It's Not Morning Sickness

I have spent at least 60 weeks of my adult life staring into the bowl of a toilet. And that's not even including the four years I drunk my way through, whilst attempting to complete my teaching degree.

That's 60 weeks of riding the porcelain bus, doing the liquid laugh, calling Ralph on the porcelain phone and bowing before the porcelain God. Whatever you want to call it, I had the most severe morning sickness in all three of my pregnancies. The phrase 'morning sickness' causes me to roll my eyes in the most over exaggerated manner. Clearly it was a phrase invented by a man. Because any woman who has experienced this debilitating illness would testify to the fact that it is not only something you will experience in the morning. Below I have recounted the first 20 weeks of each of my pregnancies. 

Olivia

I learned I was pregnant (officially) at 5 weeks. I was up in St George with my friend Kym a day or so later and we stopped for lunch. I couldn't eat it. I should have realised something was 'out of whack' then. Anyone who knows me knows that I love my food. But I have really only been in tune with my body since having been pregnant 3 times. That afternoon I arrived home and felt nauseous. This lasted into the early hours of the morning. The actual vomiting started the following day. And then it continued for 20 weeks.  But let me get you into the head space of a woman who vomits every day for 20 weeks. 

Take the worst hangover you have EVER had. Remember that feeling of not being able to move or think straight. The feel of every movement you make causing the room to spin and your stomach to lurch. And then the actual experience of emptying the contents of your tummy into your little toilet friend. Then multiply that feeling by 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 20 weeks. And I was lucky. Some women have it even worse.  

I lost 6 kg in two weeks. And on my frame, that is really something. My face was gaunt and I looked like death warmed up. Sleep is your only respite. Your waking hours are spent counting minutes between your visits to the bathroom. If you can even make it that far. I became very well acquainted with a bucket. 

One morning I woke up and just cried and cried. I wondered how much my body (and more specifically my baby) could take? You get dehydrated (I couldn't hold down water, let alone food of any description), and that starts to do funny things to your mind. I was starting to wonder if any baby could possibly be worth all the 'pain'.  Of course, having had 3 babies, I know it is completely worth it. But in that time and head space, you really do wonder. I have an aunt who sent me a book on 'morning sickness' and potential remedies. Nothing was working for me. But the book did help, in that it made me feel like I wasn't alone. It even spoke of some women who cannot complete the pregnancy for the reasons I described above. I truly sympathise with those women. You can't imagine how horrible things can be for them. ANYWAY... On the morning I woke up crying, I decided enough was enough. I checked myself into the local hospital. I needed to be hydrated, or something! Several hours later I sat alone in my own room, hooked up to a drip, dosed up on Maxalon (an anti nausea tablet), and crying. CP had gone home and I was to stay here for at least one or two nights to be monitored. It was a low point.

I took time off work and spent the next few days learning to eat food again. Potatoes seemed a safe place to start. Twice a day, I would heat up a small potato in the microwave, and sprinkle it with salt and pepper. And that became my staple diet. 

I remember being curled upon the lounge in the foetal position during that period, staring at the television. Too weak to move, too sick to do anything. Penny Wong starred in an ad on calcium at that time, and to this day, even seeing that ad (or Penny Wong for that matter) takes me back into a dark space. I don't like it. Even writing it now is kind of giving me a headache!

This behaviour dragged on. Eventually I returned to work. I borrowed a bean bag from the library at school and used to have little naps in my lunch breaks. I was too weak to make it through a full day on 2 upright legs.  I took my 'Sheila Kitzinger Pregnancy and Childbirth' textbook into my classroom and was fully prepared to answer any and all questions my high school students would throw at me. To my pleasant surprise, even the worst students were sympathetic to my condition. It was lovely. I took a 'spew bucket' into my classroom and kept it behind my desk 'just in case.' I used to threated my students with threats like 'If you so much as put a foot out of line, you will have to come and sit up here behind me with the spew bucket.' It seemed to work. 

Gradually I was sucking on ice blocks and then biscuits and eventually things were back to 'normal'. The remainder of my pregnancy was incident free, and I would even go so far as to say I glowed. Nice.

Darcy and Sam

We had weddings we were attending in the early stages of both pregnancies. We had hoped to keep the pregnancies a secret until the magic 12 weeks, however morning sickness set in for these pregnancies as well, and since we didn't want to disrupt either wedding by having people speculate about my frequent visits to the bathroom, failure to consume litres of free alcohol and inability to eat, we told people very early on. 

I didn't require hospitalisation with Darcy, however I checked myself in for 'rehydration' with Sam. Maxalon became my best friend. And there is something really strange about having a toddler hold your hair back from your face and rub your back when you are lurched over a toilet. Goodness knows what Olivia or Darcy ever thought I was doing!

We renovated our house during my pregnancy with Darcy. My morning sickness factored into our designs. I insisted on an ensuite close to my side of the bed, so that my midnight and early morning dashes wouldn't be too far from my bed. 

