There are a very few things that will convince me to drive an hour and a half each way with the boys, find parking in downtown Chicago, and go to an event filled with lots of people that I don’t know. Also the event was a 5k and I HATE running, and the weather showed 100% chance of rain. It really was amazing that anything could be that important to me.
But last week Monday was Hyperemisis Gravidarum day, and last weekend was their annual 5k fundraiser, which just happened to be in Chicago this year.
I’m not a fundraiser sort of person, or a 5k sort of person, but the memories of my pregnancy with Eliot are still very strong, and it’s a cause near to my heart.
So we went, and nothing went right. We went to the wrong place first, we couldn’t find parking, it poured rain, then cleared up for an hour and then poured rain again. We had ordered pizza but Eliot was shivering and chattering before it was delivered and Lincoln was huddling in the corner of one of the little tents, water dripping down his face, so we didn’t even stay for it. We made (another) run for the car, everyone totally soaked through by the time we got there.
I thought there would be good conversations with people who had gone through similar experiences, and we did chat with a few people in between the sheets of rain, but the turn out was low (even for a rare disease standard) because of the weather, and people hurried through their run (or walk….SOME people walked) so they could get to their cars before it poured again.
I thought we’d have some great Chicago food, but, in a manner totally indicative of how an HG pregnancy goes, we never got to eat the food.
I thought it’d be a sort of triumphant day, among all the courageous and persevering women who have conquered this disease, but instead it was cloudy and cold, wet and hungry.
So I guess if there was any day that could have reminded me of the days when I was pregnant with Eliot, this actually did the job quite perfectly. It reminded me about what it was like two years ago now.
It pushed me back to the days when the doctors told me it was just morning sickness, and it would pass.
Back to the days when I would go 24 hours without keeping anything down.
Back to the days when I was paralyzingly worried that my baby was suffering because he was not getting enough nutrition, and when that seemed confirmed when they scheduled for extra testing because I was not gaining enough weight.
There are a lot of terrible things in this world, and I haven’t experienced many of them, but one of the worst I do know is wondering if the life of your baby might rely on you keeping this meal down, and then not being able to do it. And if I had found out during the pregnancy that 1 in 3 HG babies do not make it full term, I can’t imagine how I would have panicked.
So, on Saturday, when I looked around at that race, and saw the (other) women running, often pushing strollers or surrounded by their children, it was a bit victorious after all. That we all made it here, somehow together for this day, to gather and raise money for something this serious. Something that can put both mother and baby in the hospital, and at the very worst, take their lives.
I don’t go much in for causes. But I can go all in for that one.
(The website for Hyperemisis Gravidarum is here, if you want more information or to donate to research.)
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