"Morning" Sickness

I just happened on a post I wrote in my first trimester, intending to put it up right after we went public.  Considering it's about 20 weeks later, at this point, that obviously didn't happen.  I saw it as a public service announcement as I was writing it, though, so I do feel it's my duty to share it with you now.

SPOILER ALERT:  My "morning sickness" did subside by a few weeks into the second trimester, so I haven't been one of those horrible cases I refer to.

WARNING:  This post contains a lot of vomit.  Ok, actually, it doesn’t contain any vomit but a lot of talk about non-existent vomit, so if you’re sensitive, you might want to skip it. People need to know this stuff.

“Morning sickness” is absolutely a misleading misnomer.  Try maybe “all-the-freakin’-day sickness” or “will-it-ever-stop sickness.” And no one tells you this. It’s not until you start wondering if the nausea you feel approximately 16.5 hours a day is normal and you look it up on the internet that you find out that it totally is.

Before becoming pregnant, I understood that “all pregnancies are different,” (you read this everywhere) and knew that I had friends with varying degrees of “morning sickness,” but they had never indicated that their sickness extended beyond mornings.  And maybe theirs didn’t.  But mine sure does, so, if you’re trying to become pregnant, consider this a public service announcement: MORNING SICKNESS MAY NOT BE LIMITED TO MORNINGS.

I try to remain grateful that I haven’t had non-stop vomiting sessions at any time of the day, or thrown up even once, actually.  When I was a kid, I liked to read in the car, and would read until I felt like throwing up, but never did.  Throw up, that is.  And that’s how I feel now.  Like I am perpetually car sick.  I sometimes imagine that if I would just throw up, I would feel better.  I know, though, that probably won’t be what happens.  I’ll feel just the same, only then I’ll also have thrown up, so it probably won’t be much of an improvement.

I really have a new-found respect for my friends and coworkers who I saw plodding along to work during their pregnancies.  I think about how I had no idea that coworkers were pregnant until they announced it, and I am just in awe of women in general that we are able to pull this off.  If we felt like this any other time, we might stay home, try to sleep it off and hope we feel better tomorrow.  When you’re pregnant, though, you just accept that this is how it’s going to be for awhile, and life can’t stop for a trimester.  Or two, if you can believe the women on the message boards that are in their 22^nd week and still nauseous.  I am really, really hoping that is not me.

(and it wasn't!  Hooray!)