Hyperemesis and Me

Sounds like we're two really good friends but we aren't

I’ve been weighing up whether to write about my experiences with Hyperemesis Gravidarum for a while now. I know this space is predominantly where I ramble on about trying to muddle through autism but I’m enjoying the freedom long form writing brings and it saves me having to bore everyone to tears with big, meaty captions on Instagram like we’re back in 2018.

I also receive messages daily from relatives, friends and sufferers themselves asking for tips or advice on how to survive and I’d like somewhere to be able to send them rather than just hurriedly replying with a message of concern but no real substance. People want concrete answers. They want to know there’s an end or at least that someone made it out the other side.

My first pregnancy wasn’t easy. But it only wasn’t easy for 10 weeks and then I was back to myself again. 10 weeks sounds like a fairly sizeable amount of time to exist in a state of misery until you’re experiencing 39 weeks of it instead. I didn’t have HG, I simply had sickness and nausea which came and went with varying levels of ferocity and dullness. At times it felt like the way pregnancy sickness is depicted in movies; fine one moment and going about my business with my usual clothes and make up fixed. Next second heaving over the toilet bowl and feeling sweaty. I attended events. A wedding. I lived somewhat of a normal existence. It wasn’t easy and I was very sick but it didn’t engulf us.

That’s why it was so shocking when the symptoms of my second pregnancy erupted with such force and anger that I couldn’t get a hold on it. Within days of celebrating a new child being on the horizon, I was laying in bed which would become my chrysalis for the next 4 months. I begged my mum and partner to find out a way that I could just be. I didn’t want to be cartwheeling or running or walking or even standing upright. I just wanted to be. Have you ever experienced an illness so intense that sitting still and breathing can be a trigger? Can you imagine that for months on end? I realised how much joy food brought me. I’d hallucinate my favourite dishes while woozy from the first stage medication I was finally provided, with much push back from doctors. I spent Christmas Day, 6 weeks after finding out I was expecting, in bed eating roast potatoes over a carrier bag because I knew I’d be experiencing their return in seconds. I heard my family having fun downstairs and desperately wanted to hug my still breastfeeding toddler son, but at the same time wanted him nowhere near me. That’s one thing the women who suffer HG talk about the most. How heart wrenching it can be to have to give up being in the lives of your other children. The battle of missing them and needing to be alone constantly playing out. Greg had booked a surprise trip to NYC that New Years Eve where he, I later found out, was intending on proposing. He had to take our friend Andy instead. I of course spent New Years at home instead. Doing the whole crying and vomiting thing. I also watched Sex And The City 2 which was almost as bad as the sicks.

I stood up once, probably to use the toilet or cry as a shower was forced upon me, and my partner exclaimed ‘oh my god you’ve got a bump!’ He hadn’t seen me upright for so long that he had no idea my body had been changing. It jutted out against the backdrop of bones that were starting to poke out everywhere else.

The loneliness and isolation is another level. If social media was viewable (often looking at my phone made me feel more sick, shocker) it wouldn’t have been palatable anyway. It just served to remind you the rest of the world was experiencing life and enjoying the company of others while you were sat festering in figurative and often literal darkness.

My body would crave liquids and cold ice lollies. I’d try to take them on board knowing my guts would expel them like they were poison. Ptyalism tortured me almost as much as the HG; each night I’d position myself in a way so as not to choke on my now freakishly excessive saliva and poor Greg had to empty my spit bowls hourly. I became obsessed with needing to try to eat all. the. time while at the same time detesting food. It’s the strangest feeling to try to wrap your head around; taking on more food tends to leave you feeling less nauseas but you’re so nauseas you don’t want to consider eating.

I stank. I wore clothes spattered with vomit. My hair, after not being able to wash it for 8 weeks, became matted and also sick-infused. Despite protestations from my family to change my sheets and clothes more regularly it was like being told to prepare for war. My senses felt like a cruel superpower; they highlighted any and every awful smell to exist within the confines of my house. I couldn’t venture downstairs in case the movement made me sick, in case someone spoke to me, in case I smelled the oven, in case the light coming through the windows was too bright and triggered my heaving. I became obsessed with managing it so sat in bed like a statue. What could I digest today? What could I try to keep my baby alive with this week?

One particularly unhelpful doctor, who I agreed to visit on the grounds of getting second line (stronger) treatment told me I simply had to try. to eat more

“Do you want your baby to die?’

I didn’t.

feat. my matted hair

Hospital visits gave me some relief with their drips and anti-sickness meds but I still had to make it through the 3 or 4 hours curled up on a hospital chair with a bowl in front of me, senses chiming all over the show. They’d garble on about ketones before telling me they were sending me home and I’d want them to watch me attempt to eat a slice of bread. One day, after nursing me for months, Greg took our toddler son to London for some normality and left me with a bed covered in snacks and drinks. After a few hours I realised all my food stores had gone; I’d nibbled and vomited them all up. The thought of crawling downstairs was too much and instead I spent hours getting myself to the point I was throwing up bile and blood. I rang him in tears (except not actual tears because I was too dried out to make any) and he had to cut their time short to dash back and rescue me. As was our normal routine at that point he sorted me food while I breastfed our son next to a sick bowl. He’d then lay next to me and we’d both fall asleep watching Little MaidMaid (mermaid). That film now makes me very uncomfortable. I can’t stand to watch Bolt for similar reasons.

