"It'll all be worth it in the end"
I promised myself that I wouldn’t be one of those women who blogged about this stuff but I guess I’m a God damn liar. So here goes.
For those who weren't already aware I am not a little bit pregnant, but rather a lot pregnant.
And it's been a rough few months.
This is where I should be writing cutesie shit about how being pregnant is *magical* and that I am now officially an Earth Mother capable of bending the space-time continuum.
But sadly, nope.
Instead this is a post about how shit it is being pregnant, and how hard it is to vomit in public toilets.
Now, I have vomited many times in my life, I'm a vomiter. I throw up when I'm drunk, when I'm hungover, when I get a headache, when food doesn't agree with me. It's just something I am used to. Then I was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum and welcomed into a whole new world of hurt.
From 5 1/2 weeks I have been so unwell sometimes I could barely stand. For the first 3 months I was so sick I couldn't read or watch TV or even get comfortable lying in bed because everything hurt and I felt like I was swimming around in a pool of death and bile.
Imagine the worst handover you've ever had. Not just a garden variety hangover but one where you woke up feeling like your whole body was toxic and every movement, every breath felt like your insides were caving in on themselves like a million suns imploding in your abdomen/brain/chest/ribs/everywhere. That's what HG is like, but with no let up. 3 months, all day, every day. Multiple vomitings in the most inappropriate places. And the vomiting isn't even the worst bit, the extreme nausea is the worst. Once you vomit, there is no respite. It's not like having a bug where you throw up a bunch then feel a bit better. It's constant, then surprise it's 2am and you're slumped on the floor or your shower vomiting for the 15th time and the only thing left is bile, which your body seems to make in excessive amounts now. That's when your very sweet husband wakes up and says "Hmm you look bad" and takes you to A&E because you have nothing left in your body, and you have a migraine the size of Poland because you're so dehydrated.
Somehow in-spite of all this, people still seem to expect me to be happy and positive and excited about my current situation. They look so crestfallen when they say again and again "Oh it's such a magical time!" To which I reply "Not for me". Or "That's just being pregnant!". Again nope. If every pregnant lady felt this way the birth rates would be at nil in no time. Because as Amy Schumer said, hyperemisis is the same as morning sickness like a paper cut is the same as an arrow in the head.
Here are some very approximate figures on morning sickness and HG; 70% of women experience some morning sickness, most of which goes away after the first trimester. 10% of women have what they call "severe nausea and vomiting" which is what they class you as when you're dying but haven't been hospitalised yet. 5% of women have HG badly enough to need IV's and hospital stays and lots of strong anti-nausea medication to get through the day (this is me). The worst 2% are those poor miserable creatures who have no let up, little or no help from meds and just have to manage their way through 9 1/2 months of extreme misery.
About now I feel like I should justify a few things for anyone who thinks I'm just a moaning arsehole, or who thinks perhaps I got knocked up by accident and now regret my choice. I am not sad that I am pregnant, it is something we wanted for a while now and had to try for over a year to get here. I'm not sad that I will have a baby soon. Terrified yes, and overwhelmed with the massive responsibility of bringing another human into the flaming shitball that is our current society. But not regretful at all. I am no pussy when it comes to pain. I have three chronic conditions that cause me much pain and misery on a day to day basis, but this is a whole new variety of illness. My final addendum is that, however poorly I feel, I know I have the diet coke of HG. I have been on message boards where women talk of vomiting 50-60 times a day. Of being unable to keep down water or a piece of toast. Women who are pregnant with very much desired and loved babies but consider terminating because the pain and misery of this condition is so great that they literally can't go on another day feeling this unwell.
