When I was first diagnosed with Hyperemesis Gravidarum I was already in deep depression and was feeling as if life was passing me by. I longed to feel normal again and I used to think that when I’ll feel better and I’ll resume blogging, my first article will be about my HG journey. However, as soon as I started feeling better I wanted to keep that dark era behind. Even thinking about it gives me severe PTSD, let alone writing about it. I thought I’ll never be able to write this one article but I don’t know what happened to me today. I just thought that if I just go through the PTSD one time, I can at least try and make awareness towards hyperemesis gravidarum. It’s really important. However, I don’t know whether it will be super long or super short, whether I’ll skip the hardest parts or dive deep into those dark memories. I’m already struggling even thinking about those days.

You see, this pregnancy wasn’t planned. Not that we didn’t want children, but we knew that due to our profession and our lifestyle we won’t be able to give the best life to the baby. And why bring a baby to this world if we can’t give her/him what she/he deserves? My sole income source is my blog: if I write, I’ll earn, if I’m unable to, I won’t. My husband on the other hand never wanted to have a conventional job. The sole reason he has been working is because he wanted to save enough money to pursue his dream to become a music director. However, that hasn’t happened due to circumstances. We weren’t ready to have kids for obvious reasons, but we knew that one day if he finally achieves his dream and we both earn and save decent enough and get an apartment of our own, we would have had a planned pregnancy. But we knew that road was miles away so we never gave ourselves false hopes.

However, when my contraceptive failed, it couldn’t have failed at a worse time. My husband has just had his surgery and we were broke to say the least due to his treatment. Neither of us had worked in like months because he has been suffering too much due to chest pain and it took months to figure out what was wrong with him.

Anyway long story short, my contraceptive failed and my pregnancy has been super tough since the very beginning. I took the morning after pill the day before his surgery and I started having severe period like cramps while I used visit him at the hospital. The intense pain that we get on our first day of period, that lasted like 3 weeks. I thought, well, my period is approaching. Because I usually start getting my cramps 5-7 days ahead and as the period approaches, the pain gets intense. However a week went by and no period. I started getting hot flashes, as if I’ll burst inside out. Our house help hadn’t shown up in 2 months and I was taking care of my husband while doing house works all by myself. After about a couple of weeks  after taking the pill my appetite started to vanish into thin air. Due to having his gall bladder removed, my husband was required to eat every often and I was constantly making him healthy snacks without taking a bite myself. As for my food habit, I used to looooove gravy, I cannot eat anything dry. However, when I was forced to eat lunch and dinner (which my MIL was providing) I was nibbling on the driest item and sending back everything else. My husband kept asking me to visit a doctor but I kept telling him that this is just the side effect of taking the morning after pill, it will go away when I get my period.

When my husband was getting a bit stable and planning to join back work, we had a long chat one day : How it’s now or never, how he can’t wait to quit his job and follow his dream. We decided that 2 days later he’ll go to his work and put his paper down. He had some freelance work offers and I’ll up my blogging and Instagramming game. Even though he had freelance works at his table, I was ready to work for two, while he promised he will invest his time and resume photography for my blog. We talked about planning shoots and upgrading my wardrobe and fashion and travel blogging. We were so excited for this new chapter. Little did we know that a completely different chapter was awaiting us. The next day I was talking to a friend and casually mentioned that I have been having all these pregnancy symptoms despite taking a morning after pill. She told me, that my pill probably didn’t work and I should take a test ASAP. My husband and I were both freaked out and we went out together and bought a kit. While getting ready none of my clothes fit me and I had to wear my husband’s T-shirt. I mean I noticed that my breasts were tender, painful to touch and were bigger but I never thought much about it before. I was just too eager to return to normal work like once my husband recovers. Anyway, we go out and I fell on the stairs. By now I’m half assured my pill failed.

Anyway, we took the test the next day and turned out I am pregnant.  No matter how freaked out we were, we planned to do our best to flip the situation. I opened my laptop right away and began working. But I just couldn’t, I’ve never felt so much fatigue in my entire life. My husband promised to work hard, wake up early and go to work on time every day . A new fear overcame us, what if the pill have harmed the baby?  We rushed to the first doctor we could find and the following few days were really hectic, bouncing from doctor to doctor, path lab to path lab, I would just sleep like a dead person as soon as I returned home.

