by Andrea Brown

Created on: June 10, 2008

Have you ever read about those "out of body" experiences? People who claimed they were looking down on themselves. Do you believe them? I never did. Until I was pregnant.

I was twenty-four when I became pregnant with my first baby. At first, the only indication that told me I was pregnant was throwing up twenty-four hours a day. I felt nauseous every second of every minute of every day. Any little thing that went in came back out almost immediately. This, I wasn't expecting, but not so strange. What was strange were the things that triggered my vomiting. Rap music. Recently graduated from college, I still enjoyed dancing to the new rap songs that played while I was out. Once I was pregnant, any song that sounded remotely similar to rap made me sick. The only radio station I could listen to was one that played all Christmas songs all the time; something that ordinarily annoyed me. Who was I?

Another thing that made me vomit; intimacy on TV and movies. Even worse was when my husband turned on an animal show that showed animals mounting each other. It literally sent me running to the bathroom. Affection toward me made me sick as well. When my husband even put his hand on me, the warmth made me puke. Affection was something I always craved pre-pregnancy. Who was this cold person I had become?

Smells and sights of food I ordinarily loved made me sick, but this was normal. When soaps, shampoos, lotions, and deodorant made me ill, I felt I was crazy. I would spend an hour sitting in the shampoo aisle of the grocery store, smelling every soap and shampoo until I thought I found one I could tolerate for my husband and myself. Days later, I would be sitting in the same aisle at the grocery store because the smell of my husband made me sick.

Washing my naked body in the shower triggered vomiting as well. The sight of my body did not disgust me. I was fit, and a cute pregnant woman, but having to touch my body in the warm water disgusted me. I would wash as fast as possible to get out of the shower. I used to love the relaxation of showers! I had no idea what was happening to me, and no one I knew experienced any of this.

To top it all off, feeling the baby move inside of me completely grossed me out. I felt there was an alien inside me, and that this was the most unnatural thing that could possibly occur. My mind could not fathom that another human being was living inside of my body. I felt like a stranger to myself. I did not recognize my own thoughts or feelings and the disconnect was so intense that I did not feel I was living my life. It felt like I was watching it happen.

So have no fear, if you are feeling any of these things; you are not crazy, and you are not alone. One year after having my first child, I began to feel like myself once again. In my next two pregnancies, I still experienced the vomiting, but was doing it in my own body. In my experience, you will always experience things that no one ever told you about before you became pregnant!

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