Fighting Nausea in Pregnancy

Pregnancy is crazy!! it's exciting, but also very...very...crazy! And the crazy part is (well, there are lots of crazy parts aside being able to grow a beautiful baby inside of you)...that you don't know how your body will react to pregnancy (if you've never been pregnant)...OR if each pregnancy will be different.

Want to know another crazy thing about pregnancy?? Most women go through the hardest part alone. I mean, I understand why. The first trimester is usually a delicate time where miscarriage chances are high, and I understand why we keep it a secret...BUT it is hard. Most women are sick during that time, and are finally feeling better once they announce, but thats when they need help and support!! Isnt that crazy!! 

I feel so bad for anyone going through morning sickness alone, and dont know what to do about it.

This is what i feel like nauseous or how bad i feel for others feeling nauseous!

 I have talked to soooooooooo many women recently about what I do for my nausea, but a lot of them just got out of their sick stage, and their like "welp...next time, i guess" So, that is why I am writing this post. Hopefully I can "catch" some of you before you go into the "sick zone"...this is for you who havent been pregnant, or anyone who could be pregnant in the future, or a friend that you know of that is struggling. 

So, to spread the news of what I found, we first need to go through "my story"

I got pregnant in the last semester at BYU #funnysidenote...i was going in for a colonoscopy to find out about my celiac disease, and I had already done the horrible prep, and they asked if I was pregnant, since I didnt know they did a test right then and said i couldnt do the colonoscopy because i was pregnant!!!!...HAHA isnt that the funniest way to find out??? I started throwing up from the crazy prep they make you do..bleh, but that was only the beginning of being sick!!!

ok, back from the side note. We were soooo excited to be pregnant #natewashystericallyexcited #heisthecutest   but little did we know that the next 9 months would be the hardest of my life.  

my pregnancies come with 3 main things that make it hard: 

1. crazy nausea 

2. intense pain with walking (or SPD, read my post on it here) 

3. severe Ante Partum Depression, or depression while pregnant, I will write a post on how I have overcome that in the near future)

So, the nausea started around 5 weeks and I call my mom. I love my mom, she is like a super woman AND she has had 11 kids!! #reallifehero Anyway, she told me to eat frequently to keep the nausea down. Ok, got that down, I ate like a horse it seemed, but it only kept it "down," like "slightly" better than dying... I didn't know what else to do, and with classes and being sick all the time, and needing to sleep I didnt really look up anything else, thats all my mom said she had done and said it worked for her...little did I know that I had crazy intense nausea that would last my whole pregnancy, every day, all day. 

So, for ease of explaining I am going to use a scale of 1-10 to describe my nausea. You know that point right before you throw up that is horrible that you know you'll throw up any minute, thats a 10 in my book. worst. feeling. ever!

So, i would rate my nausea for the first 18 weeks (4 months) a constant 10 or 11. Seriously, I wanted to die all the time, never ending. Even at night. i slept with a bowl in my arms. I didn't throw up, just super nauseous (except the whole 11th week i threw up, I almost was hospitalized because I couldnt keep anything down)  

Anyway, back to the story. Around 12 weeks i realized that mint seemed to subside it down to an 8 for the time i could taste the mint (if I wasnt too hungry) so i ate mint gum all day every day until I delivered eli! I would chew a new peice of gum every 20 mins. It was crazy!

Luckily around 18 weeks, something happened and it went down to a 7 most of the time, and I could go more than 30 seconds without being nauseous, sometimes even 5 mins! But it still was my constant companion fluctuating from a 5-10 anytime. 

Then around 7 months it lowered down to a 3 or 4 most of the time, and every few days I'd be back up in the 6-8 range. but i was feeling much better...if you can call any type of nausea better #butlesswasbetteriguess

Lets just say I was so glad to have eli and be free from nausea. I mean, i could actually eat when i felt hungry. Feeling hungry felt soooo good, since the last 9 months, nausea replaced any type of hunger, and that is why I gained 40 lbs, because I ate every 30 mins for 9 months!!! #dontjudgepregnantwomen #wedowhatwehaveto

So that's my first pregnancy story... I know some of you had it worse than I did and were throwing up the whole time. Some were hospitalized or knew the ER very well. Some of you throw up the whole first tri then feel better, and some just nausea for the first tri. BUT i think some of these things will help most of you!

