So Your Misses Got Hyperemesis (Gravidarum)

We got too late for my wife’s first IV due to hyperemesis gravidarum. It was in the ninth week of pregnancy, after three weeks of nonstop vomiting and nausea. During those weeks, my wife’s ability to drink decreased day by day.

At that time, the only thing she could manage to drink was a bit of soup, following the recipe I mentioned in the previous chapter. We still thought it was standard pregnancy nausea; we had no idea there was a complication called ‘hyperemesis gravidarum.’ So I kept encouraging her to drink constantly. In hindsight, my desire to help only increased the pressure she felt, when I should have trusted that she had reached her limit.

One good thing I did manage to do was recognize that my wife was at risk of dehydration. I was concerned about the combination of the warm May weather, her inability to drink, and the frequent vomiting that was causing significant fluid loss.

I understood that my wife needed medical help to replenish her fluids, but I hesitated to take her to the hospital. This was because my wife suffers from post-trauma, and one of her triggers is needles. In the past, every time she needed to have a blood test, she would have a panic attack, turn pale, faint, scare the nurses to death, and be shaken for a day or two.

I wanted to spare her that difficult experience. But after a hot day with 10 episodes of vomiting and clear signs of dehydration, my wife herself suggested we go to the hospital. If my wife was willing to voluntarily get poked, her condition was serious.

This was the first of many times my wife received fluids intravenously due to hyperemesis gravidarum. We went to the women’s emergency department at the hospital closest to us, where they specialize in treating pregnant women. The medical staff was efficient and kind. They are used to treating pregnant women suffering from dehydration—not just those with HG but also women with “regular” pregnancy nausea who also often struggle to drink and end up dehydrated.

As expected, getting the IV in was challenging. My wife had a panic attack, compounded by her weakness and dehydration, which had made her veins flat and hard to locate. I explained my wife’s condition to the nurse. Despite the difficulty, the nurse successfully inserted the cannula, thanks to a combination of professionalism and sensitivity.

The attending doctor ordered 2 liters of fluids and some medication to relieve nausea. She also recommended that my wife stay hospitalized for a few days so they could stabilize her. I hesitated, but the promise of getting medication to ease the nausea led my wife to eagerly say “yes!” to the doctor’s suggestion.

My wife was transferred to the women’s ward, where the wonderful nurses welcomed her, assured her they knew what to do, and gave her more medication to ease the nausea.

That night, after my wife fell asleep, I left the hospital. It was around 10 PM, and I realized it was the first time since the pregnancy began that I wasn’t worried about my wife. She was receiving fluids and didn’t have to fight to drink. The medication was easing the terrible nausea that had taken over her life for nearly a month. Doctors and nurses were watching over her… For the first time in weeks, I didn’t have to attend, care for, or worry about my wife. I could take a break, breathe, and actually feel what I’d been going through all those weeks.

God, this is hard.

My wife stayed hospitalized for four days. During those days, I split my time between being with her at the hospital and catching up on work I had fallen behind on during the first few weeks of our hyperemesis pregnancy.

During that hospitalization, we also heard the term ‘hyperemesis gravidarum’ for the first time. One of the nurses we spoke with said it casually, and we asked her to stop and explain.

“Wait, what did you say? Hyper-what? What did you call it?”

“Hyperemesis Gravidarum. That’s what your wife has. It’s very strong nausea and vomiting some pregnant women experience. Don’t worry; it usually passes by week 15 or 16.”

“How do you treat it? What’s the plan?” I asked.

“We’ll stabilize her and send her home. There’s nothing else we can do. You’ll have to find a way to manage it and help her drink.”

Even though the nurse said there isn’t really a treatment for hyperemesis gravidarum, after that conversation, we felt wonderful—there’s a name for what my wife is going through! We’re not imagining that this is harder than a normal pregnancy! And if it has a name, that means other women suffer from it, so we’re not alone!

The nurse referred us to a Facebook group dedicated to coping with hyperemesis gravidarum, and through it, we discovered a whole community of women who suffer from this at various levels of severity. My wife became one of the most active members in the group. To this day, she remains active, offering advice and hope to other women going through hyperemesis gravidarum.

Despite our fears about staying in the hospital (and especially about the needles she might have to endure), the hospitalization was a good experience for my wife. The medications helped with the nausea, she received fluids around the clock, and she was no longer at risk of dehydration. By the way, we later learned that a four-day hospitalization is nothing. We met women with severe and complicated hyperemesis who had been hospitalized for a month or more.

Important note: While the medical staff treated my wife well, during the entire four-day stay, no one had a formal conversation with us explaining her condition or what to do moving forward. This wasn’t out of laziness or bad intentions, but it reflects the place of hyperemesis in the medical world—it’s a pregnancy complication that most healthcare providers we encountered didn’t fully understand. This is one of the reasons why you, as a partner experiencing a pregnancy with hyperemesis, must be very involved. You need to communicate with the caregivers and explain what you need based on the experience you’ve gained (more on dealing with healthcare providers later.