Hyperemesis Gravidarum - Extreme Morning Sickness

This podcast shares my experience with Hyperemesis Gravidarum - a form of extreme morning sickness

Reach out to Pregnancy Sickness Support for advice and support

https://pregnancysicknesssupport.org.uk/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome back to the Nimble Strength Podcast. My name is Anna Cochrane and I never start them in like that because it feels weird because let's be honest, everybody that listens to this podcast has been sent here by my email list, so you all know me in person. Um maybe maybe that will change and there'll be more strangers that are like, who is this person? Um today I'm gonna be talking about something quite heavy, um, and it's a bit of a detour from the usual information. I'm gonna be talking about my pregnancy sickness, um, specifically hyperemesis gravidarum, um, which is an extreme form of morning sickness. It's not really anything like that, but for people that haven't experienced it, that's what it is. Um, the reason I'm making this podcast is because when I was going through it, I didn't know anything about it, I didn't actually know it existed, I didn't know I needed medic needed medical help for it, and there was a lot of grief, and all I could really do was be in my bed and for the you know, at least for the first trimester. Um, and a way that I coped with that was to find YouTube videos if I could bear to watch them. Sometimes I just listen, and podcasts, uh, to learn about it and to give me some kind of hope that it was all gonna be okay. So I said to myself, once I was through it, I would record something like a video or a podcast just to add to the library of stuff out there because there isn't much. Um, yeah, I would listen to the same few podcasts on you know a couple times maybe a day for a few weeks because I just needed to feel like I wasn't alone. So um I'm imagining that the way that people are gonna find this podcast is if they search High Premises Gravidarum, it's gonna come up and then they're gonna listen to this podcast and then maybe not actually need to engage with my work after that. Like I am happy for this podcast to be kind of a standalone. And in the same way, I know there's lots of you that follow me for fitness and you follow me for nutrition and health and all that kind of stuff. So I don't blame you if you're like, I'll skip this week and I'll just come back next week because there will be more stuff that I'm putting out that is not specific to this, obviously. Um, but it's something that I was reminded of recently uh because of kind of seeing someone who's going through something similar, and it just it just yeah, it it just made me think like okay, I need to put that podcast out, I need to add to that because when I was in that place, that was one of the things that really got me through. Um, this is your chance to be like, I can spend 20 minutes of my life differently, or this is your chance if you are going through this, I'm gonna start now speaking to you directly. Um, to you who's going through this right now. Or maybe you don't know if you're going through it, but so if I run through some of the symptoms, um okay, everybody's different. So I think if you're looking for educational content, the charity pregnancy sickness support, if you are in the UK especially, you can Google them, they will come up, they can support you, they can um give you a one-to-one uh person on WhatsApp who you can talk to. Um, they can advise on medications, they can advise on how to interact with your GPs. Um, and they've also put out a podcast um with um more sort of like scientific information about what this illness is and what it means in your body and and what it might feel like and everything. So I will link that in the description so that you can check that out as well because I think it's important to be informed too, and then I'm gonna go kind of with my personal experience. So I suppose the first thing I'll say as well is like when I was in that time I felt really felt really envious of other women, like if they got the pregnancy that they you know, I'd always I'd actually always envisioned being pregnant, I'd always envisioned having a child and like um I thought I'd be like doing prenatal yoga in my like high-waisted leggings, and you know, like I felt like a lot of that was robbed from me. Um and and now I see that the the way that my pregnancy was taught me a lot of things that I use every day in my life now, um and like silver linings and everything, but when I was in it, there was no silver linings at all. Um so my experience was that I was away um in Sweden and uh seeing my grandparents, and um we had planned the pregnancy, but we obviously didn't know how long it was gonna take. Um and it was around Christmas time, so we'd been eating a lot of well, I I just had that like I just didn't want Christmas food. I just was like, oh, I just don't, you know, usually I'm I'm like wanting to stuff my face, but I was just like, oh I just feel like a slight aversion to food. And um that would have been I didn't know at the time, but that would have been around three or four weeks into the pregnancy, so we kind of had like just about had a positive test. Um, but you know, we were still kind of like, I don't know if this is actually happening, but I didn't really think anything of it