Over the last few months I have thrown up in many places, mostly at home but also at work (really weird and inappropriate when you can't even tell your team mates you're pregnant yet) in carparks, in a bucket in my car, and in public toilets. Any toilet that isn't your own is a gross place to vomit. Public toilets are the worst. You can't kneel like a normal human because the floor is wet and gross and covered with who knows how many people's piss. You can bend at the middle and try to aim but you're always a bit too high and fear getting your sick everywhere, and you don't want your head or face to be too close to any public bowl because the bacteria may jump the intervening 10cm and infect your face with someone else's arse-germs. If people are in the adjoining stalls it's really awkward because having people hear you retch is never fun, so you dampen it down so people don't think you have Ebola and are about to pass out in the toilet stall covered in blood vom. I was vomiting at a motorway services a few weeks ago and heard a child burst in to tears. It may not have been because of me but I felt terrible for freaking strangers out and possibly ruining a child's holiday pee.
People, on the whole have been very kind. My managers at work have been exemplary, Josh has taken care of me like no husband has taken care of his sick wife before, and my friends have been so fucking patient with all my moaning. But after a few months of sickness my very short naturally pessimistic rope is getting shorter by the minute and I'm coming close to a major emotional breakdown when the next person tries to make light of my situation. So here are a few well meaning tips for talking to pregnant ladies rather than just gushing about how wonderful it all is and how happy you are for them.
Maybe you had a good pregnancy and you felt empowered and brave and amazing throughout, good for you. But don't assume someone else is having the same experience (particularly if that person has a noticeable green/grey tinge to their face). Please avoid trying to 'perk' them up with trite aphorisms such as "Oh it'll all be worth it in the end". This makes me feel worse and makes me want to cry/scream until I vomit.
If someone tells you they are struggling try to avoid saying things like "That's just what pregnancy is like!". This is similar to people telling me that "everyone has a bit of anxiety" when I told them I had an anxiety disorder. It's not the same thing. Don't get mad/sad when I tell you that it's not the same thing and you don't know what you're fucking talking about.
Don't ask me if I'm excited and when I say "I'm too sick to be excited" Smile knowingly in a patronising fashion.
Don't tell me about the time you had a bad flu, unless you plan to end it with "I don't know how the fuck you are coping after all these months". A flu is for a few weeks, this is for nearly a year and I am only just past the half way mark.
Don't tell me that it'll all go away in the second trimester. Nope. Most of the time HG doesn't go away and just sticks around like a bad smell until you give birth. Just because someone told you that was a fact that one time doesn't make you an expert and doesn't make it the case for every pregnancy ever.
Don't offer advice that even a basic Google search could have provided. Yes I have tried every form of ginger foodstuff there is. I have tried eating dry crackers in bed in the morning. I have tried acupressure and meditating and praying to every deity I don't believe in. If you think I have been this sick for this long without trying every fucking option then you're insulting my intelligence and my ability to type "pregnancy nausea" into Google.
Try not too be too upset when I answer the question "Are you feeling better today?" with "What part of til the end of my pregnancy do you not understand?" It doesn't get better, I have good hours and bad hours. The only cure is giving birth. I have lots of anti-nausea meds from my doctors and they manage to keep me functioning on the most basic possible level but nothing more.
Try not to get sad when I can't muster any joy or positivity, or even a smile when you go on about how having kids is the greatest joy in life and how much I will love it. Your attempts to make me feel positive and life affirmed just make me fell worse. Like telling a cancer patient they should just use positive thoughts to get well again. Nope. That's bullshit.
There are many many more but this rant has gone on long enough.
For all the ladies who have had shit pregnancies and feel constant social pressure to be the embodiment of glowing maternal beauty despite feeling like death, I see you. For anyone who didn't have HG but just really hated being pregnant for their own totally valid reasons but felt like they couldn't say anything because of above stated social conventions on motherhood, I see you too.
I'm writing this to get it off my chest, to vent and complain in one place to get it out of my head, but also because I don't think we talk about how hard this shit is in our society enough. Because women "should just be brave" because pregnancy and child birth are just a part of being a lady, and apparently the belief that original sin is a valid reason for the pain of pregnancy still hasn't been stoned to death. Just because as women we are tough as fuck, it doesn't mean that we have to cope in silence.