It’s about time an article talks about the mental impacts of HG! I had it from week 6 to birth, I vomited 15 times a day without medication and 5 times with medication. I was hospitalised a few times and told to try eating, at one point I had a stomach bleed from the amount of vomiting and told I just needed to eat. I was lucky it was during lockdown otherwise I would have had to quit. At no stage did my care team check my mental health, they just kept telling me to hold on because it would end at 20 weeks, it did not! There’s no where near enough support for HG Mums and the host of health issues this causes, it’s treated like normal morning sickness but it isn’t. You feel like you’re trapped in your body, torn between the love you have for your baby and wanting it to be over.
I had HG my entire pregnancy, it was so hard to feel the connection to my baby because I hated the experience so much. Even with heavy duty medication I still vomited every day. I don’t think I could go through HG again, especially knowing how high the risk of me having it again is. And how little support or understanding there is for it.
I have a connective tissue disorder which makes my shoulders dislocate. I have gone to the ED and been told that because I’m not screaming they don’t believe it’s dislocated only to find out 6 months later that 75% of my labrum has detached. I’ve also had specialists blame my adrenal gland symptoms on PCOS even though my tests results don’t match that and the condition I was there for had no connection to PCOS. I’m not sure if it’s a gender problem or a problem dealing with people who have multiple medical conditions, but I’ve always had to fight hard and advocate for myself because when you have symptoms and results that fall outside the norms it makes getting answers let alone treatment so much harder! Not to mention the way it makes you feel when you’re dismissed, like is all this just in my head?
This is all so true! My 17 month old caught COVID off a dose and drop child last week, this is after her being home sick on and off for nearly a month. I’m into minus leave now and my husband works casually with no leave entitlements thanks to a new disability. It’s not just about which one of us is making a career sacrifice to look after our child, it feels like I’m forced to choose between my sick child and paying the bills and that’s a nasty place to be.
I was trying for nearly a year before I found out in April 2020 that I was pregnant. I ended up spending my entire pregnancy in lockdowns in Melbourne. Having a baby during a pandemic is isolating and hard, with no certainty about hospital rules and access to birthing classes. Likewise it made getting help for post partem depression so much harder with difficulty finding an available psychologist! But my daughter made all that worth it!
I was on antidepressants for severe depression and anxiety for 3 years, it allowed me to feel the highs and lows but not sink into the dark hole every time. I also did intense therapy to create coping mechanisms for when I was ready to come off my medication. The only side effects I experienced were weight gain and feeling like I was only using 75% of my brain for tasks. Coming off the medication was brutal, I had constant headaches for a month before my body readjusted but now I’ve been functioning without antidepressants for 3 years. Sometimes they’re just the leg up you need to be in a place to learn coping mechanisms.
There’s so much pressure to breastfeed our babies and when we choose not to there’s so much judgement! I formula fed from birth with my daughter, I had IUGR and a very complicated pregnancy. When I talked to the midwives and OBs at my hospital they constantly pushed me to breastfeed. Having an IUGR baby meant I’d be subjected to even more pressure about her weight gain and the uncertainty of my body being able to produce enough to let her gain weight was a variable I didn’t want to mess with. When I gave birth there was absolutely no support for me in the hospital for formula feeding, no one showed me how to bottle feed my daughter. It can become a hugely ostracising choice, I have to constantly justify to medical professionals, friends, family and other mums why I chose to never breastfeed my daughter and made to feel like I should have just tried. It’s so
I got into crocs when I was competition swimming, they saved me from tinea and meant I no longer had to wrangle socks over sticky chlorine feet. They’re so versatile and are very comfortable to wear. I guess I don’t care what people think, but if you are trying to hide them then black is probably the easier colour for that. White is pretty noticeable!
After struggling with infertility I finally got pregnant and then had hyperemesis gravidarum for my entire pregnancy. Vomiting 13 times a day was not what I had envisioned my miracle pregnancy being and then having to explain why I hated being pregnant to everyone was really hard. I had nearly every complication and I still had people saying to me “it’s not that bad”.
I had HG during my pregnancy, I was one of the unlucky women who was vomiting even during labour at 39 weeks. I lost 10kg in the first trimester and ended up having to work half days for the first trimester.
As someone who was born solely to be their sister’s guaranteed friend I can tell you this messed with my head. We are very close but when we had fights I would feel guilty that I wasn’t doing my ‘job’ right. And my sister never felt like she had to be my friend in return, she knew I would be there for her but it wasn’t always the same for me. Yes it’s nice to have kids who are friends but maybe don’t tell them that they were only wanted to be your other kid’s friend.
I’m 5 months into a very difficult pregnancy and at least once a week someone asks me if I’m planning on having more kids after this one. It was a miracle for me to even get pregnant and my husband and I are grateful to just be having a baby in the first place. I hated this question while going through fertility issues and I hate it now that I’m pregnant.
I understand how you feel, the constant fight between being half white and for me half Māori. I am lighter and like you that gives me privilege however it also means I am forced to justify my skin tone to white people, some people seem to believe they have a right to judge how Māori I am based on how dark my skin tone is. And like you I am forced to listen to racist conversations because my friends forget that I am half Māori. But I feel it is my duty to have the conversations my darker skinned cousins will never be included on, so I take every opportunity I am given to educate people on why the words they say have impact to someone of colour. It’s not about tearing apart other people’s opinions but educating each other on the differences in our culture and history, and acknowledging that we should all do better.