Rachel Dratch as "Debbie Downer" on Saturday Night Live
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Riding Out the Waves
Gloria Fallon
I'd read the books, I'd consulted the girlfriends, and still, I wasn't expecting morning sickness to be the nightmare it actually was. Sure, the books briefly mention that it could last all day, but who would believe that? Common sense tells you that someone experiencing "morning" sickness all day long is either lying, or just terribly unlucky. It's also common knowledge that nearly half of all pregnant women sail through their first trimester completely puke-free, and so I naturally assumed I'd be part of this lucky group. I couldn't have been more wrong if I assumed Vanity Fair wanted me to pose for their cover in all my pregnant glory. Morning sickness arrived during my fourth week of pregnancy, and I quickly learned that the nausea of morning sickness is not the kind we are all used to--apparently it's a mutant strain of nausea, impervious to vomiting and time restraints. You could throw up for hours and not feel the slightest bit better; and you could go to sleep feeling queasy, and wake up the next morning just as green-tinged. The nausea of morning sickness was more than just nausea too--it was an all-encompassing, overwhelming feeling of wanting to crawl into a hole and die, 24 hours a day. I certainly had not expected this. Two weeks of nonstop queasiness went by, then four, then six, and still the relentless morning sickness would not leave my side. I had never been sick for this long in my life. Even chicken pox had the decency to go away after two weeks. Everything made me feel sick, even watching television or reading a magazine. For the most part, my first trimester activities were limited to moving from my bed to the couch. Getting out and doing errands would briefly make me feel better, but a simple whiff of a hamburger or someone's perfume in the mall would sending me dry-heaving to the parking lot. My doctor attributed much of my intense morning sickness to the fact that I was expecting twins, explaining that women carrying twins could feel twice as sick since they had double the hormones surging through their pregnant bodies. She promised that I'd start feeling better around Week 14 or 15. In the meantime, everyone had their suggestions on how to curb nausea and I tried them all, from Sea Bands to Saltines, and nothing worked. The only thing that gave me temporary peace was my old college remedy for hangovers: chicken broth with elbow macaroni. So much for the healthful, organic diet I was going to eat while pregnant. But bowl after bowl of elbows and broth sustained me while nausea remained my faithful sidekick. During this bleak time, I was understandably miserable--I had worked so hard to get pregnant and now I couldn't enjoy any of the simple things I had looked forward to: guilt-free eating (or eating at all for that matter), buying fashionable maternity clothes, and doing prenatal yoga. I felt like two aliens had set up camp in my stomach and taken control of my body. As much as I had wanted this pregnancy with all my heart, I just wanted to feel normal again. Finally week 14 arrived, and the all-day variety of morning sickness I was afflicted with exited my life just as abruptly as it had entered it. I literally woke up one morning and was myself again, happy to be alive and thrilled to be pregnant. I was free to visit friends, go shopping and pass the seafood section at the grocery store without gagging. If I could ride out the relentless waves of nausea from the first trimester, I knew that I could handle everything pregnancy could throw at me---whether I'd expected it or not. *** Gloria Fallon is a freelance writer and the co-author of the humor book, I Hate This Place: The Pessimist's Guide to Life. Her current favorite writing topics are her three-year-old twins, Alexandra and Nicholas.
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