SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
SLJ Blog Network +
  • 100 Scope Notes
  • A Fuse #8 Production
  • Good Comics for Kids
  • Heavy Medal: A Mock Newbery Blog
  • Teen Librarian Toolbox
  • The Classroom Bookshelf
  • The Yarn
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • About TLT
  • Reviews
    • Book Reviews
    • A to Z Book Lists
    • Book Review Policy
  • Teen Issues
  • Middle Grade Mondays
  • Programs
    • TPiB
    • Tech Talk
  • Professional
    • Teen Services 101
    • Things We Didn’t Learn in Library School
  • MakerSpace
  • Projects
    • #SVYALit
    • #FSYALit
    • #MHYALit
    • #Poverty in YA Lit

May 15, 2015 by Karen Jensen, MLS

The Lingering Effects of Hyperemesis Gravidarum: the life taking, life altering beast

May 15, 2015 by Karen Jensen, MLS   8 comments

Today, May 15, is Hyperemesis Awareness Day. Hyperemesis gravidarum, according to the Hyperemesis Education and Research (HER) Foundation, is an extreme form of pregnancy sickness, defined as “unrelenting, excessive pregnancy-related nausea and/or vomiting that prevents adequate intake of food and fluids.” Affecting about one to three percent of pregnant women, HG can lead to weight loss, malnutrition and dehydration. In severe cases, it can lead to miscarriage and, rarely, it can be fatal.

Having already shared my story many times here at TLT, I enlisted the help of some of my friends, survivors themselves, to share their stories. Today Suzanne shares her thoughts about HG. HG impacts our teens in a variety of ways: a pregnant teen can find themselves suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum.  Or a pregnant mother in the home may find themselves suffering from HG, which has tremendous impact on everyone in the home.

SCROLL TO KEEP READING THIS POST

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

Hyperemesis is a beast that devours babies and mothers.

It took eight years of celebrating my son’s life, the joy I have as his mother, until the deaths stopped overwhelming me.  The due date he shares with his older sister who didn’t survive HG.  I think about my friend who announced her pregnancy the same week I did;  her child did not survive HG. I always think about the mom and twins who died the week my son was born alive.  All of them gone. All of them daily remembered.  But that same week I bake a cake and put up streamers, my grief deepens. Five lives lost in a year and remembered that week. My son, the sole survivor.

 

Some might say these thoughts mean I don’t appreciate or celebrate my son, but nothing could be further from my truth.  But the coincidence of all these dates and deaths make his birthday an emotionally confused time.  So much sorrow mixed in with the date of my child’s healthy birth.

 

Hyperemesis is a beast that chews up relationships.

“It was hard to love you when you were sick,” he said during counseling with a local pastor.  That truth cut me even more deeply than the pending divorce.  When I was most vulnerable and ill, I was not loved?

 

I am certain I was horrific during the short pregnancy that cost me my daughter; it was the worst time in my life. I know our living sons’ pregnancies were awful. I know the PPMADs that I suffered were intensified by the malnutrition and debilitation of HG, and that they made me miserable to be around. And I’m certain the postpartum diagnosis of Fibromyalgia, along with all of its pain and fatigue, made me a very poor partner.

 

But I wasn’t loved?

 

I know I’m not the only mom to hear such things from her partner. It was indescribable devastation on an already broken heart.

 

I’m certain HG contributed directly to the loss of my marriage, my children’s nuclear family, and the financial poverty in which my now smaller family lives.  The divorce also created a new grief: the loss of time of my living children.  I no longer get to be their mother in the way I should be. I am legally obligated to miss them 43% of the time, so they can be parented by the father.

 

Hyperemesis is a beast that swallows emotional safety: in other words, bring on the PTSD

Recently, I was driving on the Interstate to meet a friend for lunch when a wave of dizziness and nausea overwhelmed me.  I knew what was coming; after all, I have much experience with vomit.  There was no time or place to pull over safely at 75 mph. So I scanned for something to save my car from the impending puke. I grabbed an empty coffee cup and vomited violently, all the while guiding my car along the highway, looking for a safe place to stop.

