This is a post I’ve been meaning to write for a while, but I had to get out of the trenches before I felt safe enough to document it and ask about it.
With all 3 pregnancies, I’ve never really got to the point of puking when I felt sick, save a couple times that I think were more likely attributed to mild food poisoning. Now, please know how VERY grateful I am that that came to pass. I hate puking more than just about anything in this world. I will fight it with every ounce of will power I have in me.
Hate. It.
But with each pregnancy, the worst part for me has been the food aversions, and they seem to increase in intensity and the length of time they stick around each time I get pregnant. I’m not talking about being averse to most foods, and having to live off of toast and water for a day or two. I’m talking not being able to stomach the sight, let alone the taste, of ANYTHING, not even water sometimes.
This was the worst for me around weeks 10 and 11, though I still fight with it off and on now. The week of Christmas, I think I could have fit all the food I managed to get into my stomach on one dinner plate. I had to choke down water in small sips.
There was a point when I thought, “Do I have to go to the hospital for this?”
People were misinterpreting my being so sick with my having hyperemesis gravidarum– a condition that results from severe vomiting, leading to dehydration (what Kate Middleton has/had). I felt awful when they would assume that. “Surely I must be overreacting to this if people think I have it that bad,” I thought. Because I never puked.
Though, I can’t say I wouldn’t have, had I given my body something to throw up?
Related: Water On The Rocks, A Pica Lust Story
I searched and searched online for warning signs of “extreme” food aversions, but all I found were the typical anecdotal tales of being repulsed by certain foods, and having to eat nothing but mac & cheese for a week. Nothing really talked about any dangers of the worst version of it.
The good news is obviously this came to an end (at least the extreme version of it), and the baby and I are fine. I’m certainly not implying that what I dealt with was on the same, dangerous level as hyperemesis gravidarum, but I do think it was a pretty intense, awful thing to deal with.
I guess I’m just wondering if any of you went through something similar? How sick did you get? What did you do to cope?
Let’s make this a place for a discussion about this, and hopefully others struggling with it will be more successful in a Google search for insight in the future than I was.