It's Morning Sickness

Two pregnancies in and I'm pretty good at this whole "morning" (HAH!  Morning!  Hahahahahaha!) sickness thing.  Both babies have made me sick past 20 weeks, and with this one it started at five weeks.  Baby #1 had me at the emergency room a couple of times and diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum.  We didn't play around with Baby #2.  Basically after three days of throwing up I called my doctor and begged for Zofran, which she very willingly prescribed.  It takes the edge off, but I can't take it in the full amount or the headaches are so intense I throw up from those instead.  I've been way better at keeping food down this pregnancy, but I'm still generally nauseated all the time.  (Until the past few days!  Yay!)

I hear that a lot of first-time moms who don't know they are pregnant yet don't recognize their nausea as morning sickness.  They think they have the flu or food poisoning.  And because I'm here to help, I decided to compile a list of how to tell that you have morning sickness and aren't dying of food poisoning/the flu/malariaSARSebola.

And like, I'm not a doctor or anything, but you're welcome.

How To Tell You Have Morning Sickness (and not food poisoning/the flu/malariaSARSebola):

You are out to lunch with friends and the waiter brings the food.  You take one look at your plate and instantly run to the bathroom to barf.  You come back, look at the nauseating plate again and think, "That pickle looks DELICIOUS."

Generally, your meals and appetite rival those of the world's pickiest toddler.  Except for that time when you desperately crave shrimp.

Your husband develops the habit of using one hand to eat his food and the other hand to cover the food while he eats it.  Because watching someone eat is equivalent watching a horror movie.

You crave the taste of popcorn, but the thought of smelling popcorn makes you want to die.

You call your doctor for a refill of your prescription nausea medication and the nurse asks if you've tried ginger.  You laugh maniacally.

You post something on Facebook about being half-dead from nausea.  Everyone (sweetly) offers, "Have you tried ____?" and yes, yes you have.  And that, too.  Oh and that.  Oh and traveling to a secret medicine man in the jungles of the Amazon.  Nothing worked.  You still threw up.

You've tried wearing Sea Bands while chewing ginger gum, sipping mint tea, sucking on a Preggie Pop, squeezing your ear lobes,  lying on your left side and simultaneously standing on your head.  No one suggested the last one, but it made sense at the time.  You still threw up.

Your house looks like a crack house.  Except worse.  You still threw up.

Your potty trained toddler, who is watching cartoons in your bed, is still wearing her night-time diaper at 10:30 am and asks for help going potty.  You half-mumble from the pillow that she can just go in her diaper and then take it off.  No, really, this happened.  So much so that she starts thinking it's some kind of special treat to "just go in my diapie!"

Your toddler begins to incorporate fake barfing into her imaginative play with her dolls.

Your husband, who worked a 13-hour day, comes home (again) to no dinner and a filthy house.  It's 8:30 and even the toddler has only snacked on dry cereal.  He makes meals for everyone while cleaning the kitchen.  He sweetly brings you a meal and you look at him like he just offered you a horse head on a platter.

You pretty much hate anyone who puts food pictures on the internet, except for when your friend posts a picture of his lunch on Facebook and you comment, Okay so my morning sickness is rough today and basically I want to punch anyone who posts food pictures on the internet...so why does that hot dog with cole slaw look SO GOOD???

It's pretty classy, this whole pregnancy thing.  The craziest part, though?  No matter how sick you feel or for how long, you know it's worth it.  And that's how you really know it's morning sickness; it's kinda like love sickness.

In other words, as Michael Scott once said, "People always talk about triumphs of the human spirit. Well, today, I had a triumph of the human body. That's why everybody was applauding for me at the end, my guts and my heart. And while I eventually puked my guts out, I never puked my heart out."

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