Being in public is also traumatic if you are suffering from this infliction. You can never trust a public toilet. (Having to place your head anywhere near where people defacate is enough to make you vomit even if you aren't already feeling nauseous.) I could only do my grocery shop immediately after I had vomited, so that I knew I would have the time to finish it in one go. And given that we live an hour from the supermarket, my drives to town were fraught with frequent stops on the side of the road. I can still point out all the places I have ralphed. Charming. 

On the upside, the last half of all of my pregnancies were perfect. Perhaps that was my good karma for the first 20 weeks. I also have some of the best, fastest and easiest labours and births of everyone I know. I walk out of hospital weighing exactly the same as what I weigh when I learn I am pregnant. (Except that it maybe hangs off my frame a little differently). So everything equals out. The good with the bad. 

And all you have to do is look at that tiny baby once to realise that it was all completely worth it.

Births, Deaths and Notices

Hubby missed the birth of our first baby. I'm not kidding. Obviously I didn't give him enough notice of the due date. 

I'm being sarcastic of course. Nine months is more than enough time, but when you live on a farm, things like shearing and harvest tend to take precedence over everything else. How incredibly foolish of me not to better organise something like a BABY to fit in with the farm schedule!

When hubby and I found out we were expecting baby number one, we couldn't wait to share the news. We promptly headed over to the in laws (Hubby's parents) to share the good news with them. The conversation went something like this.


Me: "So... CP and I are expecting a baby!"
Them: "That's wonderful! How exciting... and congratulations! When is it due?"
Me: "Ummm... I think the first week of May."
Them:"Hmmm. That's during shearing. Busiest week of the year." 


Of course, I'm paraphrasing.


And YES - and we definitely did this deliberately. We wanted to put everyone out as much as we possibly could! (At least, that's what I wanted to say. But of course I didn't.) So we made a few jokes about it all and went on our merry way. But the seed had been planted. Clearly we should have thought about this a little better. Maybe this was going to be a huge inconvenience to everyone? Maybe we should have had a family meeting about this and identified a better time of year to have a baby? And given Hubby's depth of devotion to the farm, what would this really mean for us? (All from the point of view of a hormonal pregnant woman).


Two weeks before baby was due, I was already in Brisbane, getting settled with family in preparation for the imminent arrival of the baby. I was relaxed and calm. And I mean REALLY relaxed and calm.


The night before baby was born (2 weeks early) I had spoken to CP, who was busy preparing for shearing. In fact the whole farm was abuzz with pre-shearing excitement. I had asked him to pack his bag in case he got a phone call, so that all he had to do was walk out the door... He assured me that he would. Hmmmm. Surely 7 hours of travel time would be ok given how long labour could continue for?


As soon as I knew I was in labour I had called home to let CP know. I caught his mother, and in between contractions I got the following information across.
"Ann! I've gone into labour. My water has broken. Can you tell CP he needs to get here QUICKLY."
"Oh hello, Jessie. How are you? CP has just headed up to the shearing shed. I'll try to reach him there."
"OK, just tell him to HURRY!"


I made it to the hospital with only an hour or so to spare! Olivia arrived safely (and quickly) in the presence of  my mother and I. Sadly, CP was the last one to know about the birth of his first daughter. And he even managed to score a speeding ticket in the process. An ordinary day all round, by anyone's standards. Ever the farmer, CP had received the message from his mother stating "the water has broken" and gone to check all the dam pipes, thinking something was wrong on the farm - not with his wife. I can laugh now. The whole thing was just so absurd!!!


But there really is something to the whole "births, deaths and notices" thing out here in the bush. Perhaps there is actually something about the dual meaning of 'notice'. Maybe that's why Charlie missed Olivia's birth!!!!


A country friend recently shared with me that her in laws regularly reflect on how the death of a family member (and the subsequent funeral) could not have come at a more inconvenient time. Harvest waits for no man. Even a man on his death bed. 


I don't mean to make farmers sound harsh and uncaring. In fact it is the exact opposite. Look at bush kids. They grow up understanding the natural cycle of things. We are born, we live, we die. Hopefully we have served a purpose, and then life goes on. That's not a negative thing either. When I was a kid, Mum and Dad used to indulge us with keeping pets, because it helps you understand 'life' better. This is the case on farms too. It's just funny how often the farm comes first. 


I have struggled with this over the years. I can be selfish. Actually, I am the Queen of Selfish sometimes. So when CP has tried to explain to me that without the farm, we don't have a whole lot, I get it. Farming relies heavily on uncontrollable forces, like the climate. You do what you can, when you can. Even if someone is having a baby, or dying. You sort of just try to pick up the pieces and keep going as quickly as you can. 

When you live in the bush, it's important to remember that your personal business is often the personal business of everyone in the district too. Mostly thanks to the local paper and of course, the bush telegraph (which is often faster). When I got engaged, there was a notice in the paper. When our children were born, there were notices in the paper. That's the way it goes. 


Everyone likes to 'know things'. Even country people. Even if it means they can't accommodate the new information because of work commitments. When you live on a farm, it's not just a job, it's your life. And I'm learning that more with every passing year.