It was Friday lunchtime on the 6th week of being pregnant that I started to feel a bit sick.
I found myself having to sit down, as if the room was spinning and I could stop it somehow. I thought "Ah ha, I had better buy some ginger biscuits!". So, off I went to Somerfield, stocking up on ginger beer, ginger biscuits and ginger crackers. If truth be told I was actually quite excited about having real-life pregnancy symptoms. By the following Tuesday I was waking up several times a night throwing up, so I went to the doctor.
They assumed I must have a urine or kidney infection as I was being sick with such force, but the results of the test that they sent off were negative (they gave me antibiotics to take whilst I was waiting 3 days for the results). I had 2 days off work, and went back in on the Thursday, but I was still being sick and had to go home. I went back to the doctor, as by this point I could not eat a thing. They gave me Metoclopramide and a sick note stating 'hyperemesis gravidarum' as the reason for absence. This was the first time I had ever hear of such a thing. I had so much work to do, and felt a real pressure to be at work: this probably stressed me out more than not being able to cope with feeling so sick and weak.
I really hoped the drugs would work, but I found they had little effect. I managed 4 days back at work, before being signed off for a further week, which ended up being 4 weeks in bed, barely able to sip water. I tried every ginger product under the sun, I tried wrist bands, preggypops, dry crackers, biscuits. I ended up with a daily diet of: a frusili bar, a carton of ribena and a lucozade energy sweet. I felt so miserable, but kept thinking it would pass by 12 weeks.
At 10 weeks we went out for a friend's birthday, I ate a few bits of bread. This was a mistake, as I threw them up in the toilet, and in the street on the way back to the car, in full view of a glass-fronted restaurant. I had to tell everyone I knew (including my boss) that I was pregnant, as it was quite obvious that I was very sick, and I lost 1st in weight.
I was given a variety of other drugs to try, but they made me very drowsy, so I ended up sticking with the metoclopramide. At 12 weeks, I was still very sick, at 14 weeks I went back to work, and felt dreadful. at 16 weeks I was still being sick. All the way to 26 weeks.
Apart from wondering how it is that your own body could make you so ill, and whether it was all worth it, I felt like other people were judging me. Everyone had an opinion, my boss, friends, family. People would say "oh yeah, I had morning sickness, you just need ginger biscuits" or "X had morning sickness and they still worked". My midwife told me to eat a bowl of cereal in the middle of the night, not listening when I said I actually couldn't eat anything at all. It was hard to describe to people how hyperemesis is different to morning sickness, and how disabling it was, as they already had an opinion about how it is just part of a normal pregnancy. I felt like they must think I was a weak person for not being able to cope with something so basic a part of pregnancy. I think this is because people don't talk about how bad it can get. I had never even heard of it myself, and would probably have had the same attitude.
Maybe I shouldn't have been so worried about what other people thought of me. I know that some people get it much worse, and much longer that I had it, and even need to stay in hospital. I just wanted to share my experience, as it is the sort of information I was looking for when I was pregnant.
