Another Hyperemesis Story

Check out this mother's hyperemesis story!

Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG): A Pregnancy Disease About Which Little is Understood

Hurray for correct grammar, LOL!!

At this time, I only know of four HG blogs in existence, though there are probably more. Lots of mamas have their HG-stories or blog-records of their HG-pregnancies on their personal blogs - like this story - but these stories are a lot harder to find, though they are much more plentiful.

It's always good to get HG stories out there!

Blog Entry - "Ashli's Story"

Check out this great post from Kathy Peterson's great blog, "Woman to Woman Childbirth Education":

Ashli's Story

Ashli McCall is the guru of all things HG-related, having experienced this condition four times, and she is now probably the leading proponent of HG-activism and awareness. She's also the author of the main work on the subject, "Beyond Morning Sickness: Battling Hyperemesis Gravidarum." Kathy includes a brief synopsis of her story, links to her websites and a video of an interview done with her about three years ago. Despite the fact that I've been corresponding with Ashli for several years, I had never seen this interview (too bad I didn't; it was done when I was in the middle of my own HG), and it was neat to finally see her "in person."

Check it out!

Another HG Mama!

I had a fun experience today, and a surprising one! While attending my friend A.'s baby shower (and having a lovely time), A. decided to introduce everyone. Going through the ladies there, she introduced the girl sitting next to me as, "my friend J. from college, whom we nearly lost several times during her pregnancy due to severe hyperemesis gravidarum." Wow! How often do you meet another HG mother in real life? Not too often! J. and I didn't get to talk much, as the shower was almost over, but it is always fun to discover an HG-sister. J. is in the "post-graduate" levels of HG - she was a severe, life-threatening-HG mother who spent her pregnancy with a PICC line and all the lovely trimmings that come with the severest of hyperemetic pregnancies.

In the time since I experienced hyperemesis I have met, aside from J, only 2 1/2 other HG mothers (the "1/2" is someone who was pointed out to me, the sister-in-law of a friend, but whom I haven't gotten to chat with yet). Now this makes 3 1/2! Fun.

This past week has been crazy - sick kiddo, helping throw a baby shower, buying a house, etc. Next week promises to be just as busy!! If this blog is neglected, you will therefore know why.

Love to all!

Blog Review: S.I.C.L.E. Cell (Self-Induced Child Loss Experience)

Check out this blog here. It's an unusual blog that's a little hard to navigate, but you can read it by clicking on the archives. This is the blog of a woman who lost a baby to abortion after severe hyperemesis, during which she was denied care, lied to, and encouraged into abortion. Unfortunately that's the attitude of so many doctors of mums with high-risk pregnancies and high-risk babies - "Yeah, we could treat you, but it would mean a lot of fuss and trouble, so please just go get rid of this clump of cells and stop bothering me." Tragic. Utterly tragic.

Another Great Hyperemesis Story

I got a great hyperemesis story from Jen, who has posted her story on her blog. Check it out!! She does a great job:

http://www.jenx67.com/

(If you read this at any point in the future, it is the July 15th 2008 entry.)

Cheers, all!
Diana

Conversations with Sarah - Part III

My friend Sarah has been busy working on her hyperemesis story, and it is here at last! I am going to post it below.

As I've mentioned before, Sarah is a local mum with three kiddos. Her first pregnancy came with normal morning sickness, her second came with moderate hyperemesis, and her third came with severe, life-threatening hyperemesis. This in itself is extremely unusual, as most HG mums have HG with their first and all subsequent pregnancies (*sigh*).

Without more ado, let's hear from Sarah!!

"After a mild/moderate case of HG in my second pregnancy, I vowed that I didn't want to get pregnant again. Then I changed my mind, saying I'd reconsider it when Katrina was 3. Her third birthday came and went in early 2007 and I began to want another baby, just without a pregnancy. I figured we'd adopt. I got a flyer from a Christian social service agency that does adoption and even mentioned my idea to a few friends.

"In May of 2007 my period was late. Then it was really late, so in early June of '07 Vong and I got a pregnancy test from Target and, lo and behold, it was positive! Vong was happy, I was a mixture of joy and dread, hoping that I would not have another HG pregnancy. I was only 4 weeks pregnant and I was feeling great. Week 5 was good, but in week 6 I got food poisoning (I think). Maybe the HG really did begin that quickly--I don't know. I just know that I was very sick, very fast. I knew the HG was back. I began to have horrible anxiety that robbed me of sleep. I had intrusive thoughts of suicide. My nausea was becoming debilitating. I could hardly eat, but was hopeful that I wasn't vomiting yet.