anyway. And then by the time it was the first week of January, I woke up at four in the morning and I was just I just needed to vomit and be just go and like project a vomit into the um toilet. And that happened about three times that day. Bless my grandma. She was like, Oh my god, have I made you ill with the food? And we were like, I don't even think so, but like I was like, Reese's fine, like my husband Reese is fine, and like you know, everybody else is fine. She felt so awful when I felt so bad. And I thought maybe maybe it is because of, you know, maybe it is because of the pregnancy. It was like this is weird, like maybe I don't think it's meant to be this bad. I just had this nausea that would just stay with me for that for the whole day, and we'd be walking around town and I'd have to stop um because I just was I could I just the nausea was just too much. I just had to like pause and just kind of like I don't even know, try and take a couple of deep breaths, but then that didn't make it better, and then so that was the day that before we were leaving, and then on the day we were leaving the next day, again I'd woken up really early vomiting, I couldn't really keep any food down. Uh I would eat, but it would just come up, and we were in the airport, and I mean I actually vomited on the train in front of like a hundred commuters, um, which was not fun. Although I do think silver linings again. And I you've got to have a sense of humour about these things, I think, sometimes because otherwise, like if I don't laugh, I'll cry, you know. Um, but in Scandinavia they like really quite equipped, so they had um plastic bags for the bins on the train. So I was like, give me that bag, and just spewing, but uh you know it was contained in the bag, so I take that as a win to be honest, because that would have not been good. The train was completely packed, I was like standing in the aisle, and everybody and I I think I swore, and then in English, but they all speak English anyway, uh, and just lots of very awkward commuters were just side-eyeing me, like, is she alright? And one lovely person was like, 'Do you want some water?' and I was like, 'Thank you,' but I, you know, I'm good. I don't want to like make your water all sicky. So I managed to get home. It was quite a brutal journey because obviously driving from the airport to home and you know, just being even on the flight, just kind of like holding my breath, just trying to not be sick, essentially. And the next day we went to one of my first maternity appointment, and the the midwife kind of said, Oh, if you still feel like this tonight, you need to go and um go and get checked out at AE. And I was already thinking, but you're my midwife. Why can't you do something? If you know I'm sick, why can't you do something here? I don't know why that is. I have no intention on sort of like you know, being negative about the NHS, but I do find some of these things really odd where you're clearly unwell, but you have to go somewhere else. And in our case, we had to drive to AE um that night. Um, in fact, we had actually on that night we came home from from the our trip, we actually went to an out-of-hours GP on that Friday night, got some medication. The medication didn't work at all for me, and that's the other thing with medications, is like you you have to find the right one. And I was really lucky that there was one or two that did work really well for me. And when I say really well, I mean I could drink water and I could eat some food. Um, not that it got rid of the nausea or the you know, it probably got rid of the vomiting, but it like mostly, but it didn't get rid of the nausea, and I know that's not everybody's experience. So this is the other thing, is that you will see some people's experiences on you know on YouTube or on the news saying I'm vomiting a hundred times a day or something like that. And I think for those, or you know, they've been hospitalized for the whole pregnancy, and I think for those people, I I just I I just know that what they're going through is so hard, and if you're going through that, what you're doing is so tough, um, and you are being so resilient, whatever, you know, w however you try to make your way through the pregnancy. And I I know that there's also people that think about um like medical abortions for medical reasons, and like again, everybody has their own their own um way that they need to deal with things. So I think again, reach out to that that pregnancy charity if you're feeling like it's is too much. Um but I think I sometimes felt like, oh, am I have I even got this illness? Because I'm not vomiting a hundred times a day, I'm only vomiting like three, four times a day, maybe ten times a day on a bad day. It's all valid. Like I just want to make it so clear it's all valid. I've spoken to people with a variety of experiences, and I think because in general women will be so resilient and they'll and you know, when you at the end of it, when you have your kid, you're not I you know, you know it's all worth it. Like you look at the kid and you're just like, Yeah, I'd do it, I'd probably do it again. Um some people would, some people wouldn't, but a lot of people will do it again, and so I think sometimes the struggle can get dismissed, but it doesn't matter if you're vomiting loads of times a day, it doesn't matter if