Finally we found a great doctor and were assured that those pills don’t harm the baby. But soon at week 8 I started throwing up horribly. At first it was just stomach acids, then 2 days later it was just blood and clots of blood. I knew right away that I am unfortunate enough to have HG. You see, I read enough articles about the pregnancies of the Duchess Of Cambridge to know what HG is.  It’s when your body produces 1000 times more pregnancy hormone that you can literally die puking, starving and from dehydration. My husband came from work that day, saw me puking blood, started crying while holding me and called our doctor. She asked me to go to the ER. While at the ER some tests were ran and among them there was a urine test. However, I was so severely dehydrated that the container remained empty. In fact I hadn’t had gone to the loo to pee in like weeks. I couldn’t keep down any food or even water. When my test results came, the doctor attending me called other doctors available at the hospital at that time because my reports were concerning. They asked my husband how long I have been starving and he had to say that pretty much since I got pregnant.

I was asked to be admitted immediately and once the IV fluid was channelled in, I started feeling a little better. If I write an article about  my fear of needles, that will be a few pages, so I’ll just leave it here. Anyway, 3 days at the hospital, I started feeling better and couldn’t wait to go back home. However, as soon as I left the hospital, I could barely stand. I started puking my guts out as soon as I came back home. By this time, it was pretty much established that I wouldn’t survive this pregnancy. I would fantasize about having an abortion, and drink a bottle of water right away. My  husband would say that he doesn’t want to lose me to HG so we would decide on getting an abortion, but then I would start that ‘what if’ game.  What if I abort, I’ll never get to know what kind of a person this baby would have grown up to be. Would it be a mini me, or mini him? Would he she/he inherit daddy’s talents?  I would never get to see the face, never get to know what he/she would have been like. And I just couldn’t go through with the decision. My pregnancy is complicated in many ways. I have a benign tumour which I decided not to remove. I was suggested a surgery but since I didn’t go through with it, I was required to keep checking on it every 3 months and told that any hormonal changes might result in it turning malignant. As soon as I found out I was pregnant, all 3 of the doctors that I visited told me that there’s a chance my tumour can change due to the pregnancy hormones and to keep a track of it with a different doctor. And then I had HG, which is 1000 times more hormonal disbalance, as in 1000 more chances of my tumour changing. However, my HG took up the entire of our time and energy and checking with a different doctor was out of the question. And you know, my existing HG was so much worse than the ‘chance’ of my tumour turning malignant, so HG weighed much more than that ‘chance’.

For the next 1 month 1 survived on 2 crackers, a banana and a Popsicle each day. My chemo grade anti-nausea was knocking me out 20 hrs a day. My husband would feed me 2 crackers and a banana before going to work which I ate without getting out of the bed and without brushing my teeth. It was also the only ‘meal’ I kept down. After that anything I ate would come out followed by tons of blood. Around 3, my MIL would bring some food, mainly Bengali style sweet poha or sweet upma, and I would nibble a bit and go back to sleep. Around 8 I would wake up, and start throwing up whatever I had for lunch followed by stomach acid, bile and then blood. I would be so thirsty that I could feel my throat crack but I knew even a few drops of water would make me throw up worse. My husband then would bring a popsicle for me while coming back from work and that would provide me with the hydration I could afford the entire day. After forcing myself to eat something for dinner, I would throw that up right away and would thankfully fall dead asleep by 12. We weren’t able to sleep in the same bed because one thing you should know about HG pregnancies is that even if you aren’t eating anything, your baby is still getting his/her nutrition from the reservoir of your body. Which means, brittle bones and teeth. My bones would hurt all the time and I would shriek in pain even at the gentlest touch, so we had  to sleep separately because my husband is a terrible sleeper. However, each time I would get up to puke, he would come running from his room and I still have no idea how he knew (he’s also a deep sleeper and can sleep through a disaster).

Like normal pregnancy, hyperemesis gravidarum doesn’t subside after the first trimester. But my doctor kept assuring me that it’ll get better. I didn’t really believe her. In my defence, I’ve been bed-ridden for what felt like forever, and couldn’t believe there was an end to this nightmare. However, the very day I started my second trimester, I woke up at my usual time 8 pm, with a strong craving for Chai. My first craving since pregnancy. There was no milk in the house as hubby doesn’t drink tea or milk and he had been eating at his parents anyway. For the first time in 3 months I went out without being Ubered from our apartment gate to the clinic gate literally carried by my husband. We went out to have tea from a neighbourhood tea stall and I had my first sip of chai in 3 months and it felt like the best thing in the world. If you don’t know, I’m addicted to chai and not getting my 2 cups in specific times gives me terrible headache. And that 1 cup meant a lot to me. It made me feel like a normal human being again. For the past 2 months I have been suffering through the worst depression of my life. I’ve never felt so alone, so helpless and couldn’t wait to feel normal again. So getting to go out even for just 5 mins walk and getting a cup of tea somehow made me feel normal. I didn’t throw up that day.

