My HG story: Faye Lakisa
When people find out we’re expecting another baby, those who know me really well, offer their congratulations and their sympathies at the same time. Sympathy? You see, I’m one of 0.1%-3% of all pregnant women who suffer from Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG). To say it’s similar to morning sickness would be like calling the hurricane a little rain. Morning sickness sufferers vomit 5-8 times a day and it usually eases up after the first trimester. With HG you’re vomiting up to 20-30 times a day and lose more than 10% of your body weight. The inability to keeping down fluids and food lead to other complications.
HG sufferers (and survivors), we call the lowest point of our pregnancy the ‘death zone’. And rightly so. And for those who don’t know what it’s like, let me tell you how debilitating the death zone was for me.
You have no specific triggers. EVERYTHING can trigger an episode of non-stop vomiting; the light is too bright, the wind blowing in your face, a sudden loud bang, someone bumped the bed, phone ringing, someone knocks on the door. Waking, sleeping, or not sleeping. All adds up to the 20-30 vomiting episodes a day.
You acquire a superpower that you wish you didn’t have. Smells are another trigger that sets off a vomiting series, so forget cooking in the house or even leaving the house. EVERYTHING smells! From the scent of your husband to the soapy scent of your kids. Your usually clean house smell becomes a burden. When your child opens up a packet of chips on the other side of the room you can smell it. You’re confined to the walls of your own room just to keep the smells out.
Your own saliva becomes your worst enemy. Swallowing it, sends you gagging, spitting it out, sends you dry heaving.
Losing 10 kg in the first 2 weeks - not only do you wish you were bigger and healthier but the added ‘walking-dead’ look is not a pretty sight. Not that you matter what you look like anymore.
Car rides? Forget it, you’ll be lucky to have enough energy to walk out the front door.
Crying is sometimes a relief, maybe for a few seconds, then you start coughing and it leads into a brand new episode of hanging out in the toilet for half an hour. Not worth crying.
Having a shower is like a million pins and needles showering on your face and body. Forget washing your hair because your head is pounding away.
Your throat burns and hurts from the constant vomiting of bile and in some cases blood. I was lucky enough not to get any gastric ulcers or oesophageal bleeding that some HG sufferers get.
Severe nausea stays with you in your waking hours. Sleep – if you can get it – is your only sure relief.
Inability to keep fluids down brings more complications; dehydration, nutritional deficiency, ketones in your urine, dry cracked lips, dry skin breakouts, body in starvation mode. Because of the lack of fluids, your body overheats as it can’t regulate your body temperature. Week-long hospital stays for IV fluids and anti-emetic medication is the only thing that offers relief.
On top of all the physical ailments, there’s the psychological complication that comes with it. The guilt of not being able to look after your children, husband and be the mum that you normally are. The guilt of not being healthy enough to have a ‘normal’ pregnancy and initial worry that your unborn baby is getting enough nutrients. The guilt of not feeling attached to the baby growing inside of you because it just feels like you have this horrible disease. The depression that comes from missing the ‘healthy you’- you miss your time with your children, family, friends and not to mention time with your husband. You become a social recluse and can face some lonely hours.
The death zone usually lasts anywhere from 4 – 20 weeks, for some it can last the whole pregnancy -vomiting up until the baby is delivered. For a few unlucky HG survivors, it can linger a few weeks after birth. My first pregnancy, HG lasted up until 7 months, with the death zone finally easing up after 20 weeks but I still battled the constant severe nausea. The second and third pregnancy was less bad but HG still raged on. I was lucky not to have HG with the fourth and fifth pregnancy, lucky only because I went through ‘normal morning sickness’ which lasted the first trimester. This time round HG has come back with a vengeance, the death zone reared its ugly head and had me literally bed-bound for the first few months. I spent the Christmas holidays in hospital for fluids and anti-emetic medication. It was an extremely trying time for me and for my family, one of the lowest points of my life to be honest. Even after the death zone passed, I was left with the constant severe nausea controllable only by medication and rest. Right now my body is in survival mode and I'm learning to function with ‘bearable nausea’, and probably will throughout the duration of this pregnancy.
For some, being on constant medication can be an added financial burden as it is not cheap and you may need a lot of it. I’m a stay at home mum and my heart goes out to working and single mums who have to juggle HG in their lives. We try to plan as much as we can if this is not our first HG pregnancy. Plan to have months off normal life, work and routines.
For HG sufferers we face the difficult decision of having another baby because the chances are that you will likely suffer it again with future pregnancies. Sadly for some, the HG journey is too difficult (with the added health complications often threatening the life of both the mother and child) and the dream of having a bigger family is no longer a reality. My heart yearns for those mothers and I admire their bravery and courage. Why even go through HG all over again you ask, seeing as I have 5 beautiful babies already? When you are holding your beautiful baby in your arms, 9 months of hell seem to vanish away and you realise you get to spend eternity with them. Looking at them you think they are worth every second of HG. And they are. But in saying that, I would not be able to handle HG by myself and go through it all over again without help.
I was extremely lucky to have a wonderful (and amazing) husband, family and friends who have literally stepped in to help me during these tough HG 'death zone' moments. Without their help, HG would have been more miserable than it already was. I’m not one to rant and rave about my health issues to the world, but there isn’t enough HG awareness today, with too many pregnant women suffering needlessly because all they’ve been told is to suck it up as it’s ‘all in your head’ and just endure the ‘normal’ ailments of pregnancy. Let me tell you, it is anything but normal, HG is a condition, it is real and just knowing about it could ease someone’s suffering.
Maybe you know someone who may have HG, someone who literally cannot hold down fluids and food for weeks on end during their pregnancy. Please don’t suggest crackers and ginger or peppermint - it may work with normal morning sickness but not with HG. Offer her support, let her know that it does have an end. Tell her not to be afraid to seek out a general practitioner who knows about HG and is willing to offer the medication she needs to combat through the death zone. Let her know that it’s okay to admit herself to the hospital for fluids if she needs it and that she needn’t battle it alone at home. Let her know that there is a wonderful support group of HG women out there who know what she is going through and is not alone in her suffering.
Pregnancy is hard, HG on top of pregnancy makes it a million times more so. I hope that your sisters, mothers, aunties, female cousins, first-time mums, seasoned mums and your wives that are expecting a baby don’t get to go through HG. But if she does. Please be kind to her, be patient, hug her, love her and don’t sweep her ailments under the rug. Remind her that what she is doing is courageous and brave. And most of all, let her know that she is not alone.
She is beautiful. She is strong.
“You never know how strong you are, until being strong is the only choice you have.” – Bob Marley