So why I am I writing this blog? To be quite honest with you I am sick of reading half hearted blogs and articles that don't go into the nitty gritty of pregnancy sickness. If I had a £1 for every time I've read or been told 'eat ginger' I'd have enough to buy a bloody ginger factory. 1. I don't like it 2. It does sweet FA.
Before we start, here's my warnings:
It's going to be long. I'm starting this blog at just 7 weeks and I have a lot to say about this subject. I am in the trenches of sickness right now and I'm fuming. Edit: I've just come back up here to say, I'm finding this, getting it all out of my head and onto the screen very cathartic. It's going to be long.
There's going to be swearing. How else to I get across how fucking horrific pregnancy sickness is? I either swear or the page is filled with !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lets stick with swearing.
This is my account of how I feel, yours might be different. One size certainly does not fit all in anything to do with pregnancy and birth, and this is going to be no different. Please don't take any of what I say to be medical advice, its not, its my story and yours I'm sure will be different.
So what's my story - bit of background for you. I'm Vicky, 33, fit and healthy, this is my 5th pregnancy but my third baby and I've a shit time with fertility. I've had 2 previous ectopic pregnancies (one ruptured and almost killed me), I then went through IVF (full respect to any of you IVF mamas - hard hard work), but we were incredibly fortunate to fall pregnant with my little girl. I didn't know I would suffer with severe pregnancy sickness, who does? Now I don't know whether it was the intensity of the hormones rushing through my body with the IVF but I pretty much had a positive test in the morning, and by the afternoon someone turned the BBQ on and the smell made me run to the toilet and spew up! This lasted ALL of my pregnancy, and into my labour (I had a break of no sickness between 30-35 weeks, lucky me).
2nd time round our beautiful boy was an incredible surprise (yes kids you can get pregnant whilst breastfeeding). I didn't know until I was 8 weeks pregnant, but as soon as I knew, it started - this makes me think their definitely has to be a correlation between your brain being in the know, and the hormones? I AM NOT SAYING THIS IS ALL IN YOUR HEAD, AS I LAY HERE TODAY SPEWING UP FROM EATING A STRAWBERRY BELIEVE ME, I HAVE TRIED TELLING MY BRAIN TO DEAL WITH IT.
With my second pregnancy I suffered all the way through my pregnancy again, although towards the end it definitely wasn't as intense.
3rd time, now. I think I forgot how bad pregnancy sickness is, I found out I was pregnant at 4 weeks, I started to feel nauseous at 5 weeks, and the sickness properly started around week 6.
All of the feelings and all of the thoughts.
Pregnancy sickness puts me in a really dark place. I feel fucking horrendous. For the past 12 months I have been working really hard on my mental health, practicing gratitude, being more mindful, focusing on better self care, I finally felt like I was in such an amazing place. Just before being 6 weeks pregnant I almost felt a fog come over me, that fog I know will be with me for my entire pregnancy, and it's honestly just make me feel absolute shite. Before I go on to mention the thoughts and feelings I have, I want you to fully understand that this isn't just 'morning sickness'. WHAT A BLOODY TERM TO COME UP WITH!!
This isn't just being a bit sick in the morning, its not feeling a bit nauseous. This is brutal stuff. Here is how it looks:
Feeling sick, morning, midmorning, all morning, all afternoon, all evening, all through the night. No reprieve.
Sick, very sick. If I don't take some tablets (I'll discuss this later) then my day looks like, wake up, run to the toilet, far to hot, dizzy, faint to be sick over the toilet, lay on the floor and let the sick come all over the bathroom floor. Crawl into bed, repeat. Feel so empty inside but the thought of food makes me run to the toilet again. I just need to sleep. Sleep makes everything better.
Tiredness. I am convinced that if I wasn't so damn exhausted (probably from the pregnancy, lack of food, general feeling of meh) then maybe I just wouldn't feel AS bad - but I've tried having all of the sleep and I still wake up tired and sick.
Fog. Brain fog - like a cloud has come over me, and it just feels like the lights are on but no one is home
Memory loss. Double booking appointments, yep. Forgetting birthdays, yep. Forgetting something hubby told me last night, yep. Nothing is going in.
Awareness. Or should I say lack of awareness. Sometimes I don't feel safe in the car (sorry if you reading this hubby) but curbing the car, driving too close to bushes.
Dizziness. Oh the dizziness, laying down - fine. Anything else - horrendous, the world spins, my head spins.
Hot. Constantly hot, roasting hot. Everywhere is too hot, always too many clothes. Even when I am being sick, laying on a cold floor wearing no clothes, my body completely shivering - I am still too hot.
Some not directly linked symptoms I am also experiencing, which is more likely down to the lack of nutrition and general feeling of being run down include:
Mouth ulcers. Urgh
Sore throat I can't seem to shift
Headaches - probably down to dehydration
UTIs, again, probably pregnancy / run down related
Think about the very worst hangover you've ever had, you know when you get to the end of the day after spewing all day and you think all I need is some greasy food and a good sleep, I can't wait to feel normal tomorrow. Yes this, but every day, and tomorrow you feel exactly the same.
