Morning Blog!

So I thought I'd share some of the early details of my pregnancy with everyone, partly because it's almost comical and partly because it's something that all women who are or are thinking about becoming pregnant should be careful to pay attention to.

Along with early pregnancy comes...MORNING SICKNESS!!! Fun fun fun. Or, in some women's cases, All-Day-Long Sickness. Almost every woman gets morning sickness in some form or another, whether it's just mild nausea in the morning or something much more severe. I was one of the lucky ones who was sick all the damn time. It got to the point where I couldn't go in to work because I was throwing up every hour, regardless of whether or not I'd eaten. I thought that was going to be the worst of it. For a period of about three weeks, everything I ate just came right back up. Salad, potatoes, even popsicles. During this time, I was in communication with my doctor, and she tried three different medications (phenergan, zofran, and reglan), but none of them proved very effective. Finally I got to the point where I was so dehydrated that I had to go in to get hydration therapy. Basically, it is what it sounds like; they were trying to rehydrate me via an IV. I did this in the hospital for two days while I waited for my insurance to approve having it done at home. They also decided that the best thing for my nausea, since I still had a little over a month left in the first trimester, would be to put me on a continuous pump of reglan. That's helped a TON. With that, I only had to have the at-home IV for a couple of days, and now I'm back up to eating solid foods and being able to drive myself around.

My condition is called hyperemesis gravidarum, and it only effects about 2% of the pregant population, so chances are you won't get it. However, if you think you might have more severe morning sickness than the average woman, get help. You should be able to keep down a popsicle or ice chips or something, and you shouldn't be throwing up even if you haven't eaten anything. I don't recommend just swallowing a bunch of pills just because you don't want to deal with it. Just communicate with your doctor regularly, and if you think there's a problem don't hesitate to call her in between appointments. That's what she's there for.