Morning sickness. If you’ve experienced it, you’ll know what a joke the name is. I’ve heard it said that a man must have given it it’s famous title, because a woman would know that that shit lasts all day.
A few months ago, I knew I was pregnant for the second time well before the two pink lines appeared on the test. My bras weren’t quite fitting perfectly anymore, and I had an unidentifiable ‘feeling’ that my body was harboring cells that were not mine deep within it. The final feature, the one that prompted me to take a test even though I already knew it would be positive, was when I woke up one morning, and promptly hurled my guts out in the bathroom.
I’m told every pregnancy is different, but the morning sickness this time round felt like the same old shit to me. The thing that got me through it was knowing it would end. In my first pregnancy I was reassured that the morning sickness would probably go away by week 12. Well, week 12 came and went. Week 13. Week 14… I cried over the kitchen sink, thinking I may be one of those poor unlucky souls whose morning sickness would last the entire pregnancy. Thankfully, I wasn’t.
So this time I was prepared for a solid 9 weeks of morning sickness and I knew all the home remedies that were going to work for me: that is, none of them. Still, it’s worth a shot.
Dry crackers in the morning
They taste like cardboard. For a few days, shortbread biscuits helped somewhat, but my son kept finding my bedside stash and asking to eat them. I went through many different morning snacks before getting up but I’m afraid, more often than not, I would then throw up that snack 10 minutes later. Still, it helped for 10 minutes, so that’s good. I hope you have better luck.
Ginger
Well, I’ll be. Griffins have changed Gingernuts. I may be several years late in this revelation but it was not a welcome one. Ginger things are known to help nausea somewhat so go for gold. Ginger tea, ginger lollies, ginger biscuits, ginger ale. None of it made the slightest difference to me, but I will have my fingers crossed for you.
Sea-bands
No one seems to know if the acupressure really works or if it’s a placebo effect, but some women find that wearing these bands on their wrists helps. They mainly just give me sore wrists but whatever.
Small meals
If by small meals, you mean eating almost constantly then yes, this helped me most of the time. But even then, I think there were certain times when I assume the baby was undergoing some kind of vital development, when food must have just been deemed too risky for it because of food poisoning or something. Or perhaps, my body was just so busy pouring all of my resources into the little ball of cells inside me, that it couldn’t spare any energy to do mundane things like digest food. So, no matter what I ate or how much of it I ate, it just came back up. And you know what, I think having times like that was unavoidable and so I just let myself roll with it… By bursting into tears and begging for my partner to go to the shop to get me a red Gatorade at 9 o’clock at night. (The red splatters over the bathroom floor afterwards looked like a scene from a horror movie.)
Avoid spicy, fatty, and sugary foods
Guides to pregnancy will all tell you to avoid greasy things, avoid spicy things, avoid sugary things, avoid avoid avoid. Well, all I can say to that is a rather rude hand gesture. When you are plagued by constant nausea my advice is to eat anything you want. If you want it, there’s probably a reason for that. This time around I’ve had days where I’ve eaten eight Weet-Bix (I assume it’s fortified with something I needed at the time), licked the sour coating off sour squirm lollies (when I told my mum about that, she had a good theory about the baking soda in it being good for nausea), hit up the KFC drive-through a few times (potato and gravy is easy to swallow when your throat is raw from vomiting) and eaten an entire raw lemon (I don’t know, okay?). If you see that thing and you want it, go for it. Only downside is the hit your wallet will take buying all that random food.
Lie down or have a nap
I can only assume this is aimed at women with no current children, no employment, and no household tasks to do. My son pried my eyes open, told me it was day-time, not time for sleeping, and when I fell asleep on the floor halfway through our game anyway, he took 40 flattering photos of me drooling on the carpet (see above).
In summary, my official advice for my fellow pregnant women suffering through the hell that is the first trimester (and into the second trimester for a while if you’re like me), is to toss your morning sickness guide out the window and do what your body tells you to do (as much as you can). You’ll make it through. At the end of the tunnel is a beautiful little baby waiting for you. You’ve got this.
Eat Type Live 