the medication did help you, it doesn't matter if you're working, if you have to work, or if you're not able to work, or if you've just got really bad nausea, or if you know it doesn't matter what your experience is, it's all valid and it's all shit, like it's all horrible and just a lot to deal with. So I just wanted to kind of put that out there. Later on, I'm gonna share like a few things that really helped me in terms of confidence and just being able to stay with it. Um more on the um symptom side of things. I think I went for a I went to AE um a couple days maybe on that Monday night after the midwife appointment, I think. The process was waiting for about four hours um and then I hadn't drunk any water or eaten any food for quite some time, probably maybe like you know, 12 hours, 24 hours, something like that, because every time I drink water it would just come back up. So I felt like every time I was eating a biscuit or drinking some water, I would lose more fluid than I was even gaining. So I almost mentally just gave up on eating and drinking, which is wild to say that you actually your body can be like, no, I'm good. Um and so I went and got seen in AE, um, they took some blood, they um put me on an IV drip and they gave me some medication and they obviously filled up with water as well. Um I got taken up to the gynee ward um and I had a really good sleep. Um and I think if you're with a partner as well, I think it can be really hard if I don't know if it would be different if my partner was a woman and then maybe she would have been allowed in the gynee ward. I don't know if it's because it's obviously the sensitive issues that people come into a gynecological ward with, where they're very um cautious about letting men into that space, which is understandable. Um, but Reese was sitting outside for a lot of that and not necessarily able to be with me. He was able to be me later on, but I think that's is fairly typical that you might be on your own through that process. Again, I don't know what it'd be like if your partner was a woman, or if like if you brought like your sister or your mum with you or something like that. Um so yeah, stayed there for a few hours, kind of early hours in the morning, had some toast, was like, oh my god, this is so nice because I'm so hungry, and then went home. Um I think on the scan they showed I was about maybe five or six weeks. Um, and then the next few weeks, I think were the hardest. Um I can't exactly remember when I went into AE again, but I went into AE one more time, and that was because I had rung up the doctor and said, I don't think this medication's enough. I actually think this medication is not working anymore. Um, I think it might have been that I switched to a different medication, or it might have been that I was on the same medication and it wasn't enough, and I and I can't remember. Um I no, this is what happened. I ra I rang up my GP and said, I think I need more medication than this. They said he this this particular GP said, okay, come back when you feel worse. And I was like, thanks. Um, and then I made a private GP appointment with um, and she this GP was so lovely, she told me something that also really, really helped. So I'll tell you that like in a bit like in the batch of things later on. Um and she gave me a new medication which I started taking, and that medication, I think, looking back, was the same medication as I'd been given at the very start, which just didn't work for me at all. So I ended up back in A after that, and then they put me on two medications. So I think in the hospital they were a lot more not like um, they had a lot more experience with the pregnancy sickness than in the GP. Um, they were a lot less cautious about medication in terms of um, I think a lot of GPs still aren't necessarily sure about what's safe for pregnancy and what's not. But in the hospitals, I think, because they're used to dealing with it a lot more, they were a lot more uh more generous with the medication, let's say. Um I think on a day-to-day level, my life was lying in the bed, unable to turn my head sometimes because I would just want to vomit. Um talking would make me vomit. The nausea was so intense. I tried to breathe in a different way to reduce the nausea. I tried to see if I did a long breath out and then paused for a second, would that reduce the nausea at all? Um I tried to lie on my left side because sometimes that would help. And then sometimes I'll go on my right side. Um yeah, like I'd heard that lying on your left side would be would be better. Um I I couldn't get a handle on the food thing. Um at one point I did discover that mashed potato did work for me and ready salted crisps. So we tried like every type of food and every type of drink. Um and and I was I I per I was able to eat some food. Um like I did end up eating like different varieties of food like like later in the pregnancy. I did end up eating like I mean meat was like never really something I wanted to eat. Um, but I you know I could eat eggs at one point. So I you know I was doing I was I was I'm grateful that I had like some ability to eat, where I know a lot of people don't have really any ability to eat through the whole pregnancy. Um, but I felt completely nauseous, and and the other thing is it fluctuates day to day. So some days would be a really, really