Heart palpitations. Eyes like hard-boiled eggs, raw nostrils, and thick coats of what feels like dusty paste lining the back of my tongue and throat. No matter how many times I swallow, it’s there. It’s always there. After I’ve eaten, brushed my teeth, or just woken, it’s there. Is it possible to feel your hair follicles? My hair feels like dead grass rasping across a concrete floor. Is that cloves I smell? Why does my house smell like burnt dust? What the hell is that toxic smell?! Those scented candles are rancid. It burns my eyes. Can I get a job at CSI because I smell everything? Please stop the rocking. My eyelids burn. My ribcage hurts. Stomach churning. The roof of my mouth aches. I feel my teeth. My head hurts, I’m dizzy. I feel hung-over but I didn’t drink. Do I have the Flu? My stomach is lurching up into my esophagus. Is a rat eating my brain? I’m tired. I sleep, I wake, and it’s there: the seasickness. If I sleep it’s gone, but when I wake up, I feel it all over. I feel polluted. There is no way a healthy baby is coming out of me. Dear God I smell everything, make it stop. Get me off this horrible ride.

It was my fifth week. I had a glorious 5 weeks of feeling happy and good. Unfortunately, I was oblivious of my gestation for only one week before the repugnant fog rolled over me, clamped me down, and whirled me into an ceaseless spinning toilet water abyss. I had one week to delight and relish in my pregnancy. It started with a benign turkey sandwich and a phone call to my mother. “So how are you feeling?” she asked very suspiciously. She was well aware of what morning sickness looked like and was suspect to the impending doom that was coming to greet me. “Fine, I harmoniously sang while taking a bite. Just as I was humming: “I feel pretty goob-bblueaaaahhhh,” I dropped the turkey sandwich and phone receiver, ran, and proceeded to hurl my brains out over a closed lid toilet. I suddenly heard my mom yell out over the receiver: “Cara?! What happened? Are you okay? I can hear you.”

Suddenly feeling a metamorphosis of visceral bile wash over me, I transformed into a psychotic demon animal of some sort. In a deep low baritone voice I quivered out: “Mom, what’s happening to me?!…Look away…Look away…Nooooo!” Did I just transform into werewolf? Is this a one-woman homage to the exorcist? My body convulsed and punished me even further. I heaved and heaved and heaved, peed my pants, and then it stopped. But the nausea was still there. That’s not supposed to happen? One always feels better after throwing up, right? No. It’s there and it’s squatting inside me like a toad. I looked up in the mirror to behold a gray faced, red nosed, stringy haired and sickly looking female with urine stains on her jeans. What have I become?

And so it began… I couldn’t get Scarface’s Tony Montana’s thick Cuban accent out of my head: “Her womb is so polluted…” In the beginning, when everyone asked me how I felt, I guiltily replied: “Okay, but very nauseous.” I was then met with a spectrum of comments: ranging from mild compassion: “Ah, morning sickness, yes, I’ve heard of that. Some people do get nauseous I suppose.” There was the re-assuring note of camaraderie: “Oh-ho yeah! I experienced that when I was pregnant but I was fine after the first tri-mester.” To the comments that made me want to dry heave and pee my pants right in front of them. “Really? Wow…no…I never experienced any of that with my children, I always felt great.” To this remark, I manufactured a fake smile, walked away, and swore to myself I that couldn’t be friends with that person anymore.

During check-ups, I tried my best to maintain self-control. This pitiful attempt at self-composure didn’t help me because as a result I wasn’t taken seriously. Throughout my life, I’ve always had this “suck it up buttercup” mentality. It’s pulled me through some tough times in my life but now I had no excuses as to why I didn’t allow myself to be vulnerable. I would never treat a patient this way. I don’t see vulnerability in people as “weakness.” Never had. Truth be told, I see them as very brave people. It’s just that I’m not allowed to be vulnerable. Ego Check please! Time to abide by my mantra: “Check yourself before you wreck yourself.”