"I made my first trip to the ER for fluids at that time. I don't think I was really dehydrated but I went to the ED anyway in a search for help. They gave me 3L of fluid, Phenergan, and Zofran. They sent me home with a script for Zofran since that is what worked for me during my last HG pregnancy. This time around the Zofran did nothing. I was very nauseated and my anxiety was through the roof. I couldn't sit still, I felt like throwing open the front door and running away, I couldn't sleep, and I was still contemplating suicide. I called my counselor and she told me to go to the ER. I called my OB and the nurse practitioner told me to eat something and be glad that I was pregnant. I called a crisis hotline and the counselor told me to do some prenatal yoga and informed me that the fetus was a natural yogi who assumed yoga positions in the womb. No joke. The counselor was such a joke herself that I hung up on her and her stupid yoga facts.

"It came to a head in mid-June of 2007 when, one afternoon, I knew that if I did not get help immediately that I would kill myself that night. I had a plan in mind and I could visualize myself doing it. I had never had to bear that much anxiety and that much dread at one time, and I could not handle it anymore. I told Vong and my dad how I was feeling, called the OB and told them, and they all urged me to get help. A friend came to get the girls and my husband and dad drove me to Good Sam's ER.

"The ER took me seriously. They gave me a private room with glass walls, moved everything out but the bed and a table, and opened the blinds. A social worker came in, assessed the situation, and told me that she thought I needed to be an inpatient until I could get more stable. A doctor came in and asked me if I was sure I was pregnant. I said yes, I was sure. Then he asked me how I knew for sure that I was pregnant. Odd. I explained that my period was late and that I had a positive pregnancy test at home. They ordered an ultrasound anyway. That was my first glimpse of Natalie, looking like an elongated space alien with a teeny tiny beating heart. I was 7 weeks pregnant at the time.

"Good Sam didn't have any room in their psych unit so I was transferred my ambulance to a county-run hospital in the East Valley. It was not very nice but not terrible, either. It seemed run-down but at least it was clean and safe. I was admitted to a locked unit where I had to strip down in front of a female staff member and don a pair of blue surgical scrubs. I could only wear panties under the scrubs since bras posed a hanging risk. They took away my belongings and showed me to my room. It was 5 AM and I was exhausted but had way too much anxiety to sleep.

"Life on the psych unit is very routine. In the morning you get weighed and they take your vital signs. Then you wait around for breakfast. After breakfast are dr. visits, counseling sessions, and groups. After lunch are more groups and a few lame recreation options, followed by visiting hours. Then comes dinner, yet another group, some free time, then bed. The food was really bad, especially for someone who doesn't feel well to begin with. It was during my week there that I began vomiting.

"I guess going to that hospital was a good idea. I hated being there but the staff was fantastic, and there were two ladies on the unit that I felt made it worthwhile. One had just given birth to triplets and had severe ppd/psychosis in which she became homicidal. Yet she was the nicest gal--just goes to show what depression and hormones can do. Another lady was pregnant and was very anxious about it since she nearly died in the delivery of her prior child. Her doc told her not to get pregnant again, but she did and was terrified. Meeting those women helped me realize that pregnancy is not the dream that most people think it should be and that I was ok for seeking help.

"Incidently, while I was admitted there I ran into someone I had known as a teenager. There he was, on the same unit as me with some big, nasty problems. It was weird and sad that he had ended up so ill.

"The psychiatrist started me on Zoloft and continuted the useless Zofran. Once I was deemed safe to go home, I was released. I had missed my kids like crazy; they were the reason that I wanted to keep living. So my husband came and got me and drove me to my dad's house. Apparently we had moved in with him so I could get better and so that we could have help with the kids.

"My poor dad. I can't imagine what he experienced watching his daughter flip out like I did. I would have killed myself in his home, too, which horrifies me in retrospect, but at the time it seemed like such a viable option. My dad has experienced some pretty rough things in his lifetime, too, but I think this shook him up.

"Anyway, I was about 8 or 9 weeks along and beginning to puke in earnest, so Vong and I got aggressive with the OB in seeking help. They decided to order a Zofran pump and, in the meantime, had me come in for fluids. I got a couple of liters in the office and got antibiotics for a UTI that I had told the OB that I had had a week earlier, but he didn't believe me. Anyway, it showed up the day I went for fluids and I got treated for it.

"I was already mad at this particular doc because he told me that HG was 90% in my head. Then he didn't believe me about the UTI and gave me advice about eating frequent, small meals of crackers. Idiot.

"Matria soon came to my dad's house and started the Zofran pump. I puked while the nurse was teaching me how to use it, then I couldn't stop throwing up. Everything I ate or drank came up again. My pee was dark and full of ketones and I lost 15 pounds in a little over a week. I couldn't sleep, got horribly constipated, and knew I needed more help than Zofran could offer.

"We fired the ignorant, cocky OB.

"Vong interviewed a new OB who said he was familiar with HG and had treated lots of women with it. He was literally a Godsend. Literally. When the Zofran pump wasn't working well, he admitted me to St. Joe's practically sight-unseen for a weekend of IV fluids. He thought the dehydration was inhibiting my body's ability to utilize the Zofran. When we told him who my first OB had been, he just smiled. We later found out that OB #1 had his teaching privleges revoked at St. Joe's because he was such a flake.

