My HG story: Georgia Melvin
I have travelled the HG journey twice and This is my story.
My first pregnancy was the worst, I found out I was pregnant early, about 2/3 weeks.. I was so excited, the vomiting started at about 5 weeks. It wasn’t regular morning sickness it lasted all day and all night, it was 20,30,40 times a day. I remember going to the doctor and they said it’s just morning sickness, I went to a new doctor at about 6 weeks, She told me I was getting dehydrated and told me to drink more fluids, I would try and try but nothing stayed down. 7 weeks i went back and saw another doctor at the practice and he sent me straight to hospital as I was so dehydrated. At the time HG wasn’t common and the hospital wouldn’t see you in the pregnancy assessment centre until you were 20 weeks. So I sat in emergency for hours waiting for fluids, I returned there almost weekly until 20 weeks. Each time the doctors would tell me “it will end at 12 weeks, 15 weeks, 20 weeks at the latest”.
11 weeks and another hospital admission, this time they started me on steroids. I was already taking max of all the recommended medications along with supplements. These helped with the vomiting and slowed it to 20/30 vomits a day from up to 50. I ended up staying on these the entire pregnancy.
My worst visit I had woken up and started vomiting blood, I vomited so hard my nose started bleeding at the same time, I saw stars and almost passed out in the toilet. I sat on the ground and called my husband, thankfully we had a friend living up the road who he called and who came and got me off the floor while we waited for my mum to come take me to emergency. Once there it was busy, and at that point I was vomiting black sludge and straining so hard, I was vomiting every 5 minutes so I just stayed in the cubicle. Hours went by and I couldn’t hold myself up anymore and ended up laying on the toilet floor in the emergency waiting room. My lowest point. After an 8 hour wait they put me into a bed and kept me for 10 nights on fluids.
18 weeks and a doctor came and spoke to me. I was malnourished, I was severely dehydrated. I had had multiple ultrasounds and there was what they described as “sludge” in my stomach because there was nothing left. They wanted to put in a Nasal Gastric tube. I didn’t want it so the doctor asked me if I considered an abortion, he didn’t know if me and bub would make it through continuing like this. I refused and discharged myself home.
20 weeks came and I was seeing doctors weekly for check ups as I was now high risk due to how severely sick I was. I was 15 kg down, they had me on every single medication they could think of as well as the steroids from week 11. I was still vomiting 20+ times a day. I was in hospital weekly for fluids where I would stay for at least 24 hours with a continuous iv. I remember I got discharged the morning of my 20 week scan from an overnight stay. I went home for a few hours and vomited 15+ times, we went back and had my scan and instead of being able to go and tell everyone the gender and be all excited the nurses came and took me back upstairs and readmitted me as I was so dehydrated from just a few hours of vomiting.
30 weeks and still the same vomiting, still weekly hospital trips, I got tested for Gestational Diabetes, it came back positive but they weren’t sure if it could be the steroids or vomiting causing a spike. They sent in a dietician to talk about the weight loss and diabetes, she was at a loss as to how to treat me with all the vomiting. I had iron transfusions along with other iv transfusions to combat the effects the dehydration and starvation was having on my body. At 36.5 weeks my mum took me Into pac for what felt like my millionth time, it was late and I was in pain from so much vomiting, they started the iv and got a doctor to come assess me. I started crying and said I couldn’t go on any more. They did an ultrasound bedside and said bub was small for his gestation. I was booked in for an induction for 37+3 and I vomited every day until my waters broke on the morning of my induction day. Later that day after a traumatic birth we welcomed my first baby into the world. I walked out of the hospital 20kg lighter than I started the pregnancy as with my tiny 2.7kg baby.
Just over 2 years later I found out I was pregnant again, just over 2 weeks. I was more prepared this time. The vomiting started again at 5 weeks. At 6 weeks I went to the hospital for my first set of fluids. They booked me into the obstetrics team early and set me up for twice weekly fluids. The first 16 weeks I was in the death zone, vomiting 20-30 times a day and barely keeping food and water down. I had to quit my job as I was spending more time in the toilet than actually working. I was lucky I contacted Centrelink and was approved for max subsidy for child care as my dr said there was no way I can care for my 2 year old while being so sick.
20 weeks came and we found out I was having another boy, this time I was well enough to tell my family but still vomited on the way to tell them. By this point the vomiting had eased to 5-10 times a day but not enough was staying down so I ended up with low iron. This meant if I went stood up for more than 5-10 min I would get light headed and almost pass out if I didn’t sit down. I was too early for a transfusion so more tablets to take and slower time for them to build up in my system.
30 weeks and I am diagnosed again with gestational diabetes, again they aren’t sure if it’s the vomiting that is bumping up the numbers so just testing every day. Even being so sick i managed to make it to 38 weeks and delivered a healthy 3.3kg baby boy and left HG and another 21kg behind.
Despite the second pregnancy being a lot easier in the way of less vomiting I was still hit with debilitating nausea through both pregnancies along with other complications. HG also took a toll on my family, my husband became the cook, cleaner, taxi and pretty much single parent while also working full time. My son was only 2 and he had to adjust to life without his mum there with him all the time and only seeing me on the couch or in bed.
As horrible a time I had, I am proud I was able to make it through both pregnancies and bring my 2 beautiful boys into this world.