So Your Misses Got Hyperemesis (Gravidarum)

On the same day my wife informed me she was pregnant, we went to celebrate at an Italian restaurant she loves. When we got back home, she vomited the expensive pasta she ordered, and that was the moment when hyperemesis gravidarum started taking over our lives.

We didn’t have a “normal” pregnancy in terms of time to emotionally process the family’s expansion, wander around the mall buying baby clothes and gear, take pregnancy photos, or do all the other things most couples do after finding out they’re pregnant.

Instead, throughout the pregnancy, our lives revolved around hyperemesis. It caught us off guard. There was no one to tell us that my wife was experiencing a complex and dangerous pregnancy. No one to explain to us what to expect, what treatments we should pursue, or how to prepare for a pregnancy that would make my wife in need of constant nursing. We had to figure all that out on our own.

It could have been much easier if someone had told us from the beginning, “Hey, this isn’t a normal pregnancy, you need to be prepared.” Or if magically, we already had the knowledge about hyperemesis that we accumulated in the following months. If we had those, we could have contained and managed the HG much earlier, with less frustration, less risk, and a higher quality of life for my wife (that’s actually our family’s goal from the previous chapter, remember?).

That’s exactly the essence of this chapter: preparing you for the things hyperemesis is expected to bring into your life. Again, I remind you that my wife struggled with particularly severe hyperemesis, and I hope your wife’s HG pregnancy will be easier… but it’s better to be prepared for the worst than to be caught off guard.

So here are a few things you should understand so you can prepare for in the near future…