It wasn’t over though. I still had severe nausea, fatigue and still had no appetite. I used to think of different times of food items one by one and for like every 50 food items that made me gag, I could think of 1 specific food that I felt like I could stomach. So one day after hours of food slideshow in my imagination, I thought I could eat the Chilly Cheese Toast of CCD. I’ve never been fond of it, and my go to CCD order has always been Spinach and Corn Sandwich and a cappuccino. But this time even the thought of that particular sandwich made me want to puke (it does even now). So we went to CCD after our next doctor’s appointment and I literally inhale 2 chilly cheese toast and a cold coffee(another thing I’ve never been fond of).It was my first fulfilling meal in 3 months and I was so overwhelmed with joy about the whole experience, you know eating out and all.

The month that followed was still tough but better. I could drink water and eat fruits, but still couldn’t have meals. I could stomach buttered brown bread and that was all. Due to being dehydrated for so long I was drinking bottles and bottles of water but no amount of water could quench my thirst. I was inhaling fruits, especially the juicy ones and then one day I started craving star fruit. My mom got me some the next day and for an entire month I live on basically star fruit. I finally found something that not only could quench my thirst but could also help with the nausea for the time being. The fatigue remained, and I was still taking chemo grade anti-nasuea, sleeping 16-18hrs a day and vomiting blood once in awhile. Far from feeling normal, but given to the fact that I was literally suicidal due to vomiting blood all day, it was far better.

Thankfully my HG subsided at month 5. I still can’t eat everything, only dry, boiled, veg food, no onion or garlic but I can eat now. Soon after my HG subsided my little bundle of joy started kicking and I started eating like a monster. The options were/are super limited but at least I could eat. And within days I gained back that 10kgs that I lost during HG. However, even though it was better, I couldn’t enjoy my second trimester like most women does. While first trimester morning sickness lingered a little too long, third trimester discomforts started a little too early. Within a few days after the baby started kicking I started experiencing horrific pain in my shoulder, ribs and my spine. I would spent nights just sitting up and crying because laying down made it worse. But I would still take a year of third trimester discomforts over a day with HG any day. Since my body got stiff due to 4 months of being bed ridden, I realized that I started feeling a little better once I started being active. I’m still not as active as most pregnant women but I’m trying my best.

I might talk about my third trimester experience some other day but all I can say is that feeling the baby kick makes the HG survival worth it. It was hard to dig out these shut out memories but I did it for the awareness. HG NEEDS AWARENESS. Because the worst part of going through HG is no one really gets you.  As for me, no one besides my husband and my sister took HG seriously. Some of my friends and my cousin did. But most women who have been a mother, including my own mother keeps comparing it with regular morning sickness. And I’ll tell you, that’s the worst part of struggling through HG. An HG patient will internally want to kick and punch anyone who compares HG with morning sickness. I’ll tell you because frankly I hated my mum and my cousin’s wife and any women during that period who thought they were encouraging me by saying stuffs like “being a mother is tough”. No women, you don’t know what tough is unless your morning sickness was clinically diagnosed as HG, you don’t know that hell is real and that we lived in it. Even though my mom didn’t take HG seriously, she did know I was suffering because she suffered from ‘bad morning sickness’ too and thus she tried her best to help. But since I knew that she is trying to help without taking my HG seriously I tried my best to shut her out.  Honestly she went all out to cater to my every need, from  bringing food upstairs to my bedroom to cooking several items for me to choose to pampering my every needs whenever I’m visiting home (which is most of the time since 4^th month) and I’m appreciating it more since my HG started subsiding. But before that I barely even talked to her and she had to call my husband as I wouldn’t pick up her call or let her come visit me, all because I knew she’s comparing my HG with regular morning sickness. So if you know someone who has HG, realize that you have no idea what she’s going through, and be sympathetic keeping that in mind. And if you don’t, all your attempts at helping that person will go down the drain no matter how hard you try. HG is hard, HG is hell, and HG can kill. It’s not your regular morning sickness. It doesn’t go away after first pregnancy (like all women with more than 1 child told me) and you have no idea what that person is going through.

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