"I vomited all weekend at St.Joe's, went back to my dad's. The pump still wasn't working although we had titrated the dose to nearly the maximum. I was dizzy, I was anxious and fighting suicidal thoughts, I was dehydrated, and was horribly gaunt. I felt like a terrible mother because I couldn't take care of my kids. I wanted to miscarry, yet I wanted the baby. I pondered an abortion. Anything to end the misery.

"Around week 10 or 11 I developed terrible abdominal pain and began vomiting blood. I took myself off all meds, including the Zofran pump. Vong took me to see the OB and I began sobbing, begging the doctor to help me and to tell me I was going to be OK. I told him that I had tried to be brave and strong but that I just couldn't fight anymore. He took one look at me, assured me that he would take care of me, and admitted me to St. Joe's for a PICC.

"I was so happy to be getting a PICC. I was so stressed all the time about not being able to eat or drink enough to keep myself alive, and I had a constant and intense thirst that haunted me. I could have chugged down a 32 oz Gatorade in one breath, I am sure. Of course I would have puked it back up 45 seconds later, but I was so tempted to drink and drink. I needed fluids horribly.

"The day I was admitted for my PICC was a busy one at the hospital and the nurse in OB triage, where I lay waiting for a bed to open up on the floor, said that they would put in a peripheral IV to get me through the next 24 hours and start a PICC the next day. I told her that my last IV took 13 pokes and that I doubted anyone could get an IV going on me. She called my doc and apparently he made a few calls of his own because the next thing I knew I had a bed on the antepartum unit and a nurse came to insert the PICC.

"The nurse who did the procedure was fabulous. He was very flamboyant and self-assured, and he got the line in with no problem. I didn't even care that he stuck a huge needle in my upper arm to thred the line in my vein, up and around to my heart. I was that thrilled to get the PICC. That same evening I had a GI consult, my OB came by to check on me, the perinatologist stopped in, and I was scheduled for a nutrition consult the next day. I started getting Nexium to heal my bleeding gut, they started TPN and lipids, and I had Reglan added to my regular IV fluids. I was getting about 2000 calories a day in the TPN so I stopped worrying about eating. At that point I weighed 110, which I hadn't weighed since I was about 13 years old, except during my other HG pregnancy.

"What followed were probably the hardest 8 or 9 days of my life. The reglan made me anxious and did little to get rid of the nausea. I had dry heaves multiple times a day, even from simply rolling over in bed or getting up to go to the bathroom. I couldn't watch TV or listen to music because it made me feel worse. I could still smell the lotion that the nurses wore and it made me sick. The cleaning lady used chemicals in my room that made me sick. Even people talking to me was sickening. The food service people kept bringing meal trays to me until my nurse put a sign on the door that said "NO FOOD TRAYS".

"Nights were the worst. I had nightmares that involved crippling nausea. I would wake up to heave. The staff kept coming in my room for vital signs, blood sugar checks, labs, and to weigh me. I felt like they wouldn't leave me alone. I would ask for my prn nausea meds just to be drowsy for a short time, even though the medication made me jittery after a while. I was anxious all the time and the night seemed to intensify my suffering.

"I truly believed I was going to die. I had never been so ill in my life. I feared leaving my girls without a mother but I figured that they would be OK in the end. Then one night I had a dream that I believe God sent me to assure me that I would live. In my dream I was in a hospital ER. A man came in with these clear ropes that he started hanging all around my bed, up by the ceiling. I looked up at those clear ropes and realized that they were the cords of death, waiting to entangle me (King David refers to this in the Psalms). Suddenly in my mind I knew those ropes were not mine but belonged to someone else. In my dream I told the man to take them down and carry them to someone down the hall, for whom they were intended at that time.

"When I awoke I knew that I would live.

"The one relief I got in the hospital was when my OB ordered ativan for me, should I become very anxious. I didn't know he had ordered it until my nurse casually mentioned that I could have ativan at bedtime. I jumped at the chance and took it at about 6 PM. I was out cold until the next morning. It was wonderful and it was the last full night of sleep I got for the whole pregnancy. I mentioned my pleasure to the nurse the next day and she proceeded to tell me how addictive ativan could be, just from her own experience with it. I didn't ask for it again because I was afraid of becoming addicted. So the sleepless nights continued.

"During that hospitalization I asked not to have any visitors. The only people who came were my husband, my dad, my friend Louise, and a friend from church. I remember Louise crying the first time she saw me. I guess I looked pretty bad. I have to say that all of these people are troupers who deserve accolades for the many backrubs, cleaning out my puke bucket, reading Psalms to me, and helping me to the bathroom. It could not have been a pleasant task.

"Eventually my OB thought I was stable enough to go back to my dad's house. Home health came that night to teach us how to hook up my IVs and to mix the vitamins and insulin into the bag of TPN. Since my husband is a nurse, he was comfortable doing all of the medical type tasks. He changed the bags and tubing every night, and the home health nurses came every few days to change the dressing on the PICC. I began to eat a little bit and started to gain weight. The pharmacist with the home health company was fabulous and he tweaked my TPN and Reglan so I was getting the optimum amount of both.

