14 weeks

Akilah kissing the baby.

This past week I hit the 14 week mark and shifted into my second trimester. Sundays are my "turnover" day, so in two days I will hit 15 weeks. Aye. What a long horrific summer it has been.

I have no record of my pregnancy with Akilah, thus no recollection of just how truly awful it was. Plenty of people are reminding me, but mama brain kicked in and blocked it all out. So this time, things will be different...

And yes, it is still awful this time around too, worse in fact. Today I lost track of how many times I vomited before noon.

There is not much I can eat, and forcing myself to do so is a full time chore. I definitely am not able to actually eat anything of nutritional value. No veggies, no fruit. Only junk food and gluten; basically the complete opposite of what I normally consume (aka real non-processed food).

The past two days I have been on a kick of eating all the nutritionless, opposite-of-real-food cereals that we ate as kids. (I am still dumbfounded at the fact that our parents let us eat that stuff. You know what I am talking about - frosted flakes, lucky charms, fruit loops, etc.) They still come back up, but are not offensive when done so; which is a huge key in the process of figuring out what I can and cannot eat.

Milk has been my choice of beverage for weeks now. Lemonade, coke, root beer, milk shakes, lemon and salt tea, nettle, and Calm have come and gone, but milk has remained. And water, forget about it. I try and chew on ice or drink from the water fountain while I am at work, but consuming water does not work out so well. Even the ice and fountain add to the intense nausea.

Biscuits have also been on the top of the list. At first the really greasy ones from bojangles were the only ones that worked, along with bo-rounds (mini round greasy potato hash browns). Today I shifted to some biscuits that are made at a local bakery, so that is a step in the right direction! And potatoes have been crossed off the list permanently.

I could go on and on about all the foods that I have tried that did not work, but it is rather depressing.

The nausea gets so bad that is permanently feels like I have something lodged in my throat. That's a new one. I definitely don't remember that with Akilah. I do remember the esophageal bleeding and rawness, but not the suck feeling. Yuck.

Hyperemesis Gravidarum is no joke and is pure evil. I have friends that have lost their jobs because of it, and am incredibly grateful to have co-workers and students that are supportive and understanding. I am also grateful that my schedule is pretty flexible, aside from the times I am in class. The semester started this past week and going back to work has been a huge challenge.

I am also so VERY grateful to have such a loving, caring husband. Tony is an amazing caretaker and has taken on the responsibility off ALL the housework, taking care of Akilah, and taking care of me. He even cleans and switches out all my vomit bowls. He basically has had to put working on his own album completely on hold to do everything else.