 

I pulled over on a street off an exit ramp and parked. I sat in a puddle of urine from the force of the vomit. Shaking. Sobbing. Wondering where to put my coffee cup. I didn’t know how to get back on the highway, if I should drive with the shaking, crying, nausea, and the problem of the coffee cup. What should I do with my coffee cup full of puke?

 

I texted my friend that I wouldn’t make lunch, that I was ill. Then I waited for the waves of dizziness to pass and found the Interstate. It was long drive home.

 

I was still shaking when parked the car in the garage, went inside, and changed my clothes. It was a deep and intense panic. I paced the house and eventually had to leave its confines. I paced the neighborhood.  My heart was racing. My breathing  shallow. My thoughts spinning. I was hot. I was cold. I had to walk. I could not calm down. Scared. Sick. Alone. I could not stop worrying I’d never see my children again, where all fear and panic take me since HG and since divorce. I was terrified.

 

I eventually knocked on a neighbor’s door.  We sat on her deck with iced tea and talked. Well, I talked and she listened. My panicked thoughts. My frustrations with schools. My financial issues. She listened some more. Nodded where appropriate. Said things to comfort me.

 

I was hours into my full blown anxiety attack when she spoke words that shocked me. Slack jawed and wide eyed, I shut up for the first time since knocking on her door.

 

She asked again. “Could you be pregnant?”

 

The answer should have been obvious since I had a tubal ligation years earlier, my period had stopped., and I am unmarried and celibate. But I had to really think about my answer for a while.

 

“No, that would be impossible.”

 

“You puked once and will probably feel better tomorrow. You’re not pregnant. So what’s the problem?”

 

My heart beat was slowing. “I can’t be pregnant. I’m single, sterilized, and menopausal.”
She laughed, “You see? This won’t last.”

 

She was right. The hours of panic and terror, for I was truly feeling terror, were because I have PTSD from pregnancy. Hyperemesis Gravidarum does that to a woman.

 

SCROLL TO KEEP READING THIS POST

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

My neighbor’s question was exactly what I needed to hear to stop the terror. I was simply sick, not pregnant, not going to suffer through HG for nine months, experience another loss, have my life split open and spit out by the beast. I have PTSD.  It really was just puke.

 

Hyperemesis is a beast that digests joy

The loss of joy in pregnancy is something HG moms frequently discuss when pregnant and postpartum, but a decade later, I don’t think much about that omission. I don’t even give much thought to the dehydration, malnutrition, medications, or mind-altering nausea.  What occupies my thoughts when I look back aren’t the moments of pregnancy lost or endured,  it is how Hyperemesis Gravidarum completely altered every facet of my life.

 

That is my lingering effect from the beast.

Meet Our Guest Blogger:

Suzanne is a writer and teacher of writing. She is teaches in the University of Michigan Summer Bridge Program and is a Writing Consultant in the University of Michigan Rackham Graduate School. She has two sons, one cat, and one guinea pig.  She has had HG three times.

More on HG:

The ABCs of HG: an unconventional picture book (Karen’s story)

Teen Issues: Teen Pregnancy and Complications

Teen Pregnancy and Complications, HG and pregnancy termination (An anonymous story)

Life’s Bilest Moments, HG poetry

There’s No Sister Like an HG Sister

We were going to have a brother but got a sister instead, a tween’s story

World HG Awareness Day, just the facts

Chocolate Chip Cookies and Turkey Sandwiches

Fighting the HG War, an anonymous guest post

My Brother’s Sweatshirt, a story of HG

Sunday Reflections: Why I Care About Kate Middleton’s Pregnancy

“It’s like Bella, without the vampires” – how a YA novel helps me explain Hyperemesis Gravidarum (#HGDay15)

Please share with others to help us raise awareness.  The key to a successful HG pregnancy is early and aggressive treatment.  Get more information at the Hyperemesis and Education Research Foundation (HER) at www.helpher.org

Filed under: HG, HG Awareness, HG Awareness Day, Hyperemesis Gravidarum

SHARE:

Read or Leave Comments

About Karen Jensen, MLS

Karen Jensen has been a Teen Services Librarian for almost 30 years. She created TLT in 2011 and is the co-editor of The Whole Library Handbook: Teen Services with Heather Booth (ALA Editions, 2014).

