A Misunderstood Condition

by Tracie Osterhoudt

      I remember when we first told family we were about to have a baby and I remember getting a lot of comments similar to “I can’t believe you have no morning sickness yet” little did we all know what was to come. We had taken a car trip lasting several hours in order to go see my brother-in-law graduate college, and it was not until the day we were to leave to make the trek home that it hit me. I was vomiting all morning and I even had to buy a kids sand pail in order to make the drive home without having to stop every 5 minutes as we drove down the single lane and very windy mountain. The “morning sickness” was relentless and eventually I was diagnosed with hyperemesis. Hyperemesis is a condition that does not get a lot of understanding and that breaks my heart.

      I tried everything I was told to try, any and all ideas were welcomed, in order to be able to hold down a least a bite or two of food (crackers, ginger, tea, mints, popsicles, preggie pops, sea sickness bands, sprite, unisom, vitamin B, etc.) If ANYONE gave us an idea my husband would dash off to the store and I would try it but to no avail. My doctor gave me some prescriptions and we tried several of those and one day it would work and one day it wouldn’t. I was never prescribed Zofran and I do not know if it was not yet available at the time or if it just was never given to me. All of these prescriptions had their side effects BUT none of them were any worse than what I was already going through.

Tracie at 7 months pregnant dressed up as Juno for Halloween

      One thing that was really weird to me throughout it all was that I could not hold down water what-so-ever. I tried it cold, warm, hot, with a squirt of lemon, but to no avail. I was told to suck on an ice cube to slowly get the water into my system and that even made me vomit before I even got through the one ice cube. I remember going camping in the heat of the summer and watching everyone drink water by the gallon and wishing I could just have a sip. I would have to say that was the most intense craving I have ever had, and I tried time and time again to sip water and not once was I able to hold water down. This made me particularly fearful of the diabetes test when the fluids I could hold down from time to time were juices and sprite (sugar and sugar). That particular test makes me cringe when I think of it too because I had to try to hold down the drink multiple times and after about the third time I held it down for the hour, had my blood drawn, and then raced for the bathroom because it was not going to stay down. I will never forget vomiting in the doctor office right after that particular red drink and the book I was reading and the room I was in was just COVERED in red vomit. There was nothing anyone could do to help ease any of my symptoms, and this especially wore on my husband.

      I tear up every time I think of the look on my husband’s face time after time as he looked at me in pain and literally starving for food that I could not hold down. I felt bad for him because he looked so helpless. I could tell by the look on his face that he would have done anything to make it better and night after night he would rub my head as I cried myself to sleep. This was not what we thought we were in for when we decided years prior that we wanted to have a child.

It took years for me to get pregnant with my son and after a few miscarriages my pregnancy with him I always felt as if it could and would end at any moment. I felt like the worst mom ever. There I was finally pregnant and could not even feed my unborn baby. The pregnancy with him held many other struggles, I lived in a small town with one of the worst rated hospitals in the country so for every doctor appointment I chose to drive an hour to get better care. My placenta with my son was at the front of my stomach so many times I was sent to a hospital because they could not find his heartbeat with the Doppler and I had to have many extra ultrasounds. There was one instance I remember being sent to the hospital for one of these ultrasounds and the nurse told me to make sure I drank the 32 ounces of water before. I told her I cannot hold down water can I drink juice instead? To which she replied “No, you need to drink water, and you are just going to have to figure it out.” This was one of the many instances I felt so severely misunderstood. I felt this way many times like people thought I was exaggerating and at this moment I wanted to take a sip of water and show her that I REALLY could not hold down the water.

Although I refused to go to the hospital in my home town there were times I got so dehydrated I couldn’t stand up let alone do anything else. In these times I had no choice but to go to the ER for an IV to replenish my fluids. Toward the end of my pregnancy I had experience some really intense pain in my abdomen that I deduced was not labor since there was not pattern what so ever to it. Nothing helped the pain and after

Tracie's newborn son

about an hour it would go away and return a few days later. Eventually a nurse figured out it was my gallbladder and it got to be so frequent that my doctor opted to have me induced a week early because “she did not want me to go one more weekend in pain.” In the end birth was nothing compared to the 9 months of complete misery. From the time I found out I was pregnant to the day I checked in to have my son I had lost over 15 pounds. My son was only 6 pounds and 21 inches long, he was so skinny and I felt terrible for that. I was so grateful to finally have him out and to be able to feed him consistently.

Fast forward 2 years later and we decided to have another. I had thought that maybe a lot of my sickness with my son may have been due to my gallbladder. I was so wrong. My pregnancy with my daughter was not any easier. This was especially true since I had a 2 year old and could not rest when I was feeling ill. I remember on several occasions him mimicking me throwing up in the toilet. The difference with this pregnancy was that I was prescribed Zofran which did make a huge difference but had some side effects that I could not handle all the time, constipation. I ended up taking the Zofran for a period of time and then stopping because the constipation got to be too bad, then once it cleared up and I was sick of being sick I would begin to take it again.

My pregnancy with my daughter was not near as bad as with my son and in the last month I found relief from

Tracie's newborn daughter.

the nausea and vomiting and I actually in that month gained back some of the weight I had lost, and in the end I had lost a total of 5 pounds over my pregnancy with my daughter.

Hyperemesis is a condition that does not get a lot of understanding and that breaks my heart. I remember someone telling me “you need to stop complaining about your pregnancy. There are a ton of women out there that cannot conceive that would give anything to be in your situation.” I completely understood that and especially as a person who once thought I would not be able to have a child of my own. But, I believe comments like this come from a place of not understanding. This particular person had no clue of the extent my sickness and I believe they simply thought I was dealing with a touch of morning sickness, not knowing, that I was vomiting all day long and crying myself to sleep nightly. I hope that more people come to understand that this is not an easy condition to deal with and I personally would not wish it on anyone.