Thank you for being the first...

[mammaclare]

Dr. Phil--

Thank you so very much for being the first nationally recognized personality to acknowledge and address the horror and sadness that is Hyperemesis Gravidarum.

As I write this, my husband is sitting on the couch with a bag of frozen peas in the most private of places. His "frozen peas and BVD briefs" weekend has come after 2 hyperemesis pregnancies...but sadly it also has come BEFORE the conception and birth of the 3rd child we had planned and already loved when we were first married.

Many of us lose jobs--some lose careers. Many of us lose close relationships--some lose marriages. Many of us lose our health--some lose their lives. And all in the face of what is meant to be the most glorious time in our lives--pregnancy and the expected birth of a child loved so deeply that it hurts.

As I write this, my 2 month old HG#2 baby is cooing and kicking and showing off his new-found belly laugh (directed at mommy, of course!). My 3 1/2 year old HG#1 baby is upstairs in his room, reading books to himself and actually getting the simple 3-letter words correct.

They are both so amazing, which only makes the fact that HG has completely dictated even our family size all the more difficult to accept. What is even more difficult to accept, and beyond difficult to say aloud, is that there were moments in both pregnancies that I actually prayed for a loss, planned in my head a termination, wished for my own death.

These were PLANNED babies. LOVED babies. WANTED babies. Can you and your viewers can even begin imagine how one can be so sick and so terrified as to want, plan or even follow through with the termination of a planned, loved, wanted baby? Most can't. Most who haven't lived the hell can't even look us in the eyes if we are open about our own thoughts. There are days I can't look myself in the eyes 4 years later when I think of the night, at 10 weeks pregnant, I sat on my front porch in 10 degree February weather sobbing.

As my tears froze on my cheeks, and I puked over the side of the bench, I waited for my husband to come home from teaching. I waited there in the cold because I didn't deserve the heat. I waited there sobbing because I was going to tell him that I saw only one way out...to terminate the pregnancy. I was terrified, sick, dehydrated (which drastically impacts your emotional stability and thinking process, by the way) and beaten down. I was a shadow of myself and just wanted it all to end. My husband looked at me with horror and disgust when I told him what I was thinking about and said if I followed through, he would walk out of our 4 month old marriage and never look back. Thank God for his resolve, his own fury...if not for that, my Rory would not be a part of our lives or this world.

THAT is what HG is...a robber, a thief, a murderer.

I am lucky. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of women every year feel that there is no other option than to terminate a pregnancy that has ripped their lives and minds and bodies to shreds. Many more actually have no choice--it is either the baby's life or their own.

My husband is now a stay at home daddy. After the horror of the first HG pregnancy, I couldn't bear the idea of anyone else watching our miracle grow up. After all, I had considered seriously the procedure that would have taken his very existence.

It took all the guts I could muster to have a second. The heartache in even making that choice is hard to put into words. It is one thing to be blindsided with your first HG pregnancy--another entirely to knowingly walk right into the world of IVs, ER visits, home health nurses, Ketostix, sleeping on the bathroom floor, weeks without bathing, carrying a bucket everywhere, worry about paying for medication that is upwards of $20 a pill and often not covered, and for the sickest there are semi-permanent central lines and feeding tubes as well.

I did it, but can't do a third. This letter, these words from my heart, the tears in my eyes as I write them...they are all for our little Liam or Moira, who because of HG will always be just an angel in my heart.

Thank you for doing this show, for allowing some of us to tell our stories and for helping us bring a face to a disease that most of the world has never heard of, and that too many doctors refuse to recognize and treat aggressively. Thank you--from my two gorgeous boys, Kieran and Rory, and thank you from my angel as well.

Warmest Regards,

Clare Bowers
HER Foundation Member
HER Forums Moderator
Two Time HG Survivor

[Cin]

Clare, how terribly eloquent. I'm crying. Thank you.

[MM78]

This letter was wonderful.It made me cry.Thank you.

[stephensmam]

Im crying too what a heartfelt story
hugs