Hiatus

Imagine having the worst food-poisoning ever.  Everything you put into your stomach comes back up, even water.  Even when your stomach is empty you vomit bile, then blood, as your esophageal and stomach linings develop micro-tears from throwing up 3 times or more every day.  Strong smells, high temperatures, and loud noises also trigger vomiting.  You become dehydrated, malnourished, and lose weight rapidly.

Now imagine you are pregnant.  Your body starts to break itself down in order to provide nourishment for your growing baby.  You get hospitalized with an IV to get liquids and nutrients into you.  The doctors prescribe anti-emetics - the first one doesn't work.  They prescribe more drugs.  These curb some of the vomiting but not the constant nausea.  They tell you you must eat and drink no matter how sick you feel; the other options are continued hospitalization or a PICC line for the rest of your pregnancy.   

You go home and try to eat and drink regularly but are still vomiting once or twice a day.  A friend with a chronic digestive disease suggests an easier-to-digest diet with slow reintroduction of foods.  This, along with eliminating all smells from the house (unscented personal care & household cleaning products; hubby cooks outside on the barbecue or in the garage on a camping stove) is a lifesaver.  You slowly start to identify safe foods through trial and error, which also identifies your bad trigger foods.   

...

This has been my reality for the last 6 or so months.  After five years of trying to conceive and five unsuccessful fertility treatments, the IVF in February worked!  I am tremendously happy and cannot wait to meet my babe this fall, despite hyperemesis gravidarum setting in during the first month of my pregnancy and sticking around into my third trimester.  I still feel nauseous most days and I am still on a highly restricted diet, but by the start of third trimester I was back up to my pre-pregnancy weight and I'm working on putting on more.  Considering I dropped to the weight I was when I was 15, I'm counting that as a major triumph!  The vomiting has mostly stopped as well, which is another win in my books.  

So yeah.. not been updating social media regularly and probably won't be doing so for a while!