My HG story: Mikaela Vallelonga

When it came time that me and my husband were ready for a baby, we knew that it wasn’t going to be easy as I had stage 4 endometriosis. We ended up doing two rounds of IVF and fell pregnant, of course we were absolutely overjoyed and couldn’t wait to meet our miracle. After finding out 2 weeks after our transfer I was pregnant, the nausea had already begun. It started at night, then night and afternoon then all day. I stand on my feet all day as a makeup artist and had already had to start calling in sick from 7 weeks pregnant, and was getting anxiety about not being able to go to work and run my store. By the time I was 10 weeks pregnant I had already gone to hospital for IV Fluids and an anti-nausea shot and lost 2 kilos. How could we have wanted something to badly and gone through so much to fall pregnant, then feel so shitty. I remember thinking over and over why did we even do this, I just want it to be over.

Fast forward to 20 weeks pregnant, 12 kilos down, maxed out on every anti-nausea under the sun and in and out of doctors offices and hospitals; I had to drop down my hours at work which killed me inside. As a manager and self-confessed workhorse, not being able to do my job to my best ability was the straw that broke the camels back. Vomiting 15+ times a day, chronic fatigue, insomnia and now not being able to do what I love properly. Bullshit. It takes everything from you, everything. When you tell people you have hyperemesis, the response I normally got was ‘what is that’ or ‘yeah I threw up sometimes as well’ It is not spoken about, understood or even accepted; there is a chronic lack of support and it’s so easily brushed off.

I survived the rest of the pregnancy (somehow and 16 kilos lighter), survived a difficult labour, infections as a direct result of being run down from 6 months of IVF and 7 months of being chronically ill and virtually bedridden - then diagnosed with postnatal depression. It has been one thing after another since we started our journey and I honestly think this has been a huge contributing factor towards my PPD. My daughter is incredible and the biggest blessing. Was she worth it? Absolutely. Would I put myself through another pregnancy knowing too well it could happen again? Potentially no. Mentally and physically, I don’t even know if I could run the risk of all of that again, and that is the worst thing about this. This condition is more than vomiting or nausea; it’s depressing, debilitating and sometimes life-changing.