bad day. Um I remember calling a client on the phone because I still was trying to make my business work at this point because I'd just worked so hard for it, and I'd had to close down my in-person personal training business basically overnight. I'd had to process a couple grand's worth of refunds for the next few months ahead and just basically say, Yeah, I'm not coming back, sorry. Um, hope you're all okay. And some of them came online with me and some of them didn't. Um, but a lot of my clients were also my friends, so they were and they were amazing, like really understanding. But I remember ringing one of my clients on the phone, and she was talking, and after a few minutes I just had to mute it and vomit, and she stopped talking for a little bit, and there was obviously silence, and I said, Look, I'm really sorry, I can't I can't do this. I need to I need some time, I can't I can't work. Um and I think it was just setting a timer for ten minutes and just lying in the bed and just thinking I just need to get through ten minutes. That's all I need to do, and then just do that on repeat, and then an hour would have gone. And I was literally just counting down the clock, and I will say I was incredibly lucky that I didn't have to lift a finger in this pregnancy. I know that's not everybody's experience. I know not everybody even has the luxury to lie down in bed, even though it's the last thing I wanted to be doing, I'm really grateful that I didn't have to get up and go to work or get up and take care of other children, which I know a lot of people do. So I don't know looking back, I don't know if I had if I had more responsibility, like now, you know, if I've got a daughter now, if this was to happen again, would I be more up and active and doing things, or would my body literally just say you can't? I don't I don't actually know. I think it's so hard to tell. Like it's so hard to tell what your motivations are because I know there's you can feel really awful, but if you have this really strong like need to survive, you'll also do that. So I I don't know. Um so um people obviously told me to try ginger and to try this and to try that, and that all was gross. Um but I do think there is value in trying to seek out foods that are safe foods, um, like as in foods that you can keep down, that's it. I think there's also an incredible amount of pressure as someone who's pregnant to do the best for your baby and to be healthy and to start eating healthy and to take supplements and to take your folic acid. And I was so terrified that I was gonna mess up my baby's health. Um I was terrified I was gonna lose the baby, and I was terrified that I was gonna mess up her health by not being able to take my folic acid. And obviously, when you're at home, in the times that I could, I would sometimes scroll Instagram. That would make me feel sick, but sometimes I would do it. And then you'd you'd have a pregnancy algorithm, you know, you start searching things like, is this normal? Is morning sickness normal? And you hear people saying, Oh, you should try and eat protein, you should try and eat vegetables, and you should try and get out for a walk. And I was just feeling so rubbish and so ashamed that I'm a personal trainer and I should have done more, I should have done something differently, I should have supplemented in a different way, I should have done something differently to change the outcome of how I feel right now. And that is a kind of stress that nobody needs in your life. I can say now, and this this did help me a lot. I can say now my little girl is she is I mean, she's beautiful, obviously, because I'm slightly biased, but she is healthy, she is strong, she's really active, she's you know, hitting all her milestones. She's hilarious. She's absolutely fine. And she was built on essentially ready-sorted crisps. Um The GP that I saw told me babies are parasites, they will take what they need and essentially at the expense of the mother. And that just actually you know what that gave me peace because I was so worried that she was not gonna be okay. But I think seeing evidence and hearing evidence of other people that have had this illness and have kids that are absolutely fine, you know, alive and well. That is that is like our our bodies are so resilient. I obviously I work in health and I do think it's important to imprint and impress the idea of healthy lifestyle with on people, and I also think sometimes we just make it into this big corporate industry, and it doesn't need to be like that. Like our bodies are wired for survival, especially babies, they are resilient, and again it's so hard to talk about these things because I know that some people experience pregnancy loss, and I don't again want to make that seem like I don't know, I'm getting all into knots because it's an it's an emotional situation, but my point is it's not on you in terms of your pregnancy outcome, I don't think, um, and in terms of the health of your baby. You know, some babies will have certain health conditions, some won't. I don't think it's helpful to point the finger at the mum and be like, oh, well, if you just ate more broccoli in your pregnancy, it would be different. You know, you hear people saying, Oh, you shouldn't eat sugar in your pregnancy. The well-known influence influence at the moment that's saying, Oh, you know, you