My HG story: Tarin Collins

My third pregnancy broke us. It sounds so dramatic but the reality of HG for us was nothing less than a nightmare that fractured our family. My pregnancy from hell ended very fittingly on Halloween 2017 with our beautiful healthy boy, Samuel, arriving safely and two years on I am still dealing with the aftermath both physically and emotionally. We live in a small rural town in Western Australia and I saw a private obstetrician throughout all three of my pregnancies. This meant frequent 800km round trips to Perth.

HG reared its ugly head in my first pregnancy in 2012. As a first time Mum you have no idea what to expect and as I had a few fertility issues I used my sickness as a gauge as to how the baby was going - as long as I was sick I was still pregnant and I was grateful and happy. My obstetrician was very supportive and even though I wasn’t labelled as having HG at the time I now know that vomiting 2-3 times daily from 7 weeks until the day my daughter was born and losing roughly 20kgs is not quite normal. I was admitted to the local hospital four times in the first few months for fluids and medication. My husband and I muddled through the pregnancy as best we could and the end result was worth it, with our gorgeous first born girl arriving safely in the summer heat of 2013. 

My second pregnancy happened faster than we had planned, and we were all hopeful that I wouldn’t get terrible “morning sickness” again. That hope was short lived when at 8 weeks I started to feel nauseous and vomit once again. I spent the next 12 weeks living on a mattress on the lounge room floor with towels and a bucket and a 9 and a half month old who had no idea what happened to her Mummy. My husband would walk in the door just after 5pm each day and I would crawl up the hallway to bed. It was during this pregnancy that my obstetrician diagnosed me with HG, I’m not sure if this was because HG was becoming more well known and studied, or because the second time round I was more nauseous and less able to function on a daily basis.  I was admitted to our local hospital a few times over this time for fluids. My obstetrician initiated shared care with the local doctor so I only had to travel when absolutely necessary. I highly recommend shared care to those who can, my GP or hospital would do weekly blood pressure and urine tests to monitor my fluids and then would discuss treatment with my OB. Thankfully the HG subsided around the 20 week mark and with a small amount of medication it was managed. I was induced at 38 weeks and we welcomed our second daughter into our little family.

Then came the dilemma, my husband and I always wanted four children but could we really go through another HG pregnancy? There was no way of knowing if another pregnancy would be the same. I fell pregnant a few years later and had some bleeding in the early stages. There was no sign of sickness at 6, 7 and 8 weeks and we were once again hopeful that the only stress of this pregnancy would be the spotting. HG had other plans when at 9 weeks I felt like I had been hit by a truck. The other pregnancies were a walk in the park compared to this feeling. I started vomiting anywhere up to 20 times a day, I couldn’t eat so the vomit was at worst acidic stomach bile or huge bouts of dry retching. I couldn’t move without feeling unwell, I couldn’t eat, drink or even sleep well. I was working part time and had one child at home and one child at kindy. I became a shell of a person, pale, withdrawn, dizzy and so unwell. I would stumble into school to drop off my daughter clutching a spew bag (which FYI you can purchase in bulk) and then would rely on friends to pick her up at the end of the day. I booked my other daughter in for extra daycare days and used up all my sick leave at work. My husband picked up the slack at home with caring for our children, cleaning and cooking and at one point my friends made a roster to bring food around as even though I couldn’t eat it (or smell it!) my family still needed to eat. My parents ended up paying for a cleaner once a week as they could see that my husband was not coping with the extra load. I was admitted almost weekly to our local hospital for fluids and the new local GP was not helpful at all. In the end I would call my OB myself directly from the hospital and get instructions as to whether I needed fluids (always) or needed to come to Perth for him to assess me. I went to Perth at 13, 14, 16 and 19 weeks. The strain of this extra travel was hell for my body, my children and my husband. The cost of the travel wasn’t easy either. 

