My Pregnancy with Sarah
Mild Hyperemesis Gravidarum
After I lost Charlie my mind would only concentrate on pregnancy and anything related to babies. I would look up how far along I would have been, id see expectant mothers and wonder if that’s what my bump would have looked like. And then id research into the newborn stage etc. I was so down and missed my baby so much..As a newly single young woman, I went through a whole host of one night stands and tried dating. In September 2006, a whole year after losing Charlie I met up with my now Husband Gavin on a blind date. Our first date was a disaster but then we tried again on a second date. I had already started my nursing course at university but hated it and was still obsessed with the idea of having a family. This meant that the first time that I was intimate with Gavin I was not as careful as I should have been. I didn’t care if I got pregnant, I hated university, I hated nursing and I desperately missed my little boy. I discovered I was pregnant sometime in November. It started off just feeling ‘Off’. I felt icky, a bit like I had the beginning of a stomach upset or had a hangover. It didn’t clear up at all so I took a test and lo and behold I got a very strong Positive! As you can imagine, having only been with my boyfriend for just under 2 months, I was a little worried about how to approach the topic but in the end I just came out with it. I had been prepared to be a single mum, I was thrilled to have this baby and nothing would stop me having him/her but I wasn’t prepared for how pleased Gavin was. He was really excited and that shocked me.
The sickness didn’t begin as early as it has done in my subsequent pregnancies. I think it was around the 7 week mark that it really hit me but the nausea had been pretty intense. I had been completely unprepared for it having not had anything with Charlie. However I did find that eating small snacks helped. If I didn’t let myself get too hungry I could keep the sickness to a minimum. By this stage it was traditional morning sickness (NVP) not hyperemesis. It would affect me when I woke up before id had a chance to eat or drink anything. However by 9-10 weeks things started getting worse. The sickness was now at any point during the day. The nausea was unrelenting and I would feel dreadful all day. I think at that point I was vomiting about 5-8 times a day, however I managed to keep myself fairly well hydrated and I would have some days where I could eat and it would stay down. Things that helped me were salty crisps and fizzy drinks like coke. My midwife wasn’t at all concerned and told me this was normal so I didn’t worry. I don’t think she believed how nauseous I felt the whole time though. I had been given a midwife who specialised in teen pregnancy and I think she was used to over-exaggeration.
By 11 weeks things the sickness had become a nightmare, I was so nauseous all of the time, it started to affect my ability to eat. I would find it hard to physically swallow the food as I just felt so awful. The sickness had remained the same (vomiting no more than 8 times in a day) though having never heard of hyperemesis I found it really traumatising and I was constantly worried about my baby. I started having days when I couldn’t keep anything down including sips of water. I phoned the GP for advice and they told me the usual rubbish that morning sickness was perfectly normal and that I should keep having sips of water and dry toast/biscuits. I was trying so hard but nothing seemed to help. I would become so weak and unable to get out of bed. My blood pressure would drop and a couple of times I passed out. Gavin became increasingly worried and it got to a point where he didn’t want to leave me in case I got really hurt if I passed out. I had just started a nursing placement on the Stroke ward but it became impossible to cope. The smells were overbearing and I would frequently need to be excused to vomit. In the end I decided I couldn’t do this anymore and quit my course.
Things were at their worst in January, I remember being so sick I hadn’t kept down anything including water for 2 days and I felt like I was going to die. I called the GP again and spoke to the same doctor who said that I should be fine but to call back if I hadn’t been able to go for a wee in over 24 hours and they would then consider getting me some treatment. I had gone for a wee that morning so assumed I wasn’t serious enough for any treatment. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, I didn’t have a name for the condition.
Come February things got a bit easier, I started tolerating fluids and even small bites of food. I went to my GP after my midwife had found protein in my urine and thought I had a UTI and advised I go and get antibiotics. I saw a different doctor and she found ketones in my urine sample. She asked me about my sickness and I had explained what had been going on. She explained that she thought I had been suffering Hyperemesis Gravidarum. I was dumbfounded…I had been blown off my the other doctor twice and left at 18 years of age to just get on with it. No one had even suggested what I had been going through was not normal. She asked how I was coping and decided to prescribe me an anti-emetic medicine, it was metaclopramide syrup. I think she gave me it as a syrup as I was keeping down fluids but not much solids. I took the medicine and it did help me keep down a lot more. By 20 weeks, I was experiencing NVP not HG. I would vomit once or twice a day at maximum and even my constant nausea had gone.
The second trimester was so much kinder on me and I was able to continue on with the pregnancy. I struggled with anaemia and a lot of hip and back pain. But it was more like what I had imagined ‘normal’ pregnancy to be. Scans showed our baby was growing nicely, but we didn’t find out the babies gender. At around 32 weeks into the pregnancy my nausea increased again. The vomiting was still only a few times a day (3 or 4 times a day maximum).
I went into labour naturally at 39 weeks. It started on the evening of July 18th , I got dull period type cramps and my mucus plug began to come away. The morning of the 19th I thought I was in labour and warned Gavin to be on alert as I was getting regular pains. I managed during the day though noticed my body was unable to keep down any food. I did wonder if I was experiencing food poisoning as my bowels were very loose. Come the evening of the 19th I knew I was in labour for sure, I was restless. The contractions were regular, but I worried if I turned up too early at the hospital I would be turned away (I had heard horror stories). Gavin went to bed at about 11.30 pm and i laboured on my own til about 3.30am. The pains were becoming too much and I couldn’t cope on my own anymore. I had already had 3 baths (I would later get complaints from my neighbour downstairs that I had kept her awake all night, as she had heard me). Gavin helped me through the contractions but noticed they were lasting longer and coming much more frequently and so phoned the labour ward for advice. They said to bring me in straight away, we got to the hospital at about 4.30am
I was examined and found to be 4cms dilated, I requested an epidural as I was frightened of how much worse the pain could get and given entonox whilst I waited for the anaesthetist. After my epidural was put in it worked partially, they were about the replace it but found my babies heart rate kept dropping. Doctors decided to speed up my labour as the baby was getting tired. They broke my waters for me. The epidural by this point did not work at all. Within the next hour I went from 4 to 6 cms at the next check. Then I felt like I needed to go the toilet, I was checked again and found to be fully dilated to 10cms. I was told I could start pushing. It took me just under 3 hours to push Sarah into the world. I was so proud of myself, at the age of 19 I had survived hyperemesis gravidarum and pushed out our daughter with only entonox! 
After Sarah was out, I had no more nausea or sickness, I enjoyed tea and toast whilst we blissfully took in the fact that we were actually parents. At the time I thought this pregnancy was hard, and in a lot of ways it was. Whilst my HG had been mild, it was still a lot harder than normal morning sickness. I didn’t think anymore about the pregnancy and what we had endured to get Sarah, I was so grateful to have got my beautiful baby. After having lost Charlie I felt so blessed to have this little girl! Having not known about Hyperemesis Gravidarum, I didn’t even consider I might get it again in future pregnancies, no one had told me anything more. Even my midwife had been fairly clueless about it. It frightens me to realise that even as recently as 2007, there was so much ignorance concerning HG, so many people had no idea that someone could become so sick in pregnancy.
During my pregnancy I hadn’t been weighed by any of the medical professionals, i didn’t even weigh myself, I do think I lost a few pounds in the first half of the pregnancy. Because after Sarah was born I was 2lbs less than what I had weighed in the beginning. Whilst I had been officially diagnosed as having Hyperemesis Gravidarum, it was at the very mildest on the spectrum compared to my subsequent pregnancies.
Sarah Louise Stevens
Born 20th July 2007
at 8.40am
7 lbs 8