This post if for family and friends of women suffering hyperemesis gravidarum who don’t really know what is happening to their friend but would like to know more so they can help and support them… because that’s what family and friends do right… help and support each other!
Today I have an important guest post for those of you recovering from hyperemesis gravidarum, or for those in the thick of it who want to focus on the future and what you can achieve once you've survived this endurance. Susie's story is inspirational, it's positive and rewarding. Please read it and show her the support of the HG community which she is supporting with her abiding endurance.
Pregnancy is a strange phase of life… it seems that as soon as you get that little blue line everyone and his dog has nonsense advice and ludicrous old wives tales about the condition you’re in… from whether your bump “looks like” a boy or a girl to advice about not raising your arms above your head or the cord will wrap around the babies neck…
Okay okay, so the HG world rallied! And I’m not a quitter!
Thank you all for your kind messages of support and appreciation for my work. I’ll carry on for now!
Last weekend I was at the Britmums conference and I attended a seminar entitled “Shouting Back: Women’s voices loud, proud & online”. In it we heard how easy it is [for celebrities like Katy Hill] to “make a difference” just by tweeting occasionally. At the end I had the opportunity to ask a question of the esteemed panel and I so I explained what I do and asked if they had any tips about keeping motivated for those of us trying to raise awareness day in and day out online when it feels like our voices are just lost. I was helpfully informed by the aforementioned celeb that what I ought to do to raise awareness about hyperemesis gravidarum is “write a blog post about your experience of the condition and how it’s the thing Kate Middleton suffered with…. And then, like… tweet it!”, Easy!!!
HG mum, Cheryl Arumugum contacted me a few weeks ago in order to nominate someone special as her HG hero. In the past my HG Hero posts have featured husbands, doctors, children and other people directly supporting women during a hyperemesis pregnancy. But HG heroes aren't just those people who help us practically at our most sick… for many women the recovery from hyperemesis gravidarum can be a long and exhausting road and it is during that recovery that we may meet people who can make the world of difference! Here Cheryl pays tribute to her HG Hero Sandra Zocher who, through kindness, support and pure fun has helped Cheryl regain her confidence and vigour for life which HG had been holding prisoner....
Since the hugely successful launch of my book on hyperemesis gravidarum last year I’ve been slogging away on another little project aimed at helping families battling the condition with children in tow.
The time has come… I must generate income in order to help fund the Hyperemesis Improvement Movement. I already donate vast amounts of money to the UK effort (not to mention working full time for free supporting women and running PSS) and I would like to be able to do more!
You have a cupboard full of antiemetics and know which one to take for every possible “type” of nausea
On Monday I hosted the Pregnancy Sickness Support Healthcare Professional Conference in Birmingham which saw a host of excellent speakers discuss the services they are running for women with hyperemesis gravidarum. We were lucky also that Caroline De Bie from The Pregnancy and Medicine Initiative was able to fly over from Brussels for the event to present. I asked her to write about her experience of the day...
“It’s fashionable now the Duchess has had it, they all want it”
Oh yes, and if the Duchess broke her leg the mothers of Britain would head to the nearest play part and hurl themselves off the climbing frame to sport a matching plaster cast. Obviously.
As you know, along with the wonderful Tony, I answer a lot of the Pregnancy Sickness Support helpline calls that come through from desperately ill women needing help, information and support. This week I had to have a really difficult conversation with a young woman who wants to be a mum and indeed is pregnant with a baby they have been trying for some months to conceive.
This week saw an episode of Call the Midwife in which a women who was suffering Hyperemesis Gravidarum was given a drug called Thalidomide. The programme is set in the 1960's and while the women suffering portrayed the horrors of hyperemesis very well, the miraculous cure of the drug was perhaps a little overstated... I don't think even Thalidomide had that much of a wondrous effect on full blown HG! Anyway, that's by the by... We all know the devastating effects Thalidomide caused when taken between days 35-50 of pregnancy. It must be historically one of the most Teratogenic drugs (a medication which causes abnormalities in a developing foetus) ever to have been given in pregnancy and it is thanks to this the danger of using treatments without proper analysis and adequate testing was exposed and no longer happens.
At the risk of sounding like I'm just trying to big myself up and win stuff... there really is a good reason for voting for me. Getting the subject of hyperemesis gravidarum into the public eye is vital! By the HG community speaking up in the form of votes, nominations, completing surveys and so on makes everyone else realise it's a subject worth talking about.
I speak to women day in and day out about hyperemesis gravidarum and the all consuming impact it can have on their lives, not just during pregnancy but for many years afterwards too. The biggest taboo has got to be the issue of termination for the condition. To say it's common would be an understatement. These are not terminations of unwanted babies. Many of these are babies which were planned and tried for within happy and healthy relationships. Some are babies which took months, years and even IVF to conceive. Others are babies conceived by “surprise” yet none the less wanted and welcome.
Why, in 2015, is it still okay for doctors, midwives, nurses and society in general to treat sick people like idiots?
Following the launch of Hyperemesis Gravidarum - The Definitive Guide (HGDG) and it's amazing reception in the HG Community I've now got time to focus on a couple of other projects I've had up my sleeve for a few years.
As some of you know I've been working hard to develop collaborative relationships between organisations such as PSS and the Pregnancy & Medicine Initiative. There is only so much individuals and small organisations can do on their own and by pooling our resources and working together we can reach larger audiences and have a greater impact nationally and internationally. I've featured a post by Caroline before and since then our working relationship has strengthened further and last week saw the launch of a joint fundraising and leaflet distributing project to get information about medication in pregnancy to the women who need it. Over to Caroline to tell you more about this important and exciting project:
When the toothpaste foams just a little too much, or I swill my mouth and spit in the sink... sometimes it still makes me retch.