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Posts

May 2016

Sunday Reflections: The Teen, Me, Genetics and HG (Hyperemesis Gravidarum World Awareness Day)

by Karen Jensen, MLS

May 2015

“It’s like Bella, without the vampires” – how a YA novel helps me explain Hyperemesis Gravidarum (#HGDay15)

by Karen Jensen, MLS

September 2014

Sunday Reflections: Why I Care About Kate Middleton's Pregnancy, reflections on HG

by Karen Jensen, MLS

May 2013

HG Awareness Day

by Karen Jensen, MLS

December 2012

Reflections: When is a Prank More Than Just a Prank? What I learned from 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher

by Karen Jensen, MLS

ADVERTISEMENT

SLJ Blog Network

100 Scope Notes

Sydney Taylor Blog Tour: THE TOWER OF LIFE by Chana Stiefel and Susan Gal

by Travis Jonker

A Fuse #8 Production

Abecedarian Movement and Dance: A Q&A with Corinna Luyken About ABC and You and Me!

by Betsy Bird

Good Comics for Kids

Akim Aliu Dreamer | This Week’s Comics

by Lori Henderson

Heavy Medal

What’s Coming in 2023, A Feedback Poll, and Goodbye for Now…

by Steven Engelfried

Teen Librarian Toolbox

Writing Trans Joy in Spite of Everything, a guest post by Edward Underhill

by Amanda MacGregor

The Classroom Bookshelf

The Classroom Bookshelf is Moving

by Erika Thulin Dawes

The Yarn

A Book 25 Years in the Making: Marla Frazee Visits The Yarn

by Travis Jonker

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Articles on SLJ

Best Young Adult Books 2020 | SLJ Best Books

Books To Blow Your Mind | Pondering Printz

Time to Refresh the Canon: Here Are Our Picks

Best Young Adult Books 2022 | SLJ Best Books

10 Titles Featuring Twins for Middle Grade and YA Readers

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Rena says

    July 27, 2017 at 12:27 pm

    Hi There – 16 years after my first pregnancy (I had HG with all three of my pregnancies), something struck me that HG might be the cause of my severe sweating disorder. No one has been able to help me figure it out all these years, but this morning I woke up thinking that perhaps it has something to do with the hyperemesis since it came on after the birth of my first child. After my first pregnancy something had changed dramatically in my system. My body temperature was completely thrown off and I would have intense waves of heat flush my face and my face would drip with sweat. It would be akin to a hot flash but just in my face…lasting for 16 years straight. Has anyone else had this experience?

  2. Erin says

    October 9, 2018 at 11:00 pm

    I haven’t had your experience, but I’ve been changed by HG physically and emotionally. I find myself at wits end. I’ve suffered for four years (so far) with chronic and unrelenting nausea and gastric issues since having HG during my pregnancy. I have no answers or solutions…it is a daily struggle…it’s the HG prison…

  3. Trilene says

    December 29, 2018 at 1:47 am

    Hi I was pregnant in 2016 and had HG it confused the doctors for 2 weeks. It has taken away alot for me I still have a problem walking it’s now 2018 time is flying by and it still hurts so much.

    • Karen Jensen, TLT says

      December 30, 2018 at 10:12 am

      I am so very sorry to hear this. I send love to all my fellow HG survivors, always. I wish you nothing but the best and healing.

