by Haddy

Created on: November 12, 2008

Fourteen years ago give or take a few weeks and days I began an incredible first journey. I like to call it pregnancy. I remember it well almost as if it were last month. I remember it well for all the normal reasons. I also remember it for the many trips I made to the white porcelain throne. At exactly at the sixth week of my first pregnancy my tummy began to feel queasy. At first it was only in the morning upon rising from the night before sleep. Then almost immediately I began to notice I was feeling nauseated at regular intervals. I would be going about my daily life when a smell from the refrigerator would catch me off guard. Suddenly, I'd find myself in a race with time to get to the toilet. This became a large part of my pastime, running to the toilet to capture whatever meal I had ingested last.

For some women, morning sickness occurs only in the morning. For some, it lasts a day, week or even a month or more. I hate those women. No, really, I do. You see my initial morning sickness quickly progressed into what Doctors call Hyper-emesis. Basically it's extreme morning sickness. Mine lasted the duration of my pregnancy. I spent weeks eight through twelve in the hospital because I wasn't able to keep anything down. So there I laid with an intravenous tube attached at my wrist. It wasn't a pleasant experience for such a wondrous event in my life.

After my stint in the hospital my Doctor put me on a drug called Diclectin. Diclectin helped me to some degree. I lost ten pounds but managed to level out toward the end of my pregnancy. I had my beautiful baby boy.

Oddly, a year later I forgot all about the extreme morning sickness I had had with my son. Low and behold, I started the same process over again. This time around my hyper-emesis was worse then before. Again at six weeks give or take a week and a few days it began. I was hospitalized, this time I had needles of gravol shot into my hips frequently. I lost seventeen pounds throughout this pregnancy. I consumed nine bottles of 100 tablets of gravol by the time I gave birth to my daughter.

As if this wasn't enough morning sickness, I found myself pregnant eight years later. This time around I was that woman. you know, the one I said I hated. The one who has a whole day of morning sickness throughout my pregnancy. It was heaven to me. I can't say what was different this time around, I only know that everyone is different. There is no straight rule on morning sickness. There is no certain time frame. Still I wouldn't trade any of my children for anything. Morning sickness or no morning sickness they are worth it and then some.

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