"The next few weeks were actually ok because I was getting nutrients in my PICC, I started eating again, and I only threw up a few times a day. I still had unrelenting nausea and the dreadful ptyalism, though, so I was pretty miserable. I tried to get up and get dressed every day and I made an attempt to play with my girls when I felt up to it. They learned to leave me alone unless I managed to stumble out of my room and offer to play. Then they would get all happy and we would play a game or something until I'd throw up and go back to bed. The sad part is that they got used to me being like that.

"As the pregnancy progressed to around 14 weeks I was eating regular food for the most part. I still had lots of food aversions and fluids were a problem because I was guaranteed to throw up nearly any liquid. But I thought I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. We were talking to the pharmacist and the OB about weaning me off the Reglan and TPN to see if I could eat and drink on my own. I still had no energy and got dizzy a lot, and I felt anxious and jittery all the time. Now I know it was the Reglan causing those feelings. In hindsight I think I would have done better with no anti-emetics, just the fluids and TPN.

"One crappy note--I was too weak to take my daughter shopping for new school clothes. I had really looked forward to that. But my best friend Jenn and her husband, Tom, took Anna out and bought her a school wardrobe. I am still grateful to them for doing it, but my heart aches that I missed it.

"The next part of my saga starts when my oldest daughter had a "Meet the Teacher" day at school. I really wanted to attend because she was about to begin kindergarten and I wanted to be a part of this exciting time in her life. We borrowed a wheelchair and went up to the school. My husband pushed me and my IV pumps around the school campus so my daughter could see her classroom. I remember feeling really bad that day. I had a slight fever off and on for a couple of days prior and had been taking antibiotics because my OB thought it was related to some dental work I'd had done. But during "Meet the Teacher" day I started having chills. My heart was pounding and my anxiety was growing. When we got home to my dad's house I went to bed and assured myself, my dad, and my husband that I would be ok. But by late afternoon I knew something was very wrong.

"I was admitted to St. Joe's once again for tests. It turned out that my PICC was infected and, not only that, but I had septicemia, or a blood infection. I have a mitral valve prolapse and my first fear was my heart. I wondered if the infection had fed up the line to my mitral valve that was why my heart was pounding so fast. It turns out that I had early signs of shock from the infection. It scares me so badly to write this, to think about what would have happened if I had waited even 12 hours to get help. One of my nurses told me I was lucky; it was not uncommon for their HG moms to end up in ICU with septic shock.

"The PICC was pulled and I was given massive doses of antibiotics to counter the infection. The nurses got an IV in my hand so I could still get fluids. By that point I could kind of eat so I did get trays of vile hospital food. Sometimes my husband would bring me food. I had such an advisarial relationship with food. I wanted to eat but couldn't, and on the other hand I longed to have my PICC back so I could not eat. The nausea was still so crippling and I drooled constantly. You just can't understand how bad it unless you have lived it. It is mind-altering, to say the least.

"Being septic had wreaked havoc on my blood count. My red blood cells and platelets were very low so I got 2 units of blood and hefty doses of steroids to get my blood counts up. The steroids were also supposed to help me have an appetite, which they did not. I stayed in the hospital until I could tolerate my meds by mouth and could drink enough fluids to satisfy everyone, then I got to go back to my dad's. I think I was there for about a week and a half. Sadly, I missed Anna's first day of school because I was in the hospital, but I did get to have Katrina come visit a few times. I remember that she seemed so full of life and health and I wanted to get better for her.

"From week 16 to around week 19 we kept living at my dad's house. I was still vomiting every day but I managed to put on a few pounds. By week 21 we moved back to our house. The ladies at church got together and provided us with 4 weeks of meals. I was very, very weak and so anxious all the time until I quit taking the Reglan. Lo and behold, the anxiety was better! My energy level got better all throughout the pregnancy as I took Floradix for the iron and B vitamins. I found Jenna online and she offered me the emotional support that I desperately needed. The turnaround for me was when she told me that I was a survivor. I realized at that point that I had endured things that would have killed other women and that yes, I was strong. Thank you, Jenna! You gave me hope and strength when I was crushed and hurting.

"My nausea lasted until my 30th week of pregnancy. Weeks 30-36 were the best of my pregnancy, and then the nausea came back until Natalie was born at 41 weeks and 3 days. She was born at home in a pool of warm water, surrounded my my amazing husband and my 3 healing midwives. My family and friends were in the next room and it was all I wanted in a birth. My babymoon was complete with help from family, friends, and my post partum doula. My husband made me special smoothies and treated me like a queen. I had a happy ending to a nightmare of a pregnancy.