  4. Jeanelle M says

    March 5, 2019 at 5:31 pm

    I have experienced 6 pregnancies (1 of which was twins) and all I had HG with. I lost the twins and one other pregnancy . It was horrible from beginning to end with all 6 pregnancies. In and out of hospital, high risk pregnancies and even had a pic line. I am wondering about the long term effects for the mom. I now have an esophageal motility disorder and every few years I have to get esophagus expanded with a balloon. I have a lot of gastrointestinal issues. Has anyone heard of a coralation? 3 of my 4 kids have neurological issues and my kids were born with low birth weights as they were born premature.

  5. Beck says

    July 30, 2019 at 6:29 pm

    I suffered from HG also and lost my twins.. my body gave up.. I’m still suffering the after effects and the emotional blockage.. it’s like it never happened. Nobody asks you if you are ok or how are you handling things.. it’s like they also just want to ignore the fact my babies were lost.. or when I was pregnant cause nobody had heard of HG I was always told I was over reacting.. “it’s just morning sickness” “youll be right” i lost 10kg and was constantly in hospital as I couldn’t eat or even stand a sip of water.. mean while trying to get the strengths to look after my two year old.. i had no help, no family or friends.. my partner worked away two weeks at a time.. now i have to watch what i eat.. some smells still get me and it makes me gag which sends me into a panic attack.. i hate this..

  6. Nicole Salameh Haddad says

    February 9, 2021 at 10:51 pm

    I have had 3 HG pregnancies. My last was 2 years ago. I suffer from fatigue, depression, and mental fog. If I am sick with a stomach bug I will do anything to not throw up. I know that HG has put a strain on my marriage. We are still together and I hope that we will always be together. I wonder if I will ever feel healthy again and lose all the weight I have gained probably from malnutrition during my pregnancies and then breastfeeding after each pregnancy. My blessing is that all my children are alive and healthy.

  7. Mum of 2 HG 1 non HG says

    December 6, 2021 at 8:27 pm

    Rena
    Hope you get this, my first 2 kids was HG pregnancies, 1st my daughter was severe full term hg, and you know what, I never connected they dots before but since then I have had drenching night sweats, with no cause. I wonder if anyone else has experienced this..

    Anyone else had vomiting episodes since HG? Every few months I had extremely horrific reminders of hg with up to 3 days of non stop vomiting it is awful. And there is no cause according to my doctor.

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

Follow This Blog

Enter your email address below to receive notifications of new blog posts by email.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

Primary Sidebar

  • News & Features
  • Reviews+
  • Technology
  • School Libraries
  • Public Libraries
  • Age Level
  • Ideas
  • Blogs
  • Classroom
  • Diversity
  • People
  • Job Zone

Reviews+

  • Book Lists
  • Best Books
  • Media
  • Reference
  • Series Made Simple
  • Tech
  • Review for SLJ
  • Review Submissions

SLJ Blog Network

  • 100 Scope Notes
  • A Fuse #8 Production
  • Good Comics for Kids
  • Heavy Medal
  • Neverending Search
  • Teen Librarian Toolbox
  • The Classroom Bookshelf
  • The Yarn

Resources

  • 2022 Youth Media Awards
  • The Newbery at 100: SLJ Celebrates the 100th Anniversary of the Award
  • Special Report | School Libraries 2021
  • Summer Reading 2021
  • Series Made Simple Spring 2021
  • SLJ Diverse Books Survey
  • Summer Programming Survey
  • Research
  • White Papers / Case Studies
  • School Librarian of the Year
  • Mathical Book Prize Collection Development Awards
  • Librarian/Teacher Collaboration Award

Events & PD

  • In-Person Events
  • Online Courses
  • Virtual Events
  • Webcasts
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
  • Media Inquiries
  • Newsletter Sign Up
  • Content Submissions
  • Data Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Terms of Sale
  • FAQs
  • Diversity Policy
  • Careers at MSI


COPYRIGHT © 2023


COPYRIGHT © 2023