shouldn't eat prep sugar in your pregnancy, because then it's like some of us don't have a choice. So just rest assured that if you are trying to eat anything when you feel so horrible, if you are trying to get one ready salted crisp down you when you feel so horrible, this is how I visualised it. I visualize that the baby doesn't, the baby doesn't know what energy is coming in, they just need some kind of energy to keep going. My body has got stores, my body has got minerals in my bones, my body has got muscle, my body has got fat, my body has got so much stuff that can be used to help this baby, and we'll deal with me later. And you know what? It did take me a while to rebuild my muscle. I lost a lot of weight in my pregnancy. Um, and that's annoying as well, isn't it? We go, oh my god, you look you're amazing, you haven't you don't you haven't even gained any weight, and you're like, thank you, I haven't eaten for nine months. Um but the the you know the other thing is that I was worried about my own, I was worried about my business. I was worried about the fact that I was missing out on life, that summer was happening outside and I wasn't part of it. I didn't go to any antenatal groups. I wasn't looking up, you know, I wasn't researching about what happens when you have a baby. I didn't do any research, I just blocked it out to be honest. I tried my best to process my feelings as I was going through it, and I do think that and again I had support, but there was times when my husband was out and my mother, because I also was living and I still live with my in-laws, so you know, I didn't have to do cooking, cleaning, that sort of stuff. Again, I'm I'm really lucky and grateful for that. Um but I really struggled to let other people take care of me. I was trying to like scrub the kitchen and then I'd feel sick for like a week, and they were like, What are you doing? Just just rest. And it's so confronting if you're someone that's been quite a go, go, go person, to sit there or lie there or however, and you're just surviving and you don't. It's like this question like, who am I without the job, without the social hobbies, without football, or without the gym, or without my this, that whatever. Like even laughing at a joke would make me feel sick. Even talking would make me feel sick. I love talking, can't get enough of it. That's why I started a podcast. So there's a lot of identity shifts as well that go through there as well. So I think I did manage to process a lot of it, but when I came out of the pregnancy, I still had quite a lot of fear about what if this would happen again. Um, and that, and then I went to counselling to address that. Um but my point being, I am now fit and well, I run 5Ks with a buggy, I am building muscle again, like my body did recover, I'm fine, you know. Um I have an amazing social life now, like other mum friends, other friends, like groups. There was so much on the other side of that pregnancy that that I gained. Um, and I just I just couldn't see it when I was in there because you can't see it when you're in there because you just feel rubbish. I just want to give a message of hope, you know, that it's it's so hard right now, it's so rubbish right now, but you will get through it and you will be okay. Um in terms of medications and and stuff like that, I I would highly encourage you to check out the Pregnancy Sickness Charity because they do have like a full on in-depth document about how it all works and stuff like that. I think in terms of things that helped me, the first thing would be that timer, just like literally getting through 10 minutes, um, just to break up the day. Um, I effectively became nocturnal. Um I I just I felt like later in the day I would get a spurt of energy and um I I would maybe be able to do like something like brush my teeth. Like I I you know um I mean that was the other thing, is like just feeling like you're so unwell that you can't take care of yourself. So like driving to appointments was just a nightmare. If I was to do it again, I would pretty much demand that the midwives came out to see me. I don't understand why I had to go into the appointments myself because I couldn't drive myself, so someone else had to drive me. But when you're postpartum, they come to your house anyway, and it's the same people, it's the same community of midwives. So I couldn't understand that at all. Um and find out where you can get IV fluids, um, and if you have to go to AE or if your GP can refer you. Because I was about 12 weeks at the peak of it. So I remember the person, and I'm so grateful for this person as well, who basically gave up her time to message me throughout my whole pregnancy and after my pregnancy, she was called Asher, and she but she just said she showed me a graph and it said, look, this is when for most people, not everybody, but for most people, it peaks at 12 to 13 weeks. This is when it peaks, because at that point the placenta starts taking over the hormone production, and then it doesn't, it's not as highly concentrated in your body as it was up until 12 weeks. So like weeks eight to 13 were like the worst for me. But I just had that hope of like, okay, okay, I'm nearly there, I'm nearly there, I'm nearly there, okay. And then at 14 weeks, it did start to go down like a step, so I was able to then go for a walk, you know, and um