"I am in no way done with my HG. The physical symptoms are gone but I suffer from flashbacks that bring waves of nausea over my body. I still have strong food aversions to a few particular items and I cannot go anywhere near St. Joe's hospital. Through my sickness I have had the blessing of receiving help from some amazing people. I have the joy of having two fellow HG survivors in my life, Jenna and Diana. They are my sounding board when I need to talk about my experience. And I can't say enough about my husband, Vong, who truly lived out our wedding vows to love me "in sickness and in health." He was my caregiver, mom and dad combined to the girls, and our breadwinner. I never heard him complain through the months of my sickness, even when it must have been heartbreaking for him. He was Christ to me when I was too angry to accept God's love directly. I am so proud to be married to such a man of character.

"I am thankful to my father who let us move in with him and who made me meals, changed my sheets, emptied my puke bucket, screened calls, and prayed for me, even when God was silent in that department. I am thankful to my daughters who were my inspiration for living, literally, and to my midwives who helped me reclaim joy. I am thankful to Blair and Louise and to Tom and Jenn for being surrogate parents to my girls for the many days that I could not care for them. And thank you to Natalie Praney, my Valentine baby, for the unrivaled joy you give me every day!"

What can I say? Wow!!

Conversations with Lisa, Part I

Hello, everyone!!! Well, Phoenix summer has officially set in!! Aack!! Ah well, we have great weather for at least 6 months out of the year!!

Before we get started, here's the life lesson for the day: One should never put one's cheese-making experiments ANYWHERE where a toddler can remotely reach them unless one wishes to spend an hour cleaning up a cheesy-smelling mess having the consistency of infant spit-up off of one's counters and appliances. Enough said.

Anyhow, I have had the honor of conversing with another HG mum, Lisa from Michigan, whose story is quite like mine - moderate HG two years ago and thinking of trying to conceive again sometime in the next year. She was so kind to email me her HG story, and has given me permission to post it here! Thanks, Lisa!!

In other HG news, I will be meeting with two local HG mums, Sarah and Jenna, this month to talk HG. I'm so excited!! I will post all about our conversation after the meeting. Sarah is the girl who has had hyperemesis twice, once moderate and once life-threatening, and I have posted her first HG story in this blog (second story coming soon). Jenna had life-threatening HG once, and she has written a book about it, "Body Mutiny: Surviving Nine Months of Extreme Morning Sickness," which I hope to read very soon. Here is her website:

http://extrememorningsickness.com/home_021.htm

And now, on to Lisa's story!!

"Here is a little of my background (some relevant to the story, some not so relevant) :)

"I was diagnosed with endometriosis when I was a freshman in high school. Over the course of the following 8 years I had 3 laparoscopies to remove the endometriosis and try to save my reproductive organs, so that someday I would be able to have children. During that time my
doctor also put me on birth control pills. I would take the first 3 weeks and skip the last week- immediately going to the next pack. Apparently this prescription was to prevent the endometriosis from growing more.

"During high school I met my husband. We were best friends throughout high school and started dating our senior year. We dated throughout college and married 2 years after we graduated college.

"We knew we wanted to start a family sooner than later- because the doctor warned that with my endometriosis, conceiving might be difficult. A little over 1 year after we were married (we were married August 2004) we started trying to get pregnant. I believe we conceived around the middle of Feb. 2006. I found out I was pg. the first week of March. I was doing great for several weeks. Then started getting nauseous. I figured it was normal and did the best I could. Pretty soon I was vomiting 6 + times a day- and could not eat, and whatever I did eat- would not stay down. I finally called my OB (I think this was around the end of March- so I was probably 8 weeks or so along). He gave me some *M/S* cures (ginger, sea bands, etc). Also told me about Benadryl and (not sure if it was B6 or Unisom)- at this point it did not touch the HG- I was probably too sick for it to kick in?!

"April 1st, I had thrown up over 10 times by noon, and could not walk. I called OB and he said to go to the ER. I received an IV (not sure what was in it. I was SO weak, I could barely talk). They gave me Reglan to start taking- and diagnosed me with HG. I took the Reglan for 2 weeks, and it did not help, if anything I was worse. I should have called my OB during that time, but I just thought this was somewhat normal. I didn't think there was anything he could do for
me.

"At this point I was around 13 weeks. I was down about 10% of my body weight. I finally called my OB and he had me come in. Fortunately, no ketones- but severely dehydrated.

"He then tried Tigan- nothing. I had DH do some research online and he learned about Zofran ODT. At this point I was down about 15% of my total body weight. We asked my OB for the Zofran ODT- and he wrote out an Rx right away. It worked miracles. Finally, by the beginning
on May I was headed on the right path. My insurance company was impossible to deal
with- the would not let me have any more Zofran ODT, and I started vomiting again. It took 2 days for my OB to convince them to let me have it. I took it until 37 weeks.

"I never tried phenegran. I took 2-3 (8 mg doses) of Zofran at my worst. Around 5 months, I went down to 4mg in the morning and 4 mg before dinner, then by 6 or 7 months I took about 2 mg first thing in the morning and that was it.

