by A.M. » Dec 19, 2006 12:44 am
I see that nobody has posted in this section in a while, but I'll give it a shot and hope that someone reads this. I am in great need of feedback.
My wife and I conceived our first child in early November. This is something that we had planned for and were tremendously excited about for quite some time. When we received the first positive test result last month, we relished all the possibilities that lay ahead- buying maternity clothes, picking names, baby showers- essentially, all the positive things we so often heard about pregnancies. Morning sickness was merely an afterthought, and any reference to it was laughed off with crossed fingers from my wife.
The first few weeks passed without any noticeable sickness, and my wife was surprised and thankful that she wasn't immediately forced to deal with any nausea. Late November rolled around with some minor discomfort, but nothing that would have prevented her from undertaking her daily activities. In early December, at about the 5- or 6-week-mark, the vomiting began, but not with regularity, and not at any particular time of day. Still, I had no reason to think that anything out of ordinary was about to happen.
Then, somewhere in the span of December 8-9, her nausea spiked to levels that I had never thought imaginable. She was vomiting on the hour every hour, even in the middle of the night. Solid food became off limits, followed by fluids. On the morning of December 10, she decided she had reached her limit and asked me to drive her to the emergency room at the local hospital.
I have been to hospitals multiple times as a patient and a supportive family member, but somehow I never fully realized how completely uncaring and inconsiderate some of the medical personnel are. I nicknamed our doctor "The Interrogator" because of his rapid-fire questions, some routine ("Where does it hurt?" "How long have you been vomiting?" "Any diarrhea?") and others that seemed a little blunt ("Have you been smoking, drinking, or doing drugs?") and even unkind ("So why come in today?"), which made me think that he was either testing her for legitimate responses or thought she was faking it, which is apparently more common than I initially realized. I could appreciate his business-like attitude to getting the job done and curing my wife, but on the other hand, he didn't seem to care that she was suffering. At any rate, it was quite evident that he was a bit ignorant of the needs of a pregnant woman. He diagnosed my wife with HG, fixed her up with some meds, fed her an I.V., and sent us on our way. (Almost seven hours after we arrived.)
The week of December 11-15 seemed to pass without any major bouts of sickness, at least not any symptoms that were nearly as bad the week before. My wife went to work, ate a bit throughout the day, and was able to carry on as necessary.
That all changed this past Friday night. Life has not been the same since then.
My wife tells me that she awoke almost every hour throughout the night to vomit. Amazingly, I must have slept right through every episode, as I have no recollection of them ever taking place. Saturday morning, she revealed to me that she was now vomiting bile and blood. Obviously, we dashed off to the ER a second time.
I thought the previous experience was a little grating, but we were in for a rude awakening the second time around. We waited in the lobby for 90 minutes before she was even able to enter the doors to the exam rooms...where she waited in another waiting room for 2 1/2 hours before receiving any attention whatsoever from a nurse. And she was vomiting blood the whole time. Sorry for the hostility, but that was just un-be-f***ing-lievable. We got there at 9:30 a.m., and when I came back from lunch at 1:30, she was sitting in a room with maybe 10 other patients, one of whom had a massive infection in her leg from a recent surgery. Every time I inquired as to what was taking so long, I got a mealy-mouthed answer from the staff, and they muttered something about waiting for beds to open up. Apparently, I wasn't the only one teed off, as family members of other patients were also complaining.
Sometimes she would have to dash for the lobby bathroom to throw up, and I could hear every bit of her pain like it was my own. The noises...God, the noises. They still haunt me. It was like demons trying to purge themselves from her body. The sound of the person you love the most suffering so horribly- in a public place, no less - is something I would never wish upon anyone. I wanted nothing else than for her to get the help that she needed, better late than never.
She finally got a room around 1:45 p.m., and was given an I.V. an hour later. Her doctor (a different one this time) was funny and personable, yet still only seemed to have as much compassion as the one from the previous week's visit. (I was told later that she said she didn't like treating pregnant women because they scared her- was she joking or was there a kernel of truth to that?) There was also a nurse that "shushed" my wife when she tried to speak and handled her like a side of beef when taking vitals. My mother, forever the caretaker, arrived at 3:45 p.m. to take over supervision duties, and undoubtedly did a much better job than anyone on the premises that day. Meanwhile, I attempted to ford the insanity of Christmas shopping.
My wife was released around 6:00 that evening, and she requested to sleep at my mom and stepdad's spacious house, which I thought was a great alternative to our apartment, which belongs to our cats anyway. We spent Saturday night and Sunday there, yet her sickness only got worse.
We had our first OB visit this morning. Everyone there was considerably more hospitable than at the ER. On a positive note, we had our first glimpse of the baby via sonogram. The first time I saw the heartbeat, all of the emotions I had been feeling- fear, concern, doubt, and now joy- came welling to the surface and I couldn't help but tear up. Everything appears to be normal with the baby so far, which is promising.
Despite that small victory, I'm still gravely concerned. She's still vomiting on a nearly constant basis and has lost about 10 pounds since last month. She has told me not to worry, that she will endure, that she may get better with the second trimester, that our baby is still OK. But I'm scared, lonely, and feel completely helpless. Every time I hear her get sick, I die a little inside because I know she's hurting. She's also very pale and looks like a shell of the woman she used to be - with at least 6 1/2 months left to go - and that terrifies me. I'm starting to lose sleep over it. I haven't cried this hard in a long time.
When we got married last year, we wrote our own vows. One of my promises was to care for her when she was sick, and I intend to hold to it. I also included a favorite quote of mine from an Indian spiritual master about being in communion with one's partner, and I find that to be more true today than ever. Her suffering is my suffering (I'm Eastern-minded in a Western world, if that hadn't become evident by now).
It does give me hope to read the posts here and know that you're having similar experiences. It has already gotten me through a particularly bad night, and I may have to rely on it in the future.
At first I was concerned about our baby, but now I'm frightened for her as well. I feel like I'm so close yet watching this all from so far away- and that is the most frightening feeling of all.