go outside for like 10 minutes. And I suppose I was able to start appreciating the little things, like sitting outside in the garden and just looking um at this at the sunlight, you know, and I was able to a bit later on go and see my friends. Like I would see my friends maybe like once a month, and we'd even go for food, like it kind of made me want to vomit, but I was also like I was so hungry, like I've I've never been so hungry where you haven't eaten for days or you haven't drunk water, or like I would wake up. I I there was one night when I was dreaming about being in a desert, and I woke up and my mouth was so dry, like I can't explain. Like, I I felt the inside of my mouth, and it was like yeah, I was completely parched, and I'd just been dreaming about being in the desert because I was so dehydrated. I will say the second time I went to AE, which was later on when the medications weren't working, um, and I needed more medication. Um, I was ringing 111 on the phone and I was getting delirious, and I was getting to the point where I couldn't answer their questions. I was wanting to fall asleep, I was wanting to not go. Um, and if I didn't have people with me then, I don't know if I would have passed out or anything like that. So I think it's incredibly important to make sure that you are putting any pride you have, any I can do it myself individuality aside and taking care of your safety, you know, especially if you've got other kids around and that sort of thing. I was at the point where I was on the phone to them, I couldn't answer their questions, and you know, they were asking me about things and I was slowing down and then they and slurring my speech and stuff because I was so dehydrated, and then I got delirious to the point where I was like being silly and laughing and just being weird, and that's when my family looked at me and they were like, Right, we are going to AE right now, and I was like, No, I just want to sleep, and it's like dehydration is so dangerous. Like on the one hand, I wanna on the one hand I want to be like you'll be fine, you you will be fine, and you will if you get appropriate treatment. You need appropriate treatment, you need to be seen by doctors who can advise on what you need, and you need to be seen by doctors and nurses that will take your symptoms seriously and will understand that a person can't go for unlimited days without drinking water. You need to drink water, you need to you need to have the kind of help that you that you need to keep to keep healthy as best as you can. But we don't need to be perfectionist about it and we're a lot more resilient than it feels like we are in this moment. So yeah, please make sure you have someone with you if you're getting like that. Like if you start to notice the signs of being really dehydrated, then it's time to go to AE and get seen, or at least ring 111, or at least ring for support from your family, friends, partner, whoever it is. Um I'm trying to think of other things that helped me. Oh, right, that was the other thing. I kind of touched on it earlier. So the first thing that really helped not the first thing, I don't even know how many things we're on now, but something that helped me was the GP saying the baby's a parasite, it's just gonna take what it needs. That that I actually maybe that's a bit intense for some people. I don't know. It actually made me feel so much better because it made me think well, at least the baby's getting what they need. Like, at least, you know, and she made she she just said, you know, there's people all over the world that don't have optimum nutrition, they don't have folic acid supplements, and they give birth to healthy babies all the time. And I just I I just was like, okay, I needed needed that evidence to be like, I'm okay. I um I watched YouTube videos where people would say this is my fourth high premises pregnancy, and one of them said to me, if well to me, to everyone, she said to the people watching, she said, if this is your first baby, it's really hard to see what you're making. And I remember this, I've had other friends that have been pregnant since, and they go, and maybe they don't have high premises, but they go, I'm so tired. I'm so tired, I'm just why am I so tired? Why am I and I'm like, because you're building an entire life. I had my toddler with me, and literally held her up in front of my friend and went, This is what you're making, you're making one of these. I think we just don't give enough credit to pregnancy. Like, it of course it's tiring. You're literally creating a whole new thing. And like, in terms of the fitness industry, I remember like two men talking about it on a podcast, and they were saying, When you build muscle and you're trying to get bigger muscles, you have to eat a lot more and you end up exhausted. And they were saying, I've just realized like their wife went through pregnancy, and they were like, Yeah, that's why it's so tiring. Because I find it tiring just trying to build a few kilos of muscle, and that's like just having to eat more and feeling sluggish. Pregnancy is a whole different thing, you're building an entire human, and when it's your first baby, and I I feel like this now, I feel like if I was to do it again, I'd have so much more faith because I'm like, I know what the end product is. Like when you're pregnant, you