The First Trimester

For those of you who haven’t ever experienced morning sickness, let me try to help you understand what it’s like. The first thing to know is that there are varying degrees. Some women don’t have any, others, like my lovely wife, get their share and someone elses.

Age plays a factor, as do other things, but mainly it just boils down to luck. Some women have fierce morning sickness with one child, and none with the next, or vice versa. Some women suffer greatly during every pregnancy. Again, the overriding factor seems to be luck, or lack thereof.

The condition is not aptly named, as it is not confined to mornings. Jen spends just as much time bowing before the porcelain throne in the afternoon, evenings, and the middle of the night as in the morning. So much so that we’ve set up a giant pillow there to make the time pass a tiny bit more comfortably.

The truly special part about morning sickness is that you’re turned into a miserable, wretching creature even when you have nothing to throw up. The raging hormones are the trigger, not food. Eating becomes a bidirection experience instead of the infinitely more pleasurable unidirectional one. So you eat what you can, and hope to time it between wretches so that you get something from it.

Women who suffer excessively from morning sickness tend to lose weight. It’s not hard to imagine why. She looks at every food item and then tries to decide how it’s going to taste on it’s way up. Bananas taste about the same in either direction, but they get old after a while. Our doctor recommended eating anything that would stay down, including potato chips and cheese curls. I had never imagined hearing a doctor recommend eating potato chips.

Tonight Jen walked into the kitchen with her regular conundrum. She needs to eat, she wants to eat, but there’s not a thing in the world that she wants to throw up. There’s not much of a chance that anything that goes in will stay there. She wants to eat something, anything, but there’s nothing she wants to eat. How do you solve that?

Being male, I have my opinions. “Well heck, if you’re going to throw it up anyway, you may as well eat what you want.” This does not coincide with the sensibilities of the feminine species. I have this on good authority. There’s plenty of home remedies for morning sickness: ginger, Vitamin B6, carbonated beverages, unisom, etc. We’ve tried quite a few options. Some help, most don’t. None help enough.

There’s little I can do. I put a “I Love You” note under the toilet seat. I dole out hugs like they’re candy. I’d love to make this experience less onerous. I have a lot a stake here. What are the odds of her thinking this is a good enough idea to do twice if it costs 9 months of misery?

Fortunately, we’re nearing the end of the first trimester. That’s typically when morning sickness recesses and mommy gets to enjoy her body again, for a time.