrible morning/all-day-long sickness and vomiting. She. Was. Miserable. At her first doctor’s appointment she was sent to the hospital for IV fluids because she was so dehydrated and her ketones were crazy high. Needless to say, she hadn’t been keeping anything down for a few days including water. So, in my head I knew this was an option for me as my husband and I were trying to conceive as well. Yippee! Long, miserable story short, for my sister, she vomited daily until 20 weeks, even with medication, and then continued to vomit off and on for the next six weeks. That’s right, she was sick until week 26; that’s a long time. And, here I am in my naïve world, “that won’t be me.” Until you know, it was me in March 2013. Well shit.

So, there I was somewhere in what I thought was week six, which really turned out to be week five (stupid longer than average cycle), and I wake up in the middle of the night feeling like I’m going to toss my cookies. No, no, this can’t be happening, it’s only three in the morning! Shouldn't this start after I actually wake up?  Well it didn’t, and it continued throughout the whole night, until I got out of bed for work that Saturday, and it continued pretty much the whole day. That first Sunday wasn’t much better; and, it may have been the first time I decided to “let” myself vomit and I felt better, for maybe an hour. That Monday, again, I hadn’t slept for most of the night and was pretty much counting down the hours until I could call my doctor’s office and ask for help. I also called off work that day, which is not easy to do at my particular job, but I didn’t really care. After speaking with the nurse she called in two medications to my pharmacy, Zofran and Phenergan. I knew from my sister’s experience that Zofran kind of maybe worked for her, and she didn’t like the Phenergan because it made her sleepy. I picked up my prescriptions a few hours later and popped a Zofran. I’m fairly certain it didn’t help one damn bit. I suffered that whole week, and pretty much only ate bananas, pierogies and Gatorade. I also missed the whole entire week of work--go me.

I started to Google trying to find out what to do to make myself feel better and what other women tried and worked for them. First thing one finds is usually saltines/crackers and ginger ale. Strikes one and two. The idea of trying to eat saltines in the morning while still in bed made me gag. I think I might have eaten two. And the ginger ale, maybe worked/helped for a day or two. Then my sister suggested beige foods, so I ate only beige foods: bananas, apple sauce, baked potatoes and pierogies which I was able to keep down, but I was still waking up in the middle of the night horribly nauseous. At this point my vomiting confined itself to the morning, and usually consisted of stomach acid and sinus drainage. Yum. At my six week ultrasound my weight really hadn’t changed, but by my next appointment which was at week eleven, I had lost 20 pounds and by week sixteen I had lost 30, which amounted to about 12% of my pre-pregnancy weight. This shit was getting out of hand. 

Somewhere between weeks nine and ten I started throwing up actual food, usually my dinner, but several hours after I had eaten it. I began to learn how quickly certain types of food digest, and what foods you really don’t want to throw up. Meat tops the list of food you don’t want to throw up, and surprisingly pasta can take FOREVER to digest; who knew? So, at my week 16 appointment my doctor and I had a very long talk about how I’d been feeling and what was going on with the nausea/vomiting situation. She suggested (read: made) me start taking the Phenergan with dinner because she was beginning to be concerned about the weight loss--which honestly I could afford to lose but didn’t need to keep losing. I was afraid of taking the Phenergan because it’s a class C medication and Zofran is a class B medication. She listened to my fears and made me take it anyway; I figure she’s the doctor and knows best. So, I’ve been taking Zofran in the morning and Phenergan in the evening since week 16, and I’ve probably only thrown up food a handful of times, and now I’m at week 23. Oh yeah, this shit doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. On several occasions I’ve tried to stop taking the medications, which usually ends in dry heaving by 10:30 or 11 am and severe nausea and wanting to throw up my dinner. So, I guess I’ll reassess in a week or so. Bottom line is I want to share my experience because all the crap and advice I’ve received from the internet and other women who had “regular” morning sickness hasn’t helped one damn bit.

Here’s what’s worked for me: beige foods – applesauce/apples, bananas, potato products, pasta and grapes (green ones are almost beige). Also generically more “wet” foods. Crackers were NOT helpful to me. NO DAIRY, good lord throwing up milk/ice cream is horrible. Fountain Coke from fast food restaurants and French fries. I don’t know why fountain soda worked better maybe it was the straw. Continuous snacking, basically DON’T. STOP. EATING. This seems difficult, but a large handful or bag of grapes can go along way when you eat one every 20-30 minutes. Also if you think you’re going to throw up--just do it; chances are you will feel better after.

Obviously, I wrote this while I was still pregnant with Miles. It’s fuzzy now looking back on the last seventeen weeks of the pregnancy but I do remember this. It didn’t stop until I delivered Miles. I went into labor with Miles around 2:00 am on October 25, 2013 and I’m fairly certain I threw up something that night before bed. Towards the end of the pregnancy my evening nausea and vomiting seemed to be related to acid reflux. I can’t tell you how many evenings I woke up around an hour after falling asleep with a horrible taste in my throat. A few times I didn’t think that I would make it to the bathroom. This seemed to be worse on the evenings that I had some sort of dairy product after dinner. By the end of the pregnancy I still wasn't back up to my pre-pregnancy weight but my doctor was no longer concerned. So, I guess I won.  

I hope if you are reading this you aren’t yourself in the midst of a similar experience; but, if you are, there is an end in sight. Try to refrain from killing all the people who say, “it’s all worth it in the end,” or, “I’m sure it will stop soon,” or, “have you tried…”. These people mean well, it’s just hard to see while you’re stuck in the middle. 

Fellow moms, what was the worst part of your pregnancy?