can't see it. It kind of all feels pointless, I think. You're just like, oh great, so what have I done? I've now got pregnant, my life is crap, I feel awful, I hate every second of it, and I just can't wait for it to be over. And you forget that at the end of that, you're gonna have a baby, and you're gonna have a child who's like you know, like that's what you're making, and I think that really helped because she just said, You just you can't imagine the love you're gonna have for that child, and and again, I will say I didn't feel I controversial, I didn't feel that love instantly, I just felt this weird, like, make sure no one takes that baby away from me, but I didn't feel like this magical fall in love moment. Um, it took time to get to know them, but now I'm like, right, I couldn't see that at the time. Um medication helped me, that was a big one. Medication helped um to yeah, just help me to eat and drink, so I think that's an important one. And a combination of medications helped. If I was to do it again, again, I'm not your I'm not your GP, please check with your GP. I would probably potentially be even more aggressive with my medication because this time around I would have a child to look after, not on my own, of course, but I would have a child to look after. I would like to keep my business running again. Many people have to work, maybe many people have to, you know, I'd have to be like cooking and all that sort of stuff. So I would probably be less ashamed of being like, no, I still feel rubbish, I need some more medication. Um that graph of when it gets a bit easier, um, that helped me. The the graph of like after 13 weeks it gets easier. I think it helped me just to know that what I'm going through doesn't feel fair, it's horrible, and just by keeping yourself as hydrated as you can, every single tiny sip of water that you manage, every single time that you remember to take your medication, um and the other thing was the medication was I probably wasn't on a schedule enough because I had to take it every four hours when I was on two different ones. Um being a bit more on it with that and setting alarms and taking it and setting alarms and taking it and not letting the hours lapse. I think that helped a bit more. But every single time you do something for yourself like that, you are doing everything you need to do. And also, you know, I couldn't brush my teeth for a few weeks. I maybe brush my teeth every few days because it would just make me vomit. Um, I yeah, I lost sense of night and day. I um I would sleep all the time. Um I think it's just like removing the shame of that and being like you're really unwell. Um I I couldn't stand the smell of my husband, like I was literally like I cannot stand this. Getaway from me. Um and just like there is for me anyway, there was grief that came up. I would listen to these podcasts and just cry. I would just cry and I watch the videos and just cry and just feel like somebody gets it, somebody actually understands what I'm going through, and I would be scared and I would and at one point I was scared I was gonna die because it can be a life-threatening condition, and I think it's hard as well when people around you like my family don't live with me, my parents and stuff, so they didn't quite understand what I was going through, and they'd be like I don't know, just just just not if you don't see it, you don't understand what it's like. My partner was also quite affected by it because he was worried I was gonna choke on my own sick when I was asleep, he was worried that I wasn't getting enough water, he was scared, and so I think if you do have a partner, if possible, you know, getting them to have some support around them as well, because caring for someone in any capacity is really hard work and it is scary, and I think sometimes they get forgotten because obviously there's an immediate crisis in front of you, which is how do we keep the ill person safe, but they also matter, and I think getting some kind of counselling afterwards if you can. Um, I got mine through a charity. Um, but if you can get some kind of counselling afterwards to kind of debrief on that situ on the entire pregnancy, because it's also like it's a bit of a marathon, it's like it can be nine months nearly or more than that of this fear and this effort, you know, like having to bring all my food down to me if I needed it, having to drive me to appointments, like having to do basically everything for me. Um what else helped me? I think also just like being able to be angry about it, because I think there can be a guilt that comes with I wanted this pregnancy. I know that everybody has to really fight for their pregnancy and they have to really, you know, I didn't have to go through IVF, I didn't have to, right, you know, I d I didn't I didn't really struggle to get pregnant. Why am I being so ungrateful for this pregnancy? And it's like you're not being ungrateful at all. Two things can be true at once. You can be so grateful for the pregnancy, even if you're not grateful for the pregnancy. Like, I don't think there's any point in denying how you really feel. Like, I think it's like this is how you feel right now, and you need to feel those feelings to get those feelings out and to be feeling okay. So I think for me, what helped was like, like I said, the reason I've made this podcast