Still Sick

I'm about 18 1/2 weeks pregnant. And I'm still sick...

This morning I decided to try and not take my nausea pill to see if I could make it through the day...and I don't think I can. Usually, I take my medicine around 7 or 8 am. It's only 10 and I'm pretty sure if I don't take my medicine...I'll throw up today. Awesome, right?

Wrong.

Let me tell you about my pregnancy/morning sickness experience.

So my morning sickness kicked in just before the 3-day weekend in January (to be more specific, Saturday, January 19th, 2013). I was about 6 weeks, and on that Saturday I threw up once so we were like, "Oh, ok morning sickness is starting." Not fun, but not uncommon. 

Then on Sunday, I threw up three times throughout the day.

Then on Monday, I threw up five times throughout the day. Yuck. We decided that five times in one day was not normal, so the next morning I would call the doctor to set up an appointment.

Tuesday morning, I threw up five times between 7am and noon. Yes, that's a true story. Woke up at 7, puked. Went to sleep and woke up around 9, puked. Tried to snack a little (maybe two goldfish crackers) and sip on some ginger ale. Around 10, puked. Around 11, puked. Then at noon, when Michael came home to take me to the doctor, I puked before we left. I couldn't keep anything down.

So we get to the doctor and I felt like I had to throw up again, but didn't. The nurse got a urine sample and in a little bit the doctor came in. She says, "I'm glad you came in when you did because...you're REALLY sick." "Oh, I know," I said.

Turns out I was super dehydrated (not a surprise, since I couldn't eat or drink anything without it coming up. And even without eating or drinking stuff STILL came up...). My body was to the point where it was burning body fat for the energy it needed, because there was nothing else in there.

Then she tells me she's going to prescribe two nausea medicines for me to take. Zofran (half a pill in the morning; it lasts 8 hrs) and Phenergan (one pill every 4 hrs as needed). I don't know if you guys know this, but those are some intense, heavy-duty nausea pills. Then I got to be hooked up to an IV for about...3 hours. It also infiltrated, so that was cool. 

Long story short, I have what's called Hyperemesis Gravidarum. In simple terms, severe morning sickness. Look it up, it's real. I looked on Wikipedia and it says that HG is estimated to affect only 0.5-2.0% of all pregnant women. Crazy? Yes.

P.S. I'm pretty sure my mom had this when she was pregnant with me (I'm the oldest in my family). When I was talking to her about it, she said she was sick for 4-5 months out of her pregnancy. Only she didn't have the nausea medicine I do!