By month 5 I was coming out the other end and no longer needed medication. Greg went away and I flew over to join him in Arizona with the aforementioned toddler, something which would have been viewed as utterly impossible weeks earlier. I felt re-born in the warmth of the beautiful Easter weather and gained weight; taking any chance I got to sample the super sized everything that America brings with it. I was anaemic and skinny everywhere except my belly but I was living amongst others again. Our son was born 3 weeks early due to being so big they didn’t think it was a good idea to leave him in any longer. He was totally healthy while I was mentally scarred.

My third and final pregnancy was again, a victim of HG, only this time we could prepare. I made sure to contact my doctor when we were trying to conceive and was put under the care of a female doctor who specialised in women’s health. She put me on medication immediately and confirmed we could scale up should we need to. I know lots of mums-to-be worry about medication when they’re growing a tiny human but there’s so much research to show it has no negative impact. Pregnancy Sickness Support have extensive notes on their website should you or anyone you know be worried and need nerves calming.

That pregnancy felt less of an attack because I wasn’t going in to it quite so blind. While there’s a total lack of control when it comes to this condition, feeling like you’ve got an army who can advocate for you and medical professionals who might actually listen to you, makes a huge difference. It was, however, long. If my first pregnancy was a sprint and my second a 10K with no training, my third was a marathon. I was still taking anti-emetics up until the morning of my c-section (I’ve still got the alarm I set myself for 5am to make sure I took it in good time) and I never had the sudden launch in to normality again like I did before. No glow, no happiness to be out from under the cloud; it was just 9 months of dragging my body through to the finish line. I had iron transfusions, drips, B12 injections, cold sores, ulcers, flaking skin and hair loss along with endless medications but nothing quite took me to a point where I didn’t feel like a big blob of yuck. Still, I could leave the confines of my bedroom after 4 months and I was no longer vomiting 20 times a day so I was grateful for that at least. It also helped that it was during the second Covid lockdown because I didn’t feel as though I was missing out and watching the world go by again. Greg could be at home all the time and well, the universe was pretty miserable in general so it felt like a safe place to exist. Masks were also pretty handy on the smell front and hiding my pale, drawn face.

With our older two children at that point 6 and 3 years, we put any ideas of a fourth child to bed. They were starting to understand how it felt to be without me for weeks on end and I was missing out on first days of school and birthdays. I really felt as though I’d battled to survive the last pregnancy and trying to have a final try would push me over the edge both mentally and physically. There’s been a lot of focus on the mental state of women going through this condition recently and it’s such a relief to see people starting to take notice. We can all appreciate how miserable feeling unwell can leave you. None of us are living it up if we’ve got norovirus or a migraine; so to be left to get on with what they write off as morning sickness and repeatedly told you’re dramatising how poorly you feel can be crippling when the symptoms are already that themselves. I don’t know that there’s any other instance when you can be so ill your organs are shutting down yet medical professionals won’t help until they feel they have to. For almost a year.

If you’re a family member, friend or colleague - believe the woman in question suffering. They already feel at their lowest ebb, anything other than sympathy is cruel. There’s very little you can gift as a way to cheer the sufferer up because the nausea is so acute there’s often next to nothing that can help but support in the way of childcare or cleaning is what I’d always suggest where possible. It meant more to me than anything else if one of my friends messaged to see if my boys wanted a play date. Sleep is something which hugely affected how extreme my symptoms were day to day so if I was gifted an extra couple of hours to myself it helped massively.

If you’re a woman currently in the throes of this awful condition, don’t feel alone. Cry, pity yourself, wallow but talk to those close to you about how you’re feeling, even if it’s only over text. Take each day as it comes and seek medical intervention wherever you can. Meds exist for a reason and while you may need to play around with finding out what might help, it can often help you suffer less. Push to be heard or ask someone you trust to push for you. I never like to say that it’s worth it in the end, because that sort of comment belittles what you’re going through and plays in to everything those who don’t understand like to throw our way; ‘oh but you must be so happy! Some women can’t carry babies!’ To those of you who’ve been through miscarriages and IVF only to be faced with this new mountain to climb, you are heroes. And never feel shame in complaining. You’re complaining about feeling unwell, you’re sad about feeling unwell, your misery is separate to the baby.

Please, please seek out Pregnancy Sickness Support and please always know you can pop me a message on Instagram. Even if all you want to do is tell me how miserable you are, you’re welcome here.