My HG story: Chanté Campbell Morrison

For months I have battled to convey my HG experience. It’s honestly the hardest thing I have ever had to endure from the extreme debilitating physical symptoms to the surprising mental challenges. HG has changed my complete outlook on life but ‘Not all storms come to disturb your life... some come to clear your path’.

My pregnancy started when I found out I was pregnant at 4 weeks (due to tracking my cycle as a form of contraception) and that week I started to dream big, imagined all the changes my body will go through and the exciting experience while growing this tiny person. My husband and I started to plan, think how we would organise this year and what we will need to do before this baby comes.

Week 6 comes around and I don’t feel good, but everyone knows about morning sickness, so it must just be that. It’s Week 7 and this morning sickness is still there, it’s getting harder to find something I’m able to eat - its a bite here and sip there, but this nausea is awful. Week 8 and I’m no longer eating and I’m vomiting all the time. I have moved into our bathroom because it’s cool, dark and close to the toilet where I can just vomit as I please. I start to numb my brain with anything to avoid thinking and feeling that nausea. I start to sleep in the bathroom, it’s just easier to stay still and not move and, at some point, my husband started to sleep next to me so I wasn’t alone.

Sometime during my 8th week of pregnancy, it all changed for the worse. I had to trick myself into being ‘healthy’ enough to work, thinking I can do it. Five minutes into my workday, I call my husband hysterical crying, I’m unable to do anything at this point but vomit. I call my mum and she’s surprised I’m that unwell and takes charge meeting me at home with crackers, ginger cookies, ginger ale, pressure bracelets, energy drinks, protein smoothies, electrolytes, lemonade - anything possible just to help subdue the vomiting and nausea. My husband has already tried it all, but we try again hoping for a breakthrough.

A few hours passed and I’m still in the bathroom on the floor barely tolerating a few sips of apple juice. My mum and husband decide they are taking me to see a doctor. Being a public holiday there was only one available and it was a bit of a drive. Arriving, he wasn’t very welcoming and just quickly decided to give me a Maxolon injection for the nausea, script for Ondansetron and the rest of the working week off. His (mis)diagnosis: pregnant and unable to handle morning sickness - next patient, please!  This was my first encounter with a medical practitioner, little did I know, it was only just the beginning.

The drive home felt like the longest, never-ending drive. I couldn’t sit still, I wanted to jump out of my skin, my legs were restless and I felt so overwhelmed (I didn’t know this at the time but I was having a panic attack - the first of many). Three weeks of sickness and I was already so weak, tired, nauseous and now I can’t sit still. I wanted to open the door of the moving car, just to make this feeling stop!! My mother and husband both tried endlessly to calm me down and reassure me it’s ok. Finally at home I was pacing, crying, begging them to make this feeling go away - I was over being sick, I’m so tired and couldn’t see how I could possibly do this for another 32 weeks. I am already feeling so much guilt and so helpless. Is this really just morning sickness? Am I just weak and can’t handle my first-trimester sickness?

The next day I went to see my regular doctor as a check-in, seeing I had this bad reaction after the Maxolon (never taking that stuff again) he also noted I had been prescribed Ondansetron and advised me not to take it because there haven’t been many studies carried out proving it safe to use during pregnancy. Until this point, Ondansetron had been my only saving grace the day before and now I was advised not to take it - and I didn’t! By this point my husband wondered if I was suffering from HG (he had been googling and doing loads of research ). My doctor gave me one more week off work and said we couldn’t put it down to HG until after week 12 with the all too familiar saying the medical profession adores ‘The nausea should go away by then’.

I tried to go back to work over the next few weeks but couldn’t manage with the nausea and the constant waking up with the urgent need to vomit and dreading my days ahead. I spent Christmas and New Year’s Day on the couch with the blinds drawn and apartment blacked out. I don’t remember Australia Day and could not even really tell you what day it was, we had by this stage moved into my parents’ house because financially we would be better off. It also meant we had more support.

By week 11,  I was at my weakest. It’s almost been 2 months of ceaseless nausea, vomiting, with minimal to no eating. I am not really talking and can’t look at the water fountain or hear someone chew, I’d be moving to a  different room as soon as someone would walk into the kitchen, talk or be even thinking of preparing food. On one evening I decided that I had endured enough, with unbearable pain and I had only urinated once that day - this isn’t ok. When we got to the hospital I was so exhausted and emotional that I had to be wheeled into ED on a wheelchair, unable to hold my head up, I had a blindfold on like I’m in the Bird Box movie, I was crying hysterically and unable to voice what’s been going on.

I was feeling a sense of relief that I was finally going to be helped after not eating any kind of meal for weeks, throwing up far too many times to count. After visiting the GP multiple times for medication, sick forms, I.V fluids and the feeling of guilt only building due to the potential risk Ondansetron could have on my baby. I finally felt like I would get the help I needed but no it didn’t happen. I got four bags of I.V fluids to rehydrate, three injections for nausea and one to calm me down. I had one extreme panic attack along with smaller anxiety build-ups. I was tired and angered leaving that night, because I was still not treated correctly or diagnosed with ‘HG’ because “It should go away by week 12” and that I could “Power through it.”

The next day I woke up at home thinking I had lost my mind. I noticed the saliva in my mouth and now had to make a conscious decision to swallow. I was thinking ‘Do I normally swallow this often?  Is there always this amount of saliva?’

Prior to that morning, I seriously have never thought about the amount of saliva in my mouth and consciously needing to swallow. Which I soon realised I couldn’t do as it was making me feel nauseous all over again. While I was trying to not be nauseous and think about swallowing, my husband googled (again) and found out that a tiny percentage of HG sufferers get blessed with hypersalivation!! Great!!

