My Summer was a Black Hole, but That’s Okay

There was a point in time when my husband Bryan was fixated on the movie Interstellar and the science of black holes. He even opened his old physical science textbook to further explicate to me only the most accurate details. We speculated about it for hours.

As I sit here thinking about how I would describe the summer, those black hole descriptions just seem to fit the best. I lost my summer into a Black Hole.

There's always that question attached to Back to School,
"How was your summer?"

Sometimes people answer, "Not long enough," but who in the world answers, "It was the most miserable and excruciating ordeal of my life." ??

Even if it was, do you blatantly lie and say it was "fine" to avoid blabbing a lengthy story over and over?


June 20th was a beautiful day.

Before I took the pregnancy test, I knew what it would say. Positive. For some reason, I wasn't surprised. I just had a feeling about the news I would receive from the fateful stick. I felt calm, and happy, and a pure joy. A little human inside me! It was finally time for this. 

That day, I had to suck in my breath and hold in the life-changing information so I could save it to tell Bryan the next day - Father's Day. He had no expectation that the little "gift" wrapped in striped ribbon and opened by the lake would make it his first real Father's Day.

The next week was a blur of a million thoughts and dreams and my head was so full of it all that I couldn't quite function. Lucky for me, I had the summer off from being a speech-language therapist, so I could focus on a few floral events and not too much else.

Nine days later, this mothership spun into the black hole.

Pregnancy is no cake walk, but I was in no way previously notified or prepared for just how far from a cake walk it could be. I had heard all the stories about the uncomfortable nausea and heartburn and --curses upon the namer of this--morning sickness. I heard a mixture of those along with the exciting stories about how wonderful it was to finally be realizing a monumental life dream. By some stroke of fate I missed falling into those categories and got dealt into a category of some 2%. Hyperemesis gravidarum.
I can't even pronounce it correctly. But that was the black hole.

I will refrain from giving you all the details. Somehow my body decided to work against me. I don't fluctuate in my weight, and I've been around the same weight since the beginning of high school. This time I lost 15 pounds in about two and a half weeks. Not even water would stay in me. Tiny sips of plain, plain water.

Ironically enough, before I knew anything about the little person inside me, my husband and I had made a bet to see who could gain (him) or lose (me) more weight before our summer vacation.
I don't think I have to explain who won. And in this case, I wasn't really going to wave a VICTORY banner around. That would be hard to do, since the floor of our half bathroom, where I spent the summer, is about 3 feet by 3 feet. Not a lot of banner-waving space.

Worst 24-hour stomach flu I have ever had, multiplied by days and weeks and months.

Mercilessly, the time that wasn't violently-sick time, brought extreme fatigue and dizziness, back pain, and a myriad of other states I'd never before experienced. My insides ached constantly from turning over and over and over and I knew I was dangerously dehydrated and probably vitamin, mineral, and nutrient deficient. Which I could probably cope with except that I felt extremely guilty and confused that right when my body was supposed to be the healthiest and working on making another body, it was in the worst state it had ever been. No matter how much reassurance I received that sickness during pregnancy was normal, (surely not this hell) no matter how much I read about how minimal nourishment is needed during the first trimester, it didn't stop the terror that somehow I would lose my baby.

I'd like to think that I have experienced enough hard things to be able to handle what life could send my way. Without going into more anecdotes, I have to say this was the most humbling experience I have ever had. I wondered if I would ever know what it was like to feel "normal" again. To feel like a human being. To feel like I could actually be a worthwhile person and accomplish even a small task. To breathe fresh air and walk around and not just collapse into my "cave" of blankets and pillows and want to sleep for months. I'm ashamed to admit that at times I just cried into those pillows for being alone and immobile and worthless and SICK.
(I can't say that full-fledged depression came. I would be exaggerating if I thought it did. I know that I probably only scratched the surface there. My heart goes out to anyone suffering from true depression, because it is real).

During those endless couple of months, my husband quietly and unassumingly stepped up and did my share of the dishes, housework, shopping, and cooking (I made him cook his chicken outside on our balcony with his George Foreman. Which he did without complaint.) He delivered piles of every variety of ginger ale, Gatorade, cracker, applesauce, and soup broth to my cave on the daily, and held water straws to my mouth even when I vehemently refused. Even more, he told me I was strong even when I really wasn't and that I would make it even though I didn't believe it. He told me I was beautiful when I looked homeless and brought me flowers when I felt useless. He made me laugh, as always, even though I tried really hard to stifle it because of the aches. I can't describe how much his selfless love made me grow to love him more than ever before.

HG.
What made me live through this?

The thought during those quietest moments, which were very long, and very still, that there was a purpose for this. This was not meaningless.

For every time I cried out and said I CANNOT DO THIS,
There was a tiny little voice that said You Can.

A little voice saying, "Mommy, Mommy, thank you. Because of you, I can be here soon. Thank you for everything you are doing. I know it's hard, but I just want to be there with you and Dad. You can do it Mommy!"

Small moments eventually became miracles. No one was more grateful than I was to be able to check the mail, or put in some laundry, or eat a bagel and keep it down. The world became a world of wonder. Walking outside felt like experiencing the world for the first time.

Hearing a heartbeat from the little kumquat-size he or she at 10 weeks was the most relieving and elating feeling in the world. Somehow after that, I felt overwhelming confidence that this little one would be okay and that made the day by day manageable.

Would I give my life for my child?
Yes. Undeniably yes. Because I feel like I did, for just a few long weeks. In a small way, I gave my life so that this little person could have one.

If you have severe pregnancy sickness (I am officially renaming it), I hope that you were somewhat more prepared than I was and that maybe you will at least hear about it before it happens, and also that you know that you are not the only one and this is a real thing. People might not take you seriously because everyone has a little "nausea," right? BUT if all the ginger-flavored items and Sprite in the world and crackers first thing in the morning and everything everyone (including the internet) tells you is just not working, you are not an alien. This does happen. I cannot tell you I ever found the solution, but I do know that there are at least two medications that are safe to take during pregnancy that have seemed to help at least marginally. With these methods, the sickness is not gone, (MAY IT BE BANISHED FOREVER) ...but it is managed.

So what is the purpose of sharing this?
We all struggle with something. Depression. Illness. Infertility. Miscarriages. This list definitely goes on to deeper and deeper challenges, and no one is exempt from experiencing something. And it is so easy to see only one side of someone's life and have the misconception that everything is cupcakes and rainbows, when in reality, we all need support or sympathy as much as the next person. And I needed these challenges (it is so difficult to say that) -- I needed these challenges so I could realize that they are small, the Black Hole is small, in the scope of the universe, and that I can be strong enough to forget myself and sacrifice for someone else. And if this was the way I had to learn this, through challenges that were excruciating for me but so much more minute than those many others face, I can persevere and make it through.

The clouds are breaking slightly, and things are looking up.
I'm back to work! The night before I was supposed to come for my first real day, I thought there was no way I could make it, because my body was against me again. Some might say this is excessive, but to me, each day I make it here I designate as another miracle. The challenges are not gone, but avocado-size he or she and I are doing a little more each day, and infinitely appreciative of having emerged from the cracker-wrapper-ridden blanket cave.