For those reading who have a friend, family member, or even a stranger battling HG, for the love of all that’s good in the world do not, I repeat, do not ask them if they’ve tried ginger. I can promise you they have tried every ginger product on planet earth and the only thing it does is burn like hell coming back up!

For months I have battled to convey my HG experience. It’s honestly the hardest thing I have ever had to endure from the extreme debilitating physical symptoms to the surprising mental challenges. HG has changed my complete outlook on life but ‘Not all storms come to disturb your life... some come to clear your path’.

I found out I was pregnant at 4 weeks, I remember naively thinking to myself “I feel great, how lucky am I to have no nausea” how wrong I was.

It was supposed to be the happiest time of my life, but it turned into a nightmare. I was just 4 weeks pregnant when the nausea began, and I thought it was normal morning sickness but at just six weeks pregnant I already had my first hospital visit where I was told I had hyperemesis gravidarum.

Pregnancy is hard, HG on top of pregnancy makes it a million times more so. I hope that your sisters, mothers, aunties, female cousins, first-time mums, seasoned mums and your wives that are expecting a baby don’t get to go through HG. But if she does. Please be kind to her, be patient, hug her, love her and don’t sweep her ailments under the rug. Remind her that what she is doing is courageous and brave. And most of all, let her know that she is not alone.

In the end, it gave me my 2 beautiful children, it made my relationship stronger and it made me believe in myself, it made more doctors and people aware of this horrible thing and I realised if I can get through HG I can get through anything.

Throughout three pregnancies where I suffered HG of the most debilitating kind (is there any other?) Dr Lowe was the first person that I felt really took me seriously.  Reactions from family, friends and colleagues had mostly always been kind. There was one Obstetrician who told me ‘it was all in my head’ but apart from him, people with the best intentions suggested ginger, soda water, crackers and acupressure.  I tried them all and when they turned out to be completely useless I just wanted to slap those people in the head. If only I had the energy to follow through with that slap.  

For 271 days, I have suffered. Most of the days felt as if the end was near for me - I say this with absolutely no exaggeration whatsoever. Other days I thought I was going to lose you first. My bodyweight dropped close to 10kgs and barely put anything back on come end-game but, I persevered. You sucked all my nutrients so there was barely any left for me. They said I had hyperemesis gravidarum, all I knew of it was Princess Kate had it for all 3 pregnancies.

When I ask pregnant women now how they are going I am not asking for a general answer, I truly want to know that they are feeling well because HG does not discriminate and I would not wish it upon my worst enemy. My experience has helped me to understand that from typical morning sickness to the most severe HG everyone needs support.

Within a week I started getting really sick. I couldn’t handle fluids or food, certain foods made the vomiting worse. I thought it was normal morning sickness. One day I felt so bad I went to the emergency department and they hooked me up to IV and explained I had hyperemesis. I never heard of it before. At that time I was ten weeks pregnant and I had lost 20kgs. I had multiple hospital admissions for IV fluids.

The first few days I found the vomiting cute. It made me happy. A true sign that I was really pregnant. My friends and family showered me in words of encouragement and support. The first days turned into twelve weeks. Everyone told me that once the second trimester hit I would feel myself again. No one was showering me in encouraging words instead with phrases like, ‘you’re being really negative. Just be happy that you’re having a baby. It’ll be worth it!’ I quit talking about how sick I was.

When it came time that me and my husband were ready for a baby, we knew that it wasn’t going to be easy as I had stage 4 endometriosis. We ended up doing two rounds of IVF and fell pregnant, of course we were absolutely overjoyed and couldn’t wait to meet our miracle. By the time I was 10 weeks pregnant I had already gone to hospital for IV Fluids and an anti-nausea shot and lost 2 kilos. How could we have wanted something to badly and gone through so much to fall pregnant, then feel so shitty.