Heave…heave…pee my pants.

After my mild grumble in his office, the Doctor just sympathetically nodded his head and recommended ginger (ginger candy, ginger tea, ginger ale) eating mild foods, taking vitamin B6, wearing sea sick wrist bands, and having saltine crackers in a holster sling at my waist at all times. By the way, who named it morning sickness anyway? There’s no termination or “clock out time” for this merciless venture in the day. There’s no “ding” that synchronizes the hormones and “calls it a day” at lunch hour. I would of paid any price to check out after 12:00 noon. I’ll wager some misogynistic M.D. came up with that notion. I’ll bet he was tired of hearing his wife complain and decided the AM hours were sufficient enough time to be sick.

Heave and heave… heave…pee my pants.

Not feeling optimistic, I took the doctors advice. Taking anything ginger was a joke. Its pungency and acrid taste did absolutely nothing for me but aggravate my senses even more. I took B-6, and…nada. I went back to my doctor trying again (and to my dismay), conveyed composure with a limp smile and polite pleas. But I was dying. No seriously…I thought there was a chance I wasn’t going to survive. I felt like my organs might fail on me. He prescribed me Zofran and it did… nothing. I went back again and this time he took out the last resort or the proverbial “big gun”. I’m talking: banned-in-the-1950’s-due-to-suspicion-of-birth-defect; “big gun”. It’s important to note, after years of research, no correlation between birth defects and this particular morning sickness pill proved significance. As it turns out, the 1950’s birth defects were primarily due to innocuous habits such as heavy cigarette smoking and Gin Gimlets. He prescribed me Diclegis at a paltry $400 per bottle. Hey, I would of paid $4000 if it gave me a month of reprieve. Give it to me. Sold. It did nothing. I can’t believe I spent $400 on a stringent batch of sugar pills.

Heave…heave…pee my pants.

Henceforth, I traveled unto an undulating sea of sickness and sailed off into the sunset of Barf city. I couldn’t keep a prenatal vitamin down to save my life. It burned like battery acid in my stomach and made me feel like I was going to crawl of my skin. Can someone please douse me in holy water now? Accepting this transformation was now my reality. I tried to make the best of it and tried my best to seem normal through my squinty eyes, heaving breathing, and shaky hands. The problem is, there isn’t a ton of public sympathy to this problem. Although you are entitled to throw up, feel nauseous, and move slowly, no one wants to hear you or see you sick anymore. They want the pregnancy glow and the porn star boobs that come with it. The miracle of life is beautiful and a baby is a blessing. The feeling of life growing inside you, connecting you with the ethereal oneness of mother earth and the divine fertile female feels more like a parasite that’s sucking the life out of you. People have a hard time believing something like morning sickness causes you to miss work, a wedding, a night out with friends, or a PTA board meeting. Moreover, the severity of it varies among women though there’s some furtive misconception that morning sickness is the same for all. Somehow it connotes for all the uniform mild feeling of malaise. This is not like a bad case of the hiccups or a pervasive running nose. There’s an acknowledgment, but there’s a tinge of dismissal and doubt in the nuances of people’s tones. Never mind that I looked gray in the face with eyelids at half mass. Never mind my bloodshot eyes and “Day Walker” gate. I always got the sense that people suspected a hint of malingering and it made me feel alone, shamefaced, and weak. Maybe I was in my own head. The problem for me, however, was that my head happened to be in my toilet most of the time so I had a hard time rectifying my condition.

Regardless, I pressed on, trying the whole “mind over vomit” tactic. It didn’t turn out well. After a rough morning of perpetual heaving and changes of underwear, I was feeling weedy and dehydrated. I had refused to cancel on patients (“suck it up buttercup style”) and went to my office. Moving slowly and trying to sip on orange Gatorade, I got through a few hours. As I was leaving, I walked outside into 95-degree weather and then into a 120-degree car…and fainted. I was only unconscious for about 3 seconds when I realized I had fainted in my car at a stoplight. Thankfully, stopping in time before going through the intersection. Quickly, I gathered my wits about me, shakily pulled over to the side of the road, and proceeded to ball my eyes out….and pee my pants once again (just kidding).

