Mentally dealing with the chronic nausea of pregnancy

***POSTSCRIPT NOTE AT TIME OF POSTING: I wrote this in the thick of first trimester nausea.  It probably sounds a little depressed.  But don’t worry, I’m doing better now!***

I have never been this sick in my life.  Or, rather, I’ve been sicker in the acute sense (food poisoning in Baja, perhaps, or meningitis - with 105°F fever - during my freshman year in college, those were both pretty bad), but never for this long.  As of the time of writing, I have felt like dying for 37 days, 12 hours, and 42 minutes (not exaggerating).  Without reprieve.

While feeling this sick, I have installed and removed lots of pitfall traps and lines in scorching heat, driven about 10,000km in a car that smelled like rotting things and rubber, flown for 30 hours straight, cooked food and cleaned dishes, acted “normal” around my work colleagues (I think), grocery shopped (oh dear god, the meat counter, how large and far-reaching you doth seem...), and walked (zombie-shuffled?) the 2 miles each direction to work since returning to the States in an attempt to keep living despite the discomfort.  Perhaps I should feel like a warrior, but I don’t.  I just feel miserable for myself and every other woman who isn’t a magical pregnancy unicorn that escapes the nausea.  I lost nearly 10lbs between weeks 5 and 9, and I did not enjoy the skeletal look (I’m basically back up to pre-preg weight now at week 11, so don’t worry, I’m not kicking the bucket yet).

I don’t want to sound ungrateful for my pregnancy.  I’m very, very happy about having a baby.  Lots of people have to work very hard to get pregnant, and they welcome the debilitating nausea (if they get it that bad) and are even grateful for it.  But chronic illness of any kind can take a toll on you psychologically, welcome or not, and in many ways, that’s harder to deal with than the actual physical discomfort.  The “pregnancy books” (more on my dissatisfaction with their ambiguities and spin in a subsequent post) give you a noncommittal:

“Most women feel better during the second trimester [note: which, I might add, could begin week 12 or 13 or 14, depending on the source - and 14 days is A LOT OF TIME TO FEEL LIKE DYING, SO THE DIFFERENCE MATTERS - and they say “during,” which means it might be way later than that], but a few women remain nauseous for the duration of their pregnancy.”  

I know it’s not the same as “real” chronic nausea for non-pregnant people with no diagnosis and no end in sight, but do you know how far away December seems right now if I feel like this the whole time?  I can’t help wondering how much I’ll end up resenting the pregnancy (the pregnancy, not the baby) if that’s the way it turns out for me.  That would be, well, such a loss.

And yes, I’ve tried every single non-drug remedy ever suggested on the entire (yes, entire) internet and in any book - wristbands, ginger, mineral water, more protein, less protein, lemon, papaya, gum, whatever.  Nothing helps.  I am horribly nauseous all day, every day, and have been for weeks.

Ah, so why not just take drugs?  Well, it is very hard for me to justify taking any drugs while pregnant when my physical health isn’t in grave danger.  I am eating (being at home instead of in the field helps immensely), and - with a lot of effort - I did put the weight back on, so it’s really only my psychological health that’s suffering, and this is where the pregnancy blogosphere suddenly fails.  How does one mentally cope with feeling so chronically sick, potentially for such a long time?

I have decided to try three things, and maybe posting them publicly will help some other poor, barfy pregnant woman who stumbles across my blog someday in the future.  And FYI, these ideas are not the normal go-to suggestions about asking someone else for help/understanding/a shoulder to cry on.  That’s great if you have those, but lots of women don’t - or ironically, they find that they actually don’t help that much even when you do have them.  You still feel really fucking sick.  In the end, it is you who has to carry this baby, it is you who has to birth it, and the idea is about empowering you to find a mental peace with your situation - whatever it may be - that no one else can provide for you.

1) Own it - take clinical data on yourself:  Hospitals do this with pain, to give patients a sense of control and understanding over something which seems totally out of control.  Pukeyness won’t go away?  Fine, make a damn chart so other people at least have some quantitative data on how bad it can be.  Calculate your mean pukeyness by week.  Add some nice color to your graphs.  I have decided that Allie Brosh’s “better pain scale” (http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/02/boyfriend-doesnt-have-ebola-probably.html) below makes a wonderful quantitative puke scale for me - I’ve already started charting, twice per day plus extreme events.  Wish I’d started earlier.

2) Do something really nice for yourself, once a day, to thank yourself for that day’s sacrifice for the baby: I take this one from yoga practice, where you honor yourself at the end of your practice for having taken the time from your day to come to the yoga mat.  Today you did something above and beyond the call of duty, that not every mom-to-be has to do, and you should thank yourself for that.  Even if you are so miserable that this consists of putting some nice ice cubes in your water, or drinking the water from a wine glass instead of a regular glass, or opening the window shade at sunset so that you can watch the birds, find something to mindfully reward yourself for making it through another day.  It didn’t have to be a pleasant day, just one more day that you made it through.

3) Buy a home doppler.  I know, I know, blah, blah, sound waves fry your baby’s brain, blah, blah, buy one anyway.  Find your baby’s heartbeat and record it so that you can listen to it whenever you feel the worst. Ultrasounds actually work much better than consumer-grade dopplers to remind you why you’re working so hard, but well, ultrasounds don’t happen on your schedule (or sometimes at all).  Every once in a while (because you’re so concerned about brain frying, you feel you need to limit yourself), go ahead and find the heartbeat again.  The mental reassurance is invaluable - there’s a reason you’re so sick!  A good one!