I tell you this so that you will understand that I know I’m
leaving out big parts of my story, and possibly getting some things out of
order. I know this because as I’m
posting it on my blog, I have friends and family who were by my side during it
all now reminding me of some things that I had totally forgotten – some good
and some bad. I truly wish I had written
it all down, kept a diary of it all.
Hindsight is 20-20, as they say.
At the time all of this was going on, though, I just wanted to survive
it and keep my baby alive. That is all I
could think about, and some days I couldn’t even think about that.
But back to the story:
Once I arrived home from my week in the hospital, I settled into bed
with my Zofran pump and IV fluids.
Again, these measures were not alleviating the constant nausea, nor were
they completely controlling the vomiting.
However, they were keeping my baby and me alive in that they helped to
decrease the vomiting episodes to less than 20 times per day.
The weight loss continued.
I was losing an average of 1 to 2 pounds per week now. I was still unable to keep anything down,
including water. Friends and family were
bringing me every drink under the sun in the hopes that we’d discover something
that would stay down. We really wanted
to be able to get off the IV fluids. Being hooked up to the IV 24/7 was completely
debilitating, physically, mentally, and emotionally. But then again, so was being nauseated
24/7.
Eventually we found that I could tolerate citrus Gatorade
better than anything. Did you know that
it is the most difficult flavor of Gatorade to find? My husband became the ultimate
hunter/gatherer of citrus Gatorade, though, and kept me stocked up. However, the strange thing is that even when
I was eventually (many weeks into the pregnancy) able to keep down a
significant amount of this liquid, it was still never enough to keep me from
becoming dehydrated within 30 minutes if the IV fluids were removed (this
strange thing has never been explained).
Therefore, I continued with the IV fluids and the Zofran drug pump throughout
the rest of my pregnancy. This means
anytime I left the house, which was pretty much only for doctor’s appointments
from this point on (except for a couple of cases which I’ll talk about later), it
involved traveling with the wonderful IV pole and fluid pouch and wearing the
lovely Zofran drug pump like a fanny pack around my waist. Stylish, but it has yet to catch on with the
hipster pregnancy set.
Once I had settled in after the first hospital visit, the
cycle persisted, but at a lesser rate for the most part. I was hospitalized a couple more times for
dehydration before we worked out the best ratio of everything, though. When I was home, I was bedridden due to the
extreme nausea, fatigue, and dizziness.
Since James and my mother both worked, I was often alone for long hours
during the day. I rarely had to get up
to go to the bathroom because I stayed on the verge of dehydration, even with
the IV. Frankly, there just wasn’t
anything left to eliminate that way.
However, when I did go I had to use ketone sticks to check my urine. If the “pH” of my urine reached dangerous
levels, this would mean that I was not obtaining enough fluids. As long as we kept the IV fluids going, this
stayed at an acceptable level. If the IV
was removed, or even slowed down too far, this marker would immediately show
dangerous levels of “ketones” in my urine, and we would have to do a “bolus” of
IV fluids, or I would have to make a trip back to the hospital to get it all
balanced again.
So, I stayed in bed for hours on end. For the first couple of weeks I didn’t have a
television or computer in my bedroom to keep me occupied, and I really didn’t
care because I was still too weak to even sit up or keep my eyes open for long. Instead, we kept the CD of “Pachelbel Canon
in D with Ocean Sounds” playing over and over and over all day long to keep me
as relaxed as possible. Weird, yes, but
it worked somehow. And, I prayed…a
lot. If I was awake, I was praying, or
in some cases, crying out loud to God.
And He was with me.
There was a book that I had that I had purchased on that very first week
after I found out I was pregnant. It was
called “For This Child I Prayed” by Stormie Omartian. (This book is pictured below and available at: http://stormieomartian.com/product_details.html?product_name=.Christmas+Special.%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3EItem+M06-CHLD-GB%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3EFOR+THIS+CHILD+I+PRAYED%3Cbr%3E) The prayers and the pictures were incredibly
soothing to me, and whenever I was able, I read and prayed the words of this
book for my baby over and over and over, almost every day throughout my
pregnancy. It brought me such comfort,
and I knew, deep down in my soul that the Lord was looking after my baby. I am being completely honest with you here
when I tell you that I had a very deep peace about this. I believed whole-heartedly that this baby
would be born strong and healthy. After
what had happened to me just before I found out I was pregnant (read Part 1), I
knew that God had a PURPOSE for this child, and was looking after him (or her –
I didn’t know which at the time).
Honestly, I believed the baby would survive, but I wasn’t sure that I
would.
However, even with the calm I was experiencing for my child,
it did not prevent worry and despair and depression from creeping in from time
to time. Actually most days I felt some
form of mental and emotional anguish.
Again, there was no explanation offered at this point for what was
happening. Though my doctor was very
kind, and was very concerned, I still felt that he was questioning my sanity a
bit. Some of the medical workers I was
around actually treated me like it was my fault, and I could not understand
this. I knew that this was completely
out of my control – so why would anyone treat me this way when I was suffering
so much and still worried about the overall health of my baby?
I continued going to see my doctor every week at this
point. Every week we’d go through the
excruciating process of getting me ready to go out with the drug pump and IV,
and drive the 30 minutes to the doctor’s office, stopping for me to throw up a
couple of times along the way, usually.