After bloodwork at the Doctor’s office, an ice pack, and lots and lots Gatorade. I came back to life. I had become weak due to low blood sugar and dehydration. Evidently, excessive amounts of vomiting make it impossible to retain fluids and nutrients. Hot car + no food+ not enough fluids= pass out. What a fine mess. I turn to my husband and tell him to tell my story. Tell them I was set loose into the wild with my beloved parasite. My only partial reprieve it seems, was being outside. I longed for the outdoor habitat my whole pregnancy. This coordinated well with my poor bathroom habits and wild demonic animal vomiting fits. Just let me run out into the woods and leave me there to spawn somewhere in a dark cave. I’ll only emerge back to civilization for ice chips. I needed ice chips like I needed air and a dry pair of pants. I was allowed to stay outside until dusk, but then I had to come inside at nightfall. There are coyotes where I live; the freaky banshees of the night. Although the call of the wild was beckoning, I wasn’t about to join a pack of coyotes. No sleeping outside on the patio furniture for me.

Work was a bit of a challenge to say the least. Aside from my private practice, I kept an office in North Hollywood where I worked with severely depressed and injured patients. Rough crowd too. Patients that were one social security check away from becoming homeless. It was mentally intense and daunting work but good work. I was working with AIDS patients, hepatitis patients, amputees, war vets, field workers, and various PTSD cases. One major feature that’s important to note is that when one suffers with severe depression, the first faculty of daily living to exit abruptly is personal hygiene. Routine bathing, hair washing, wearing deodorant, and brushing teeth are no longer a priority for someone whose stopped caring. Sad for them and sad for me. My CSI sense of smell could tell you when’s the last time they’ve bathed or washed hair. I could tell you what they had for lunch…yesterday. I used to rub lemon scented chapstick under my nose before seeing them just to make it through the session without dry heaving. On one particular day, I was just tapped/heaved/peed out. I’d had it with the lack of grooming and greasy hair dominating the air and assaulting my senses with its vile stench. My client, (let’s call him Victor) walks in wearing no shoes. No shoes. Mind you, Victor has Muscular Dystrophy so getting dressed and putting on shoes is no small feat (pun not intended). Despite his handicap, he is a quick witted, sarcastic, and dark humored man. I like him. He has no filter and speaks his mind with no regard for political correctness. All the while keeping his comedic timing impeccable. I find him hilarious and oddly charming even with the things I disagree with him on. But after week three of no shoes and smelling of gamey laundry, I had to keep it real. He was outraged and appalled by my audacity to call him out on his poor grooming habits. “Frankly, I don’t give a rat’s ass what you think I look or smell like.” He snorted. “It’s irrelevant anyways, what do I care?” In that moment of awkward silence, I could see in the contorted expression of his face that he was at war with himself. Half embarrassed and half furious at me for pointing it out, Victor left that day offended and royally pissed off. From his perspective, I get that its a tough pill to swallow: I’m depressed, I’m broke, I’m in pain everywhere, I’m losing muscle tone by the week, and oh: I stink now too! I get why he felt picked on; me and my CSI sense of smell. The following week Victor got even. He knew of my extreme morning sickness and hyper-vigilant sense of smell and went for the jugular. He entered my office once again strutting no shoes, and wreaking of cheese that had been curdled in an old sweat sock. Tucked under one arm, he carried a sleeve of chilidogs with extra onions on top. He saw the fleeting grimace of horror cross my face and delighted in his vengeance. “Hungry?” I searched for a whiff of fresh untainted air with a synthetic smile. “Yeah”, he replied in a slow sinister tone, …“didn’t have time to eat lunch so I had to pick a lil’ something up on the way…hope you don’t mind.” He proceeded to inhale his batch of chilidogs in front of me, crunching on raw onions that smelt like armpits, and licked thick gelatinous globs of brown chili off his fingers. I was completely repulsed and turned green. Victory to the grungy chili eater or “to the Victor the spoils”. He made his point, I guess. Stinking it to me literally. Well played Victor, well played. Although I fear that “to the Victor the spoils” took on a whole new meaning. I didn’t have the heart to tell him his chili smelt like fecal matter. Why should I? The man both felt and smelt like shit, I didn’t have the nerve to tell him that he was now eating it too.

