Morning sickness

When I was pregnant with "T," I threw up in the parking lot of the local Red Lobster. Everyone in the restaurant stared at me through the window, and I'm sure they thought I was drunk.

They couldn't have been more wrong. I was pregnant and suffering from the mis-named malady of morning sickness. Pregnancy sickness doesn't just occur in the morning. Oh no, it can happen at lunch time, at supper or even after a very expensive meal (the most terrible time in my opinion.) I remember eating lunch with the girls from work at the most expensive restaurant in town. When we sat down, I felt perfectly fine. I ordered a shrimp po'boy, which was delightfully cooked and exquisitely served, ate cheesecake for dessert and lost it all 30 minutes after going back to work. That was a $25 lunch, too.

Doctors often say the sickness happens only in the first trimester. Not true. I'm a perfect example of that. It last well into my third trimester, when I quit being sick and developed such heartburn that I puked anyway. In a perfect world and a perfect pregnancy, morning sickness happens only in the morning and only for the first trimester. Well, most of us don't have perfect pregnancies, and this certainly isn't a perfect world.

One thing I found to help was to eat small meals. This kept from my stomach from being empty. Another thing I have read in the research is that the sickness is caused from extremely high levels of progesterone. Progesterone is needed to sustain a pregnancy, so in this case, the sickness is a good thing. Research is also showing that sea bands, which are used to cure seasickness, can help with pregnancy sickness. Also, your doctor can prescribe phenergan or another anti-nausea medication safe in pregnancy, which will help a lot.

Also, many women find their own thing to help with the sickness. Even though drinking caffeinated beverages is discouraged for pregnant women, my doctor said one a day wouldn't hurt. I would go through the drive-thru at McDonalds and pick up a coke from there. I couldn't just drink a 20-ounce coke or a glass of it; it had to be one from the fountain. I also would buy a small french fry. The saltiness seemed to help.

If you find yourself suffering from pregnancy sickness (I refuse to call it morning sickness), take it one day at a time. Many women do get better when the first trimester is over. If you aren't one of those lucky ones, take it a day at a time. I threw up pretty much every day for seven months straight, but every so often, I would get a break from the sickness for day and wouldn't throw up at all. Those days were great. Besides, in the end, when they place that baby in your arms, none of the sickness is really going to matter.