At 20 weeks I caught a cold, it was the last week of school term and I was barely functioning. I went into the GP and I remember saying to him “something is wrong, the baby is going to die.” He didn’t even do a urine test, he told me to go home and rest and have fluids. I walked out of the centre crying. I rang my Mum who then drove up and took the girls back to Perth with her, she wanted to take me also but I insisted that I needed to work that week. Looking back now I realise how unwell physically and mentally I was, I literally was repeating in my head “just get through the next hour, get this job done, it will be fine, the baby is ok” when in reality  my body was shutting down. I wouldn’t take anyone’s advice and at this point I was avoiding calling my OB, I think I felt if I stopped getting on with everything the baby would die, which I know makes no sense but I was not able to think rationally. By the Friday lunch time I had vomited over 50 times and could barely talk as my throat was so sore, I was vomiting blood and when my principal caught sight of me she immediately sent me home. I have no idea how I drove that day but when my husband came home at 5pm he found me in bed, still in my work clothes, soaked in my own urine and bloody bile vomit. Apparently, I had a glass of green cordial next to me and kept telling him I needed to drink it or the baby would die. He took me to the local hospital but there was no doctor in town. I was assessed by the doctor on the TV monitor and they called the Royal Flying Doctor. I was to be flown out in a couple of hours after some fluids. Within 30 minutes my temperature was climbing and I was delirious, the doctor was called to reassess, and I was on the Royal Flying Doctor within 30 minutes. I have no recollection of the flight to Perth. I was septic, my body was so depleted from the HG, so lacking in vitamins and minerals that my white blood cell count was so low that I couldn’t fight the cold I had caught the previous weekend.  I was diagnosed with a damaged esophagus and a case of starvation ketoacidosis and was given a IV cocktail and spent almost two weeks in hospital. I was not allowed to return home after this and I spent 4 months in Perth away from our home. We are so fortunate that my parents took myself and my daughters in. My Mum took time off work and my parents became full-time parents to our girls and nurse to me. Our family was fractured and my husband drove down fortnightly Friday nights and home Sunday afternoons because we still had bills to pay and travel is exhausting and expensive. I will never be able to put into words how lucky we are and how grateful we are to my parents for all they did for us at this tough time. 

At about 28 weeks I was once again in hospital when I started to experience the most horrific abdominal pain. I was diagnosed with cholestasis of pregnancy, my gallbladder and liver were not functioning as they should. This meant the baby had an increased risk of being born too early (preterm birth), lung problems from breathing in meconium, or our worst fear - death of the baby late in pregnancy before delivery (stillbirth). Our family spent the next three months in limbo, my eldest daughter missed kindy, the worry and cost of my husband driving the highway continuously, I couldn’t return to work and we had no idea what the outcome of the pregnancy would be.  Financially we were in struggle town with the Zofran wafers costing a small fortune. Mentally my husband and I were so low and stressed, both certain that this pregnancy was going to end badly for both myself and the baby. I was overcome with panic attacks daily and was living on a diet of icy cold coke and salty chips. I was on a plethora of drugs and nutrition and weekly monitoring. 

I was induced at 37 weeks due to all these factors and our final family member was born on the 31st of October 2017. Once I birthed my placenta , which was looking very unhealthy too, I felt instantly better. It was like a magic switch and I was so happy to feel human again, that first meal after the birth was delicious.

My body has paid the price. To this day I still have trouble with certain smells and putting a toothbrush too far in my mouth. I am managing my gallbladder with medication but am looking at surgery. I have already had one surgery this year to correct a rectocele prolapse that was brought on in part by the birth but also from months and months of aggressive straining from vomiting or dry retching. 

I sometimes feel so anxious. All mothers worry about their children but I feel that worry deep in my bones after this experience, I feel that it was so hard to hold onto my baby, for my body to do this job it was created to do how can I possibly be so lucky to have him here with us? Will fate snatch him away from me? 

I sometimes feel cheated. I hate that what should have been such a wonderful experience of creating life was marred by this sickness. That those little kicks and flutters made me feel ill. I spent the time wishing it to be over rather that feeling that connection to my child growing inside me. Child number four is not an option, and although as time passes our family does feel complete I have definitely grieved for the child that we can’t risk having. People would comment that I went back for more children so I “did this to myself” and this was a punch in the gut, I never asked for this and there is no way of knowing who will be hit with HG. 

I sometimes feel so guilty. Will the medications that I used during pregnancies have a negative effect on my children? Did all that time I spent unwell and not present damage them? 

I always feel so grateful for my friends and my family who went above and beyond to care for us all. 

When I ask pregnant women now how they are going I am not asking for a general answer, I truly want to know that they are feeling well because HG does not discriminate and I would not wish it upon my worst enemy. My experience has helped me to understand that from typical morning sickness to the most severe HG everyone needs support and that out here in the bush we do not have access to the healthcare our city counterparts do, we have to push a little bit harder and help to educate those who may not have encountered this debilitating illness.