"In retrospect. I should have spoken up sooner, we should have been more proactive. I don't think I or my OB realized how severe it was. I should have said more, but I thought it was normal. DH and I have a meeting with my OB next week to discuss TTC, and how it would be
handled, we also have a meeting with an adoption agency tomorrow. We really want to weigh all of our options fully.

"If we TTC again, my MIL said she would come and take care of our daughter, take care of me, cook, clean, etc. She lives 10 min away and she and I are very close. DH said he would obviously be willing to do whatever is needed- he was great last time. Again, I am going to have MIL read your (Ashli McCall's) book- to make sure she truly understands what she could be *getting herself into*. I don't think she realized how bad it is/can be. I worry about my daughter though. IF we TTC, it will be this time next year when DD is around 2 or 2.5."

Conversations with Sarah - Part I

As I mentioned a week or so ago, I have been emailing with a fellow client of my midwife's, and a fellow-hyperemesis-gravidarum (HG) mum. Sarah has had three babies. #1 - normal morning sickness. #2 - moderate to severe HG. #3 - life-threatening HG. She has given me permission to post from her experiences, so I am going to paste her story of her second pregnancy (the one with modernate/sever HG) below so that readers of this blog can get a taste of the even-yuckier side of HG than that which I experienced (which was quite mild by comparison). I will post the story of her third pregnancy as soon as she sends it to me! (Her little one is only 6 weeks old, so it's not too surprising that it's not been written yet!)

Sarah, if you're reading this and see anything which you do not want publicized in a public blog, tell me and I will take it out pronto!!

Here it is:

"I read your blog the other day. I was struck by a few things that I thought I would share with you. First, I think that you had it harder in some ways since you did not have access to a physician at the time of your HG. You had little choice but to keep doing what you were doing. I am also impressed at the amount of research you have done about HG treatments and preventative measures. I am interested in hearing about how your diet and the herbs change things for next time. I also appreciate you writing how you understood how women get abortions rather than endure endless nausea and vomiting. I, too, understand and was surprised at myself for relating to women who choose to end their pregnancy. I never thought I'd be in that place.

"I understand your fear in facing another pregnancy with possible HG. I did not want to have a third child because I did not want to endure hyperemesis again, and when I found out I was pregnant with Natalie I immediately spiraled into a abyss of anxiety and depression. When I began having suicidal thoughts, I knew I needed help and told my husband. I spent a week in a psych facility last June because I was a danger to myself. I never want to be in such a dark emotional place ever, ever again. It was truly a nightmare.

"My HG story with Katrina, my second baby, is not too bad. The pregnancy was a surprise, but not unwelcome. I had an 20 month old at the time and I was nursing her but soon stopped because the nausea was so bad and nursing did not seem to help (in hindsight I think it kept the HG mild). Around 7-8 weeks the nausea turned into vomiting and I started to slowly lose weight. I tried phenergan, reglan, and tigan with no relief. In fact, the side effects were so bad that I was literally pacing the hall out of restlessness. I tried accupuncture, ginger, small frequent meals, carbs, protein, exercise, B6, and who knows what else with little relief. I got IV fluids in the ER and at the birth center. Nothing helped. The vomiting got so bad that I lost about 10 pounds in a week and got down to my lowest weight of 109 (I am 5 feet 9 inches tall). At that point my midwife at the Bethany Birth Center put me in the hospital. There I got IV fluids and Zofran. Once hydrated and with the Zofran on board I felt much better and could keep down food and fluids. I was 12 weeks pregnant at the time and was hopeful that my morning sickness (as I thought it was) would end soon.

"The physician from the birth center came to see me in the hospital. He told me that I had HG and that 90% of my problems were in my head. Sadly, I believed him and felt like I should be able to think my way out of it. But somehow I realized that I did not bring my sickness upon myself. Why would I choose to endure such misery? They discharged me soon after with a prescription for more meds, although I can't remember what. It wasn't Zofran, because the doc said that it wouldn't work orally. He wouldn't even let me try it.

"I didn't gain weight in the first few days at home but I didn't lose any, either. But when the vomiting started up again I went straight to the ER for more fluids. The ER doc was puzzled why no one had tried Zofran yet and he prescibed it for me. He only gave me 3 days worth to get me through the weekend. It helped enough to keep the vomiting at bay and I wanted to keep taking it. So after the weekend was over I went to the birth center to see a midwife and get a script for more Zofran. They reluctantly wrote a prescription for about 10 more pills, told me to use them sparingly, and generally treated me as if I were seeking drugs to fuel an addiction!

"By that time I was about 14 weeks along and could make it through most days only vomiting once or twice. I was horribly constipated, though, and had to do a couple of enemas. Not that you wanted to know that, but it contributed to my misery.