Things that made it worse:

-being hot

-being hungry/low blood sugar (so candy/sugar will do this to you, so watch out for that)

-being over tired

You are probably wondering: Why I didnt do anything about it:

-well, I was too sick and depressed. It sounds weird, but I just spent almost the whole 9 months lying in bed being sick. I didn't know what else to do, and the "suggestions" that people gave me, i had tried a lot and they didnt work so I stopped trying (for some reason ginger works on everyone but me it seemed, and no one told me about peppermint til i randomly tried it). and I had no motivation to try anything else. 

-PLUS I didnt want to take medicine since I didn't know what it would do to my baby (all the medicines on the market were category B  and although I knew lots of people who had taken medince, and their kids were ok, I was just not ok with it for some reason --except during that one week that I was almost hospitalized--  plus i just didnt think so straight because i was sooooo sick)

What I learned:

--that I needed a plan. that before i got pregnant again, i needed to figure out more ways to keep down the nausea BEFORE the nausea hit. I knew that once i got sick i would go into a zone and not try anything and just sit there and be sick again. so I made a plan, and wrote it out and told nate about it so he would help me fulfill the plan while i was dead sick

This pregnancy I tried everything on my plan, and some things worked a bit, but not totally. I finally gave in to taking medicine because it was so bad I swore i never wanted to be pregnant again. (I know, horrible  huh! i def want to have more kids, so that wasnt an option, so medicine it was!) So at 18 weeks i started diclegis and it+my sea bands make all my nausea go away (more on these below)

Here I am a few weeks after starting to take Diclegis :)

#ifmommaainthappy #aintnoonehappy #goodthingimhappyagain

What you can do about "morning sickness":

Make a plan! my "natural" plan looked like this:

-try all forms of peppermint, ginger, and lemon (i.e. essential oils, in pill form, in food/candy/drinks/gum), here are some ideas:
--peppermint gum or tea or candy or mints (i chewed altoids at night so that i didnt have to worry about choking on gum, and it calmed my stomach down enough to sleep again sometimes).
 --peppermint/ginger/lemon essential oils (doTERRA also has digestzen that works AMAZING!!)
here is a great book that helps you know how to use essential oils safely while pregnant
--Since doTERRA oils have helped me so much, I now sell them. You can go here to buy them from me, or feel free to contact me at jessica.hawkes21@gmail.com with any questions
--ginger snaps, ginger candies, ginger in pill form, gingerale
--lemon drops, lemonade
 (but remember with the above suggestions that the sugar in the candies and soda will make your blood sugar spike then drop, when it drops it might make you more nauseous, so make sure that if that happens to eat other sustainable foods with whole grains or protein to help with your blood sugar)

other things that were part of my "natural plan":
--never get hungry (eat immediately when you wake up, this is why its called morning sickness because you are the most hungry/low blood sugar aka sick...some studies show that protein at night helps alleviate it, and some say protein in the morning helps...just mess around with it)

-have foods around that take away nausea.  famous ones are: saltines, plain foods, (not spicy or greasy), pretzels, fruit (most women like saltines, and keep them by their bed to eat immediately after waking)

-sea bands (there is a pressure point on your wrists that help alleviate nausea)--super cheap!

--vitamin b6  (some swear by the combination of vit b6 and unisom, talk with your dr about dosage)
--get enough sleep

-keep cool

Next plan if all things natural didn't work: talk to my dr about medicine

Here is some info on categories of medicine safety for pregnant women

I talked with my Dr, and chose Diclegis: 

Diclegis is Category A. I take the lowest dose, and there are no side effects for me (except it made me a little more tired for 2 weeks at the beginning, but not now)

here is more info on its history

here is info on is safety/side effects/how to use it

There are many other options for medicine if  natural options and diclegis dont  work. I just want to get the message out there that there are FIRST, natural ways to alleviate nausea.

SECOND, if it is overwhelming, there is a safe pill that has minimal side effects that you can try

additional info:

Here is a website I found that is the most comprehensive look on how to control being sick while pregnant but more specifically throwing up (especially when its during the whole pregnancy where it poses a risk). I would take a look at it, it has a lot of natural options, medical options, and also her plans to stay emotionally healthy (since being sick all the time def affects your state of mind and relationships)

I hope this helps you! I hope this pregnancy or the next, some of my tips might make it easier!

Let me know if you have any questions, or just need support since ive been through it all basically!

good luck!!

disclaimer: I am not a dr. I take no liability in anything tried from my blog. Always talk with your doctor before trying anything.