Before I delve into this post, please understand every pregnant person’s experience is different. You know how there are like a bajillion symptoms of COVID, and that is part of what makes it so confusing? Same for pregnancy, it just only affects half the population, so it isn’t as well publicized. The following is a description of my experience with nausea. For other symptoms I have had, check out this post.
The slow burn
You know how when you are with someone every single day their slow march through each hour doesn’t noticeably age them? Then when you leave, the way they looked the last you saw them freezes in your mind like a picture. When you return years later the fact they are aging becomes suddenly apparent as their visage no longer resembles the picture you filed away from your last visit.
My nausea is the former. It has been slowly building day by day. Getting minutely, almost unnoticeably, worse. If I were somehow able to take a break between the first day I had nausea and today though, I am certain the change would be shocking.
Yesterday was the worst after I walked the dogs. It was the first time I had walked them since being pregnant; the fact that I am growing a human was thrust violently in my face upon the ascent of a minor hill. My heart rate spiked, I felt short of breath, and the nausea flooded over me. My spouse took me to get an emergency ginger beer which turned out to be a life saver. It was also the first time I had nausea in the night.
Morning sickness?
The person who named this morning sickness was, in my opinion, someone with out the ability to get pregnant. I picture a 50s, Dick and Tracy, cis-hetero, misogynistic couple who invited their other white friends over for morning tea or some shit. The woman can’t perform her wifely duties for a second as she runs to the bathroom to regurgitate the biscuits she’d so carefully prepared for her guests. The husband kindly apologizes for her explaining she’s just taken with her quaint morning sickness.
Mine hits an hour after I wake up, and then shortly after eating lunch. Recently I have been dizzy right when I wake up, and when I go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. My nausea seems to go away once I consume something.
My nausea is not the same as others. Some say they wake up several times in the night to vomit. Others just say they are too nauseous to sleep. There are reports of nausea all day, for some it hits week 5 others week 8. Some don’t vomit at all, others can do it upwards of 10 times a day!
It is ok to go to the doctor
Not sure why no one wants to talk about normal vs not normal symptoms. Some of it I suspect is due to sexism. After all, my spouses uncle just listened to football radio, a coverage of poop songs on NPR, and the death of a soccer player he had never heard of, but the second a woman came on sharing her experience of having a miscarriage and the medical industry not listening to her, apparently he didn’t want to listen to her either and switched the radio off.
Because it seems people are unwilling to listen to women in general , they are also unwilling to listen to pregnant people. That is part of why I wrote this blog, so pregnant people know they are not alone. All that being said, because we aren’t being listened too our problems seem diminished and we start to believe puking 15 times in a day is just what morning sickness is. It is not.
If you are vomiting more than two or three times a day, go to the doctor. If you have pelvic pain beyond cramping, even with no bleeding, go to your doctor. Now there is a second part of this. You have to advocate for yourself. If you go to the doctor because you can’t keep food down, or you haven’t been able to sleep for several days for vomiting, and they tell you that is normal morning sickness, fight them. Do some research before you go in, and if they still don’t listen to you, get a second opinion.
Have you had mild or wild nausea? Have you had to fight for your doctor to listen to you? Do you not listen to pregnant people? Let us know in the comments!