Hyperemisis Gravidarum is a pregnancy disease that is marked by extreme nausea, weight loss, and often hospital visits. Women who have this disease spend most of their pregnancies in a smelly, tear filled nightmare on the bathroom floor. I was no exception.
In the haze of having HG, I didn’t really realize what was happening most of the time. But after I had the baby, I realized that an amazing thing had happened. I had acquired skills I never even knew people could have. Some of them were simply things that I had gotten better at (like memory and contentment), but some of them really were MAGIC. I could do things that I never even considered being able to do, and I could do them with ease. Like:
1. I am now able to time getting sick with toilets flushing. When I had HG, I didn’t go out too much. But when I did, I was pretty much guaranteed that I would puke wherever I was. Before, if you would have told me I would have to puke in public bathrooms, I would have been horrified. The lack of sanitation! The publicity! But I soon realized that compared to the other option (puking in the booth at the restaurant), the bathroom is an absolute haven of safety. So I learned to flush the toilet right as I was getting sick. I liked to think the toilet flushes erased my noise, but I know it definitely didn’t.
If I had been in a public bathroom and heard someone next to me trying to be discretely sick, I would have rushed through hand washing, skipped the paper towel, and waited outside the bathroom around the corner so I could see who the woman was who was drunk-sick at 5pm. But I never saw anyone do that. Good job, fellow bathroom mates.
Or else you did do it, and just hid very well. Well then, good job hiding, you stalkers.
2.I am now able to puke in a Cheetos bag while going 70 mph down a highway without crashing. This is worthy of a crazy action movie. Of course I would have pulled over if I had time, but I just didn’t, and nobody died. I don’t know in what universe I will need this skill again, but I have it, just in case.
3.I now have an extremely sensitive flavor and texture palate. Let me tell you some of the excuses I gave to people who were trying their absolute best to come up with things I could eat. “Too hot, too cold, too crunchy, to stringy, too lumpy, too spicy, too pickled, and my all important, “IS THERE CHICKEN IN THAT?!”
Then again, sometimes all I could manage was, “I don’t know why, but if you feed that to me I WILL get sick all over your shoes.” So maybe it didn’t actually make me a food connoisseur.
4.Training my toddler where to get sick. Lincoln was 2 before he realized toilets were for something other than puking. My pregnancy announcement on Facebook was actually a video of my toddler pretending to puke in the toilet. Luckily I have a friend group that found that funny. (My humor got a little warped during that time.) But now, I expect no problems from him when he gets the flu.
5.The ability to melt into tears at any doctor’s visit. I wouldn’t have imagined before how much health, happiness, and the capacity to eat food contributes to NOT crying everyday. It was just like clockwork, I’d sit down at the doctor’s office, and the doctor would look at my chart, look up at me, and say kindly, “So how are you?” And that was it. I was finished for the rest of the visit. It’s a miracle I got anything I needed, really. But probably doctors have lots of experience deciphering medical complaints out of tears. Maybe they teach that skill in medical school.
6.Still, a year later, I have extreme excitement over any food. I cannot even tell you how long after the birth I would excitedly exclaim to friends, “I CAN EAT THAT!” in decibels I’m sure made them wish I was in another room. I mean, I did that for months. At anything. Once my friend handed me a piece of pizza and I almost cried I was so excited to eat it.
7.Fantastic memory. This one is more due to terrible events being seared into my memory then anything, but I’ll still be driving around town with Joe pointing out all the places I made him stop in the middle of the street while I leaped out of the car. “Remember when I had to jump out of our moving car because you didn’t stop fast enough and get sick under that giant tree in front of the women’s prison?” I say fondly, like I have some real connection to the place and like the inmates had some connection to me.
8.Contentment. There is nothing that prepares you better for nighttime wake-ups and crying better than realizing that your baby could have easily not been there. My poor lopsided little boy was born at 98% height and 12% weight because I couldn’t give him what he needed to fill out. (Luckily, he turned out to be able to fix those problems on his own; he was 22 pounds at 10 month old.) When I reach the end of my rope, and my baby is angry crying because his toy got stuck or his brother took away his bottle, I close my eyes and take a deep breath and remember what could have been, and remember all the babies that didn’t make it because of this disease. And I go and help my baby.
P.S. To my friends who knew me during this time, yes, I was sick in your toilet. Thanks for being there.
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