So not only will I continue to struggle with dehydration because I can’t drink and keep any fluids in but now I’m literally drooling like a baby all the time. Can it get any worse?!

The magic week 12 is here - it will stop, right?

After what felt like a never-ending cycle of vomit, sleep, vomit, sleep I dragged my butt back to ED on a wonderful hot summers day, that I spent laying naked in front of a fan, next to my trusty vomit bucket trying to sip/snack on anything possible but failing to keep anything in. By this point, I had lost more than 8kg, was so tired and completely over being sick.

This ED admission I got three bags of I.V fluid, two IV injections, an explosive full body (I want to run away) panic attack, and a Doctor telling me that ‘‘no, I don’t think you need to see the psychology team’. In spite of this, this doctor finally diagnosed me with HG and consequently got me on the correct treatment plan. This doctor was my hero and if I’m honest I only believe he treated me ‘correctly’ because he is a HG survivor too. His wife had HG in her pregnancy and he saw her suffer first hand! 

So at week 12, the ED doctor promised to get on top of the HG nausea, rather than trying to play catch up. So he started me on Ginger tablets (great), antacid tablets, vitamin B something tablet, Ondansetron (life safer) but the expensive one - Zofran, antihistamine, Doxylamine, Phenergan and I’m sure there was more. These medications are all on their own reported to make you extremely drowsy. It didn’t have that effect on me at all. I was no more tired than I'd be going about my day working, only now my day consists of none stop vomiting.

If you were to shake me, I'm sure you would have been able to hear all the medication rattle inside me. These medications helped me function, this medication stopped me from losing my mind, they helped me survive the pregnancy and carry to full term.  These medications cause me guilt, stress and anxiety - not only because my GP told me early on in my pregnancy that he wasn't sure it was safe during pregnancy but he also made me fear that my baby could be born with defects. So not only was I a walking pharmacy but a ball of anxiety and stress. To top this off, I still was not able to eat and had the non-stop drooling but at least now I am able to talk again.

At Week 16 I started to see my midwife who quickly got me referred to the psychology team because I was struggling so much with anxiety that I was unable to leave the house without having panic attacks or crying. I didn’t see anything positive with my pregnancy and feared I’d never love my baby because she made me so sick. Week 17 came and I wanted to return to work - I felt my nausea was controlled (still persistent but more manageable) and after 2 days at work, I was told that due to my hypersalivation I was no longer able to work. For me to resume work, I would either need to seek a medical solution or try and swallow. I, in some part, knew this would happen but needed to have a form of normalcy and routine to feel like myself again. Having my employer halt my job, without the possibility to continue working light duties, after working for the same company for many years did not help me progress positively mentally.

So not only had I lost my independence by moving in with my parents in a time everyone is excited and planning for this next chapter in life, I get the pregnancy from hell and can’t work to help support my very soon to be growing family. I finally felt physically ‘better’ but my employment situation felt like it knocked me down so much and added to my seemingly never-ending anxiety and depressive emotions.

I had not been able to work since week 8 of my pregnancy, I had now isolated myself in the house because of the constant hypersalivation. It made any social situation extremely awkward and hard as drool would just come out of my mouth. I wanted to communicate or smile but the fact that I needed to spit constantly otherwise it would collect in my mouth and it looks like I had some kind of disease.

I basically had a spit rag in my mouth the entire time, from week 11 to the day I gave birth. If I had to leave the house I always had three towels to soak up the excess saliva, few vomit bags and plastic bag for storage.

I threw up during my pregnancy all the way up to Week 36. Two days prior to my birthday. Little did I know that at the time it would be the last time I would throw up. I think about how, now I’m able to throw up anywhere and not bat an eye, how I overcame such extreme physical struggles and I’m proud. The part I wish I knew or was advised on was the extremely difficult and less mentioned mental side of HG - during pregnancy and especially after. 

I am only 7 months on the other side with a beautiful and healthy baby girl, who I look at every day and still to this day can’t believe that she is mine. I have been diagnosed with PTSD from dealing with my rough pregnancy, I have ongoing struggles with anxiety and have so many triggers that brings me back every awful feeling of nausea in pregnancy.

To all the other HG mamas: Know this. It was hard - FUCKING HARD but it DOES go away. I know you can’t see it yet and I know that in your current position that statement is very hard to believe but it’s true and you can get through it. As soon as you have your baby earthside it stops. The nausea and my hypersalivation disappeared - it was instant and abrupt, both gone and almost like I made it all up, just like a dream. Each day it gets easier, and it does - there is no nausea but I want to prepare you and let you know that there are huge mental struggles you will need to overcome and it can take you by surprise. My pregnancy might be over but mentally I am scarred and it will take me a lot of time to heal and by writing this I feel It’s a big start. I am slowly getting used to it and coming to accepting my pregnancy journey.

I have made the hard decision that I would never ever want to be pregnant again. I don’t personally think I could handle the mental struggle you are exposed to in a HG pregnancy. For those mamas who choose to have a second I have the world’s respect for you!

My husband, my family, my baby and me survived this HG pregnancy!

I’m forever grateful to my husband for being my rock, he was the best support and shoulder to cry on. From cooking everything possible, going to every shop available to get crackers, snacks, anything that might help me, answering my many phone calls so that I could sob, wanting everything to end and always being so kind and encouraging and a huge mental support in pregnancy and even now after our beautiful baby joined us earthside.

I’m proud of myself for getting through it - I DID IT. One hard fucking year under my belt but so totally worth it.