Like Catherine, I too suffered from severe morning sickness. As with many experiences in life, unless you've been through it, it is hard to understand how someone feels in a situation. For me, it wasn't a case of mere queasiness. It felt like the flu - 24hrs a day of nausea and vomiting, with aches in every bone and fiber of my body. The severity and length of sickness grew each pregnancy.
With my third, I had a two week period where I literally could not keep anything down, and twice threw up blood. The doctor tried giving me shots of B6 to ease the severity. At one point, I was too sick to make the car ride to the doctor's office, so the Englishman hired a nurse to come to the house to administer the shots. Unfortunately, the shots didn't help, and in fact gave me a different set of problems, so they were discontinued.
After fourteen weeks of sickness I had lost fifteen pounds. The doctor said if I lost any more I would have to be hospitalized. The next weigh in revealed I had in fact lost one more pound. I begged the nurse not to write it down, explaining that I could feel I had turned a corner, so to speak, and that the severity of the sickness was lifting. I also said I didn't want to leave my two little girls. Thankfully, she agreed to conspire with me.
The sickness lifted and by the ninth month of pregnancy, the doctor was actually questioning how much weight I was putting on! Can you imagine? I told him, quite firmly, that after all I'd been through, no one was going to tell me to watch how much I ate! Ten days past her due date, daughter #3 arrived - weighing in at 8lbs 9oz.
So, contrary to all the old wives's tales and lack of knowledge among the general population, morning sickness is not "all in a woman's head," but caused by an actual medical condition. It is a chemical reaction in the body called "Hyperemesis Gravidarum." It is not caused by a fear of pregnancy, stubbornness, a desire to be thin, or a reluctance to be pregnant. Yes, only a small percentage of women have the most severe kind. My mother had it and my middle daughter suffered terribly from it with each of her pregnancies. She was not as fortunate as I was in that hers lasted until the moment she delivered each of her girls. God bless her endurance!
Is it worth it all? Without a doubt! I would gladly do it all again to bring my three amazing daughters into the world. I suspect the Duchess feels the same way.
(photo from Pinterest)
As you can see - all very strong women in this family.
ReplyDeleteWithout a doubt!
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