"My nausea was totally gone by about 22 weeks or so and I felt pretty good the rest of the pregnancy. I knew very little about HG but I knew that I never wanted to experince it again. I did nothing to work through my feelings. Rather, I stuffed them and felt robbed of the pregnancy experience that I had wanted. So that is my story with Katrina. I have never written it out before, so thank you for giving me this outlet. I will write my Natalie story some other time because it is very, very long!"

My Journey with Hyperemesis Gravidarum: The Longer Version

As I was telling J. yesterday, I have been really bad about keeping up this blog. Someone suggested that the way to get my blog more "out there" on the web was to post constantly, an idea with which I heartily concur, but so far I'm managing more like once a week. I've been really bad about posting my research as well. I have an entire notebook, and I need to buckle down and get more of it on this blog.

But anyhow, I just wrote a longer version of my own HG story for posting on another HG site that solicits stories, and I thought that I might as well post it here! At least it makes for another blog entry that I don't have to do massive amounts of work for (work's already done!).

For any HG mums out there, I have already said this before, but it bears repeating: Compared to many of you, my version of HG was very minor. No hospital visits, etc. So if you're looking at for the dramatic stuff, you'll have to search elsewhere! But anywhere, this should hopefully give non-HG people a nice glimpse of this oh-so-yummy condition. Here it is! ............

We decided to try to have a baby in March of 2005, so I went off the pill and we were pregnant almost immediately. Having little to no knowledge of pregnancy, I missed the signs that I was carrying a pregnancy doomed to miscarriage (a “blighted ovum”) – a lack of pregnancy symptoms and a weak positive test. I miscarried at eight weeks.

One warning sign which I completely missed until it was revealed by hindsight was the fact that although I had no other pregnancy symptoms, I did have nausea – almost to the point of throwing up. With a should-be-symptomless blighted ovum pregnancy, this should not have happened. Preview of coming attractions….

We decided to try again, and I only had one period before testing positive. It was a strong positive test with immediate pregnancy symptoms, so we were much more hopeful. We were very, very excited. We told everyone right away (with our first baby, we had waited to tell everyone, and had ended up telling our family the night before I miscarried, and didn’t get around to telling our church family until it was too late).

Everything went swimmingly for a week or two. I called around excitedly looking for a childbirth preparation class. When I spoke to one teacher, she asked me if I had had any morning sickness. I replied that I had not. She said, “Well, don’t worry – it’s mostly in women’s heads anyway!” I agreed oh-so-cheerfully.

My morning sickness came on gradually – a slow, surging tide. At first it was so slight as to seem imaginary. Then it got worse, but it didn’t stop getting worse – it just kept going. At first I tried to follow all the unhelpful advice they give – eat what you can, eat often, eat dry crackers, etc. The week when we knew something was definitely wrong was somewhere around week 6. I dragged myself in to work on Tuesday and Wednesday (I work 10 hours a week at our church) and sat staring blearily at the computer screen, dutifully nibbling dry crackers. I threw up for the first time at work. By Thursday, I was almost too sick to move. I was supposed to do a two-day training at a Crisis Pregnancy Center, but I just couldn’t do it. I called the coordinator and told her that I didn’t think I could even make it out to my car without collapsing, let alone do an all-day training. I went back to bed and stayed there (except for long bouts of lying on the bathroom floor throwing up and begging God for relief). By this time I wasn’t throwing anything up – just dry heaving. I had stopped eating and drinking for several days because it only came right back up, and the smell and thought of food was overwhelmingly repugnant.

By Friday night we both knew that (a) this wasn’t normal, and (b) something was seriously wrong. By then I had lost somewhere between 10 and 15 pounds. Joe called our midwife and told her what was going on. Her advice was direct – Give up all solid foods, try liquids-only for 24 hours, and after that head to the hospital. Joe headed to the store and bought Ensure and Gatorade, and I held my breath and forced them down.

Thank God, that did the trick for at least getting it under control. I didn’t feel better – in fact, I continued to feel worse. But the vicious cycle of uncontrollable vomiting was stopped, and I only threw up a reasonable amount of times per day.

After a week on the liquid diet, I decided that I must be better by then, and decided to try the “eat what sounds good” theory (food was oddly attractive, even though it was revolting at the same time – kind of a weird combination). So I spent a day eating whatever I wanted (fried fish, 7-layer burrito). It took me about a week to recover!!! I was horribly, horribly sick. After that, I had learned my lesson – I didn’t try solid food again. (And incidentally, I have never again eaten either fried fish or a 7-layer-burrito! Ugh.) I did try a bite or two of something once or twice, but each time I was overwhelmingly sick for at least 48 hours afterwards, so I soon learned to stay away from solid foods.

From then on, my diet consisted of Ensure, Boost, Slimfast, and Jell-O. Once an hour, on the hour, I would go over to the fridge, hold my nose, and quickly gulp down half a Boost and a couple spoonfuls of Jell-O. If I didn’t watch the clock carefully, I would start throwing up when my stomach got empty. It was revolting, but it did bring a measure of relief. I also had to get up in the middle of the night to eat – I couldn’t get through the night without it. A couple of times when I got up I fainted, which was definitely an interesting experience – I’d wake up on the floor with an aching head and ringing ears thinking, “How on earth did I get here?” LOL I much preferred fainting to throwing up – much more romantic, much less unpleasant.

