We had a nice few days with our friend Bianca. She lives in Las Vegas but had a wedding to go to down in Hampton and decided to stay and visit with us. I felt SO bad that I was sick most of the time. I know she just wanted to hang out and didn’t mind staying at home most of the time, but I like playing tour guide so I was really bummed out that we didn’t get a chance to actually do much. We did enjoy a nice evening in the jacuzzi at my parents house while they were away for the weekend. For about 2 hours I wasn’t feeling sick and we got to goof off and be silly like we normally are. Bianca stayed for an extra day because her flight was cancelled and I miraculously felt well enough that last afternoon to eat a whole plate of gnocchi, do a bit of shopping, and be silly again before we had to say goodbye a second time. I know B had a good time with us, but I still feel a little guilty that we couldn’t be our normal super fun selves and really show her a good time in Richmond. What matters is that she was so sweet and thoughtful to come stay with us and we all had a chance to catch up and be in great company for a few days. I miss her so much already.. she is just such a wonderful and fun person.
So my hopes ran high yesterday when I got a break from being sick. Turns out that I felt alright today, too. I think two consecutive days of not being completely stuck in bed is a good sign that my body might actually be recovering for real this time. It would be a HUGE relief for me to be able to do a bit more, like laundry, dishes and homework. Dave has been doing everything that I can’t do, and even offered to wash my hair because I was too sick to stand up in the shower for more than 5 minutes.. I have been managing in the bath tub, but it’s just not the same as taking a real shower.
I had a talk with a friend today about being sick and it motivated me to write more. Dave has been encouraging me to write more, too, but I have this hesitation because I don’t want people thinking that all I have to say is negative. I think I need to just get over that and be OK with only talking about negative things right now. The truth is, for the past 100 days I have felt like dying and there’s no way to put that into perspective for anyone or come off without sounding completely depressed and lonely.
After being in the hospital and having my endoscopy, I feel more serious about this whole ordeal. I started to fall apart physically and emotionally and then I became more grounded when there actually was something wrong that someone could diagnose besides “just being pregnant.” There’s nothing I could have done to avoid what happened and it’s a blessing that I was able to get the help I needed to heal my body. My esophagus, right near the entrance to my stomach, had herniated on both sides and there was nothing controlling what came back up. They don’t know how long I had the hernia, but the procedure itself was horrible. I was very uncomfortable and was extremely resistant to the Demerol, which they used to help put me in a sleepy state before going into my tummy with the camera. They had to give me almost twice as much medication as they would give a normal person and I should have been knocked out cold, but I wasn’t. I ended up vomiting the entire time the scope was in there and my doctor could barely suction it fast enough so I was getting it everywhere.. I continued to throw up even after the procedure. I don’t like that I remember exactly how it felt and what happened. I wasn’t scared at all, it was just so uncontrollable and uncomfortable. There was no pain at all, I was just so sick that it was embarrassing. I also had to stay in recovery for almost 4 hours because I started itching like crazy after the procedure. They had to give me a ton of Benadryl and then I was able to rest a while. I was also dehydrated so I had to stay for extra fluids. What a mess. While I was in drug land, my doctor spent some time with Dave explaining what they found and how I was so resistant to the medication so that made it a little more difficult to do the procedure. Dave told me about the hernia when we were driving home and I was pretty surprised, but relieved. I go this Friday for a follow up with the GI doctor and I’m looking forward to having some questions answered.
There’s really nothing the doctor can do besides prescribe medications. I know that they have helped for sure because I’m not experiencing that sharp stomach pain anymore and I’m able to eat more often. I still feel tired and overwhelmed from everything that’s happened over the past 2 weeks. As soon as someone tells me I’m going to start feeling better, my condition has worsened. As of today, I have some real hope that I will not have hyperemesis for much longer. I can deal with how I’m feeling right now; tired, mildly nauseated, and a bit drained.
Despite all that’s been going on, I am still happy to be pregnant. I am motivated to keep going because I’m growing this teeny person in my belly who is depending on me to be strong and make educated decisions about our health. Each time we’ve heard the baby on the doppler the nurses say how strong the heart beat is. I kind of imagine this little baby kicking back on a lounge chair with a pina colada having no idea what’s going on in mommy’s world. Even though it makes me a little jealous, that’s normal and in reality I would rather go through anything than have my baby endure health problems and stress.
This does bring me to an interesting thought I’ve had for a few weeks now. I’m thinking that if for some reason I continue to be sick for the rest of my pregnancy, I don’t know if I want to have a home birth anymore. I cannot even imagine what it would be like to be nauseated and vomiting while going through labor pains for hours without any relief. Many women get nauseated briefly during transition before they are about to actually give birth, but I just don’t think I am willing to put my body through hours of sickness in the name of natural childbirth. This is a VERY unlikely scenario, but I am going to talk to my midwife about it next week at our appointment. I think what I might do is plan on trying things out at home, then transferring if I get really sick. I hope that this won’t happen but I want to be prepared and have decisions lined up ahead of time. I’m pretty sure we’ll have our home birth, though, as long as I don’t develop preeclampsia or some other health condition that would require ending my midwifery care. I will definitely post about our home birth plans soon, because I think a lot of people don’t know about home birth and can get easily freaked out by it.
That was a long post, but I had a lot I wanted to share.. thanks for reading and I will be posting again soon. Dave says hi too!
~Christine
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