is because I wanted to add to the library of I would listen to people talking, be sat in my bed, listen to people, you know, people would be out at work or something, and I'd be on my own and I'd just be feeling so lonely. And I didn't know how to express what I was feeling because I couldn't even really talk because that would make me vomit, and I didn't want to burden them anymore because I knew that they were already see that they were already seeing how unwell I was and they were already working so hard, and it really helped to just listen to other people's experiences and just be like, I just I just like I feel like crying now because I re I remember just grieving, like, I don't know, the lost time or the worry or the fear or like what am I what what's gonna happen? Am I gonna be okay? Is the baby gonna be okay? I didn't know about this. I felt maybe like a bit blindsided as well because I didn't know that this could be a thing. I didn't know that this could happen. I'd planned uh I'd planned like a nine-month exit strategy to my business to be able to have an online business. I didn't think I would lose lose everything overnight. I didn't lose everything, but I felt like I'd lost everything, you know. That business stayed kind of, it had like a little heartbeat that carried on, and it's kind of it's like it's kind of like grown alongside my my baby. So, you know, it kind of like I kind of started a new business, a baby business, kind of like survived through my pregnancy, and then when my baby was a couple of months old, maybe like four or five months old, then I kind of re-invented my business into this version I have now, and I love it, I love it more than I ever have. But there's lots of stuff that can be tangled up in this, the financial side can be tangled up in it. If you're employed, the workplace depends on how they do they deal with it. So getting support and also processing your feelings, however that looks for you, and you don't have to process it all at once as well. Like there was times when I would turn on a video and I'd see that someone had makeup, and I know this is I don't know, judgy, petty, I don't know, I don't know what what it is, but I'd see that she had makeup, and I go, No, I can't, I can't. She's doing better than I am, and I don't believe you, I don't believe that you feel ill because you look really amazing and you look great. And it's like that's not helping anyone, is it? Because everybody's different, you know. Some people could say, Oh, well, you went for walks, you must have been feeling fine. And they think it's that whole thing of like it's not a competition, we all deal with it differently, we all have different things. If this video, maybe this person is doing what I'm doing now, and they just like I need to get this, I need to get this message out to support anyone else who's going through it, like, good for them, and like thank you for putting the videos out. Um, because for most people, you're not gonna have a whole channel about high premises gravidarum, it's gonna be a random detour to your normal content. So I just think the more of us that can put out stuff like this to kind of make you feel held in this time, which is so hard. I don't know. I hope it helps. Um, I think that's all. I've got to say, I'm sure like I've blocked out a lot. I mean, I know I even recorded a video series when I was pregnant and they just didn't have the heart to edit it, I don't think. But yeah, I will link the pregnancy sickness support charity in the description. Um, and I hope if you're going through this right now, just hang on in there. Like you're doing so well. You are however you're feeling is valid, whatever symptoms you're having, they're valid. Like you don't need to prove anything, you just need to try your best to take care of yourself and don't be ashamed if you haven't brushed your teeth in like eight days, because it's fine, your teeth will be fine, your teeth will be fine. Um, but I know you probably feel disgusted at the thought that you haven't, but like all that, you know, and just if this is how I got through the worst days, right? I would have one of those massive, massive bags of ready salted crisps. The other thing is this doesn't work for me, but some people said that drinking liquids other than water would help. Didn't work for me, but might work for them or for you. I would just buy like I don't even know, like a huge family-sized, even bigger than like a party-sized pack of ready salted crisps, and I would just eat one, and for some reason, in the moment where I crunched under my tongue, the nausea would subside for like that min that that that like second. And I would just very, very slowly pace myself and just do that. And I know not everybody wants to be having loads of salt, um, but just as a concept, you know, there's textures of food as well that sometimes can help, maybe, but I'm not gonna be someone that's like, if you just eat crackers, then your nausea will go away, because it won't probably. Um, but that that was something that helped me. So, yes, you're doing really well, you're doing amazing. This experience is gonna just give you so much strength. I know it's rubbish, but yes, you got this, and I would say have a nice rest of your day. Have a have as nice of a rest of your day as you feel like you can. And I'll catch up with you soon.