To shift gears, when Princess Kate became pregnant with her first child, I remember breaking news reporting that she was hospitalized for a severe case of morning sickness. By then, I had long since delivered my daughter and was contemplating the second. As sadistic as it sounds, I was overjoyed to hear that the Duchess of Cambridge was diagnosed with Hyperemesis Gravidarum. Thrilled. Allow me to side bar with the fact that Americans LOVE Princess Kate. I mean love her like our beloved Princess Diana. In fact, I’d bet that if Princess Diana or Kate had held the thrown from 1773-1775ish, we’d still be under British rule today. Taxes schmaxes, what is she wearing today? So when it came to be known that sweet Princess Kate struck sick, the general public acknowledged it as a severe condition. This intelligent, composed, graceful, and discreet woman was now vomiting her brains out like the rest of us. She too was now paying hourly homage to the porcelain God. She unknowingly brought attention, camaraderie, and sympathy to the common pregnant woman suffering alone. Henceforward, well respected doctors in the media appeared on multiple television shows identifying the condition, it’s debilitating nature, and how its a far cry from basic “morning sickness”. One reporter gave the analogy as: “Compare breaking your arm to hitting your funny bone.” Hey if celebrity attention is a way to get awareness let alone a label on this issue, then I’ll graciously take it. Once I was able to attribute a more potent and well unknown label to my condition, people were more permissive and tolerant of my incapacitation. Thank you Princess Kate!

If you are someone who has suffered from or is currently enduring this torture, you are in good company. Supposedly, this is said to affect less than 3% of pregnant women (according to webMD), though I believe there are many more out there that go unreported.

Let me make this clear in case you had doubts about the journey to Barf City. The pain of natural child birth has nothing on HG. I would take the pain of natural childbirth…and I did (not because of choice) any day over the merciless and unrelenting nausea and dizziness. Why? Because although childbirth is painful, it has a time limit. You can see the horizon and for once it doesn’t have a toilet lid on it. Pain makes you feel alive. It gives you adrenaline, makes you stronger…gives you focus (now I’m a Sith lord. I’ll slow my roll now). HG makes you feel like you are polluted from the inside out. Moreover, with childbirth, you know it’ll be over soon and you’ll be holding a baby at the finish line. So when I was informed while at 7cm dilated: “I’m sorry Mrs. Itule but the anesthesiologist is unavailable”, I turned to my white-as-a-ghost-husband through gritted teeth and grunted that I’d take this pain any day over the nausea. I needed it to be known. It was the worst. Not even the pain of childbirth could compare to the suffering of HG. The silver lining: Once the baby is out, the thick veil of repugnant fog is lifted. Like the flip of a switch or shall we say: the flip of a toilet lid, it’s over. Cue in Gloria Estefan’s “Coming Out of the Dark”. My soul is cleansed, Hallelujah. It only gets better from there.

Unfortunately, I think HG also renders long term memory loss because in about 2 years, you’ll suddenly want another. What the what?!! You want to go back to Barf City, are you nuts? Weird but it’s true. You somewhat forget the ruthless journey because the reward is so irresistible. So if you decide it’s time to set sail once again into the stormy seas of the toilet-y abyss, take care of yourself matey…or…have your best friend sneak up and chloroform you and take you the nearest back alley doctor to perform an emergency hysterectomy before you get pregers. Either one.