Every week I would step on the scale and it would show a weight loss of
at least one or two pounds. And every
week I’d be on pins and needles until I heard my baby’s heartbeat once
again. And every week my doctor would
try to reassure me, but at the same time he would almost scold me, telling me
that I really needed to drink and try to eat more. I explained again, in tears, that I could not
– that I was drinking and drinking tons of citrus Gatorade, but it wouldn’t
always stay down. He would “threaten” me
with the picc line for TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition) again. But again, I tried to explain, I was
seriously doing the best I could – why couldn’t they understand it? I felt like a crazy person.
One day James arranged to have wireless internet connection
installed for me, so I could at least surf the internet and email people from
my bed. He also installed a television
in our bedroom. How sadistic was it that
I watched the Food Channel obsessively throughout my pregnancy once I was able
to hold my head up? Rachel Ray and Paula
Deen became my go to girls! I couldn’t
eat or stand the smell of food, but I got to where I could at least watch. Sick, I tell you.
I began searching the internet for an explanation of my
symptoms. Surely to goodness I wasn’t
the only woman alive going through this, was I?
And you know what? I soon found
that I wasn’t. However, what I found
nearly sent me into a tailspin of deeper despair and emotional upheaval.
One day while searching online, I found a website in which
women were describing symptoms very similar to mine during their
pregnancies. They were posting on a
webpage’s “chat boards” about their experiences. These women were, like me, searching for
answers and hoping to find some encouragement, and some reassurance that they
were not “crazy”, and that they were not to blame for this.
Their stories were brutal.
Many of these women were describing scenarios in which their doctors and
everyone around them refused to accept the severity of their sickness, telling
them to suck it up and deal with it.
Many described doctors and medical professionals mocking them, and husbands
(abusive husbands, in my opinion) forcing them to continue to wait on them hand
and foot, cooking and cleaning and performing “wifely duties” even as they were
wasting away before their eyes. Many of
these women confessed to secretly having an abortion, and then telling everyone
around them that they had miscarried. The pain they were living with was almost
unbearable. My heart began breaking. I spent hours in bed for days, reading their
stories, weeping endlessly.
James became very worried when I shared these stories with
him and he saw how it was affecting me.
However, I reassured him that this was what I needed to hear. Even though my heart broke for these women, and
especially for these unborn children, I knew now that I was not crazy and not
alone. I was also completely overwhelmed
when I understood the level of support and encouragement I had already been
receiving from my loved ones compared to so many of these women. And, I learned there was actually a name for
this condition: Hyperemesis
Gravidarum. There they were. There were the two words that proved that
this was not “all in my head.” I was not
crazy. I felt like I could breathe
again.
I devoured every bit of information I could about HG. I was disturbed to find out that not much was
known about it in the United States, however Canada and Great Britain had both
performed studies on the condition. At
that time, they were reporting that they believed that .02 percent of all
pregnancies were sufferers of HG. And of
this percentage, unbelievably, 98% ended in miscarriage or abortion.
This truly did me in.
I could not imagine…this baby, this child that I had prayed and prayed
for…I could not imagine giving up and aborting him or her! However, I realized at this point that I had
support, and I had IV fluids and a Zofran drug pump, helping me to survive
this. I was able to stay in bed all day
because I had loved ones who loved me and who wanted to take care of me, and a
doctor who was willing to try every treatment under the sun. No one was mocking me, no one was forcing me
to get up and cook or clean or do anything else. They were just there – helping me, praying
for the baby and me, and literally willing to do anything to help me
survive. And most of all, I had
faith. I was truly blessed. I could not imagine going through this hell
wearing the shoes of some of these other women whose stories were tearing me
apart. I don’t believe I would have resorted
to abortion, though I do not judge those who did AT ALL. It is not my place to do so. I simply ache for them. But, on the other hand, I also don’t believe
that I would have been alive by this point without all of the care and support
and faith I had been given.
The next time I went to see my physician, I took many of
these articles on HG with me to show him.
He had heard of it, and he agreed that this was what I was suffering
from. I believe that he had already
determined that, but probably did not share it with me for the very reason that
he had come to know me so well, and he knew I would immediately go and read
everything I could about it – which would only serve to upset me even
more. Yes, that’s true, and I forgave
him for that. However, even though it
was painful to read these stories, I cannot adequately describe the relief I
felt at knowing there was a name for this condition, and that it was not my
fault (even though the cause is still unknown).
Still losing weight at this point, my doctor decided to send
me to a perinatologist - a physician who specializes in high risk pregnancies -
for a consultation. I was excited about
going to see someone who might have more knowledge about this condition, and
perhaps some suggestions for controlling it and ensuring a healthier
pregnancy. At this point I was existing
on IV fluids and citrus Gatorade, and unable to keep down the pre-natal
vitamins. If you have HG, I recommend
that you do NOT read all of the books and articles on how to have a “healthy
pregnancy.” It will only serve to throw
you further into despair at how you are unable to do the things that we all
know you need to do when you’re pregnant – like eat healthful foods, exercise,
take your vitamins, etc… I was hoping for some more answers.
Little did I know that when I walked into the office of that
perinatologist, I would be walking into the pit of hell…
(To be continued…)
