One of my dear HG friends is making reality quote pictures for HG awareness and I thought I would share mine on here!
I find it frightening how one day I can be perfectly fine and then the next I find myself so sick with Hyperemesis. Had I known that for the next 2 years I would not have a single day where I didn’t have at least one episode of vomiting, I think I would have seriously contemplated ending the pregnancy right then and there.
Hyperemesis Gravidarum is hell but the nightmare it left behind has been the most traumatising. You expect to make a full recovery when you have your baby in your arms and for most women this is how it is. But for a small number of us, things don’t return back to normal and we are left with medical and mental health complications that can be long term or even life long.
You take each day of hyperemesis as it comes knowing that you are one day closer to that feeling of pure bliss where you have your baby in your arms and you are feeling so much better. The nausea is gone and vomiting a distant memory. So imagine if you are expecting this and holding on dearly for that! You get to that special day and you have your beautiful bundle in your arms but the vomiting hasn’t gone and you are still feeling that awful nausea! You panic! Doctors reassure you to give it time, its hormonal and it will settle as the pregnancy hormones leave your body!
You give it time, a week goes by, then a month and before you know it a whole year has passed and yet you are still experiencing nausea and vomiting. You are still suffering despite there being no chance of you being pregnant. Imagine being stuck in that nightmare!
It took 15 months after my baby was born before I finally got a diagnosis, nearly 2 whole years of vomiting daily to learn I now have gastroparesis. But whether HG caused that or the feeding tube injury we will never know. It is possible it is a condition I already had but made worst by pregnancy. I will never have the answers, I just know that one day I was fine and the next I became sick and that sickness didn’t end even after the HG ended!