So back to the thoughts and feelings, I know how incredibly lucky I am to have children, so please don't mistake this for me being ungrateful. I am absolutely not, but I am also allowed to feel how I feel. There have been, and still are times I think I really can't do this, I can't go on another day feeling like this, it's not fair on me, my other 2 children, my husband, my business partner or anyone else around me, maybe an abortion would be better for everyone. Then the guilt kicks in and I beat myself up for being selfish and try and tell myself this isn't forever. On my worse days, usually when in the car, I have gone in the deepest depths of my thoughts and thought I just want to end this feeling, I'll do anything to end this feeling. Luckily there is something in there that pulls me out of those thoughts, but I know for others that is not the case. I don't have any words of wisdom other than I honestly feel you, I understand and I am right there with you.
So if you're reading this, I imagine some of this resonates with you, and it's all good and well someone reiterating how you feel, but now I'm sure you want to know if their is a way to function like a normal human being.
I'm 10 weeks pregnant writing this section, I have two very young children with no family support network (other than my incredibly husband, of which I am fully aware this pregnancy wouldn't be possible without him picking up the lions share), a house to look after and a business to run, I needed to find someway forward. In my first pregnancy I didn't want to take any medication, I rarely take medication, I drive my husband mad that I won't take a paracetamol or pain relief when in pain, I'd rather try holistic therapies first. However, this time around, I don't feel like I have much choice.
I started going to the GP with my sickness as early as I could (5 weeks) as I knew it was going to be a long process, it's there we started on a medication ladder.
The first medication I was prescribed was Cyclizine, Cyclizine is an antihistamine that is said to work by blocking a chemical called histamine in your brain that can make you feel sick. Honestly, I'm not sure if this made me feel any less sick as it made me so drowsy I couldn't function. I could do nothing but sleep, I didn't feel safe to drive or to care for my children. This wasn't the one.
Next I was prescribed Prochlorperazine. This is said to work by blocking the action of a chemical called dopamine in the brain. This is meant to stop nausea messages from being sent to a part of your brain called the vomiting centre. The message obviously wasn't getting through as the sickness continued as frequent as ever.
I was then prescribed Ondansetron which is said to work in the stomach by blocking the signals to the brain that cause nausea and vomiting. The sickness stopped. I wasn't being sick. I was still very very nausea and by the time 5pm came around I just wanted to sleep but I wasn't being sick.
I was ok with the Ondansetron as it meant I wasn't being sick but I felt like I was still unable to properly function, it felt like I needed more. I was then prescribed Xonvea, this is similar to Cyclizine in that it's an antihistamine that is said to work by blocking a chemical in your brain. I was unable to take this in the day time as it made me so drowsy, but if I took the Xonvea in the evening and then Ondansetron in the day time then I finally felt like I could function.
What I will say, although I feel like I've found some sort of ability to function, even with combining these medications, I am firing on only half of my cylinders right now. It means I am able to work in short spells, have a short amount of time with my children and function some of the time. I definitely don't feel 'cured' or in any way like my old self. I am not being sick throughout the day but I still feel incredibly nausea, if I miss a tablet, we're back to square one and it takes a good 2-3 days to stop the sickness again.
The medications also come with their own challenges, severely constipated, yep, cramping, drowsiness. All of which still feel better than the sickness.
Taking the medication is allowing me to follow some of the other steps we see writing on the blogs, I used to look at these and think, how the fuck am I meant to eat little and often when I can't physically put anything to my mouth. Now I get it, only now I am on the medication. So what do some of these things actually mean:
Eat ginger, might work for you, has never worked for me. However, drinking a herbal tea does work to a certain extent as a way of getting some liquid into my body.
I feel like I can never quite quench my thirst, so drinking cold sugary drinks definitely gives me a bit of a boost (yes, not nutritionally sound advice, however, survival mode!)
Eat little and often. I never got this but now it makes sense, once I was on the medication and felt able to eat I was stuffing my face with large plates of food as a way to try and bank the food intake, as who knew when I'd feel able to eat again, however, this often ended coming back up some time later. I now try and graze all day, I am still not grazing the best of foods but its like I need stodge. I'm trying to have more food available at hand that is going to fill my tummy.
Never skip a meal, this always ends badly. Even if I don't feel like it, I try and eat / drink something.
Sleep works. Early nights, every night. If I need to take myself off for a mid morning / mid afternoon nap then I do. Who set the rule we shouldn't sleep in the day? My body is telling me I need to, so I am.
Craniosacral therapy. I went for a Craniosacral therapy session with Pete from Function Therapy based in Leamington Spa this week. I didn't feel sick all day, and actually stayed up until 9pm which was an absolute bonus. However, the sickness did return the next day. I love cranio therapy and what results it can have on both baby's and adults, this is something I am going to keep having as these things take time, and even if I can have a day or two of feeling relatively 'normal' then its worth it's weight in gold.
I have just started having some Chiropractor treatments with Ben Gibbs from Kenilworth Chiropractors, he is really interested in pregnancy and babies and how Chiro could potentially help with pregnancy sickness, its very early days but I will report back on progress.
Not an exhaustive list. I haven't found lots that has worked for me so far but I will keep trying.
I hope that some of what I have told you is useful to you, but if not, keep going, you have absolutely got this. We're in it together.
Much love
Vicky xox
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