Extreme fatigue was a huge issue. For the first trimester or so, I just slept. The most I could manage was a shower most days and brushing my teeth once a day. Those two activities were absolutely exhausting. I did manage (somehow, I’ll never know how) to keep attending church and to keep working my 10 hours at the church. However, my “work” was basically just staring at the computer screen trying not to throw up. Had I had a normal job, I would have had to quit, and had I had a strict boss, I probably would have been fired. (Thank you, Pastor Jon!) As I started to feel a bit better, I spent some of the time in bed reading. A dear friend, C., lent me all of her Agatha Christie books that I didn’t have, and I read them endlessly.

Our life pretty much fell apart during this time. We didn’t participate in any church or social activities, have friends over, or go places. We had to back out of all social commitments. Our life consisted of sitting around at night watching endless movies (in between my trips to the bathroom) and even-more-endless episodes of Sherlock Holmes (we had a complete set, and boy, were they boring – and that’s coming from a big Sherlock Holmes fan).

Joe had to do all of the laundry, errands, and shopping. Housework didn’t get done at all – I didn’t vacuum, dust, wash, or do anything else for over six months. Yuck!! Joe pretty much ate junk food and TV dinners, since he’s not one to cook on his own. He had to make his coffee in the bathroom with the door closed and the fan on, and I went into the bedroom and shut the door whenever he put anything in the microwave or oven. Oh, food smells! How they can drive one up a wall!! I had to avoid my beloved cooking magazines, too, as reading about food made me nauseous. (And I’ve never been able to enjoy coffee properly since!)

The memory of almost anything connected with that time still has the ability to make me mildly nauseated – things like the thought of our apartment, things we had around, etc. We bought a CD during my sickest time that we had on a lot, and listening to that CD is still unpleasant to this day because it brings back memories of nausea! Weird!

We expected the nausea to disappear magically after the first trimester. Needless to say, it didn’t. The real point where it finally started to improve was around 20 weeks. Somewhere around then I also started to eat. By then I was ravenously hungry, and my biological need to chew things was driving me insane. I could have chewed on our cat at that point – and enjoyed it! I think I ate more my third trimester than I ever have since! I had an especial fascination for hamburgers (which had never interested me before).

The list of things that I could tolerate grew slowly. Firstly it was (oddly enough) white bread and spiced pork products (especially barbecue). We spent a fortune on Tom’s Barbecue (which, again, I have never wanted since, and I have to hold my nose when Joe gets it!). Then bagels, ice cream, scrambled eggs – I was eating like it was going out of style. If you’ve ever been on a liquid diet, you know the feeling!!

By the time I started to come out of it, I was extremely weak. I couldn’t even walk slowly over level ground without gasping for breath, since I’d basically been on body-mandated bed rest for months. Also, my body was just worn out. I didn’t actually feel completely better until our baby was about 15 months old.A real God-send at this time was a work trip for Joe to Virginia on which I was able to accompany him. We were gone for two and a half weeks, and I was able to leave my normal responsibilities behind and truly rest, in beautiful surroundings with lots of wildlife and time for walking and getting back to normal. The difference in my body between the time we left and the time we came back was night and day – I felt like I could face life and was much healthier than when we left.

Our baby was born at home, healthy and at normal weight, three days after my estimated due date. I was still a mess, physically, but he came out of the whole experience swimmingly – never better.

The nausea and occasional vomiting lasted until birth, and then rapidly decreased during the first week postpartum. However, it took a good year for it to completely dissipate (occasional spurts of mild nausea would appear randomly) and now (2 years postpartum) I am not sure that it is even yet completely gone. I seem to be much more prone to nausea than I was pre-conception (when hungry, etc.).

In a lot of ways, writing a story about HG for anyone who has not experienced it is an exercise in futility. For one, there is just no way to communicate the feeling of HG - the unstoppable, unremitting nausea that just overwhelms one to the point of desperation. Although I never, never, condone abortion, HG is one situation for which I can say, "I understand." (Not encourage or approve, but understand.) I've been there. Also, it is simply impossible to communicate the utter despair and hopelessness that come with this condition. There's just no way. Until someone's been down this dark path, communicating the depths to which it can take one is largely hopeless - even to one's much-loved friends and family.

I have read HG stories that absolutely make my hair curl, and I am so thankful that I do not personally know the depths to which HG can take a person. In terms of HG, I was lucky. I stayed out of the hospital and off of anti-emetics. I didn’t have to deal with IV’s, PICC lines, TPN, or any of that jazz. But even so, HG was the worst experience of my life, physically and spiritually, and the thought of it occurring again fills me with overwhelming, sickening fear and panic. I am still trying to sort myself out afterwards and come to grips with the possibility of recurrence.