I'm supposed to be on a train to Westminster. Instead, I am dictating this using the speech to text function while sat on the sofa with my 4 month old baby.
I'm wearing the one fairly smart breastfeeding-friendly dress breastfeeding that still fits. Well, kind of. It makes my tummy too big. My waist too wide. Surveying myself in the mirror I’m once again struck by how we are driven to consume bigger and more, while making our one and only true home ever smaller.
My daughter (who I hope never feels her worth is tied to her body) is dressed in a beautiful cotton gingham dress and woolen tights with mice embroidered on the feet. The buggy has been dismantled. The car is packed. My rucksack has several changes of clothes, a changing bag, water and snacks, Calpol, and three copies of my book MILK. The route is planned. I get on the train to Blackfriars, take the lift to the underground and in a few stops I'll be at Westminster. I made a similar journey with two children at the weekend, without the lifts. I could do this.
And how excited I was to have the opportunity to take my daughter to the seat of power. To be able to breastfeed her by the side of the Thames within that gothic architecture I studied as an undergraduate 20 years ago.
But I am here. On the sofa, with the front door open. There’s a chance I could make it.
The event we are/were going to is to raise awareness of hyperemesis gravidarum (HG).
‘HG is a condition that starts early in pregnancy, before a gestational age of 16 weeks, and is characterized by severe nausea and/or vomiting, inability to eat and/or drink normally and strongly limits daily activities’.
It's something I suffered with in both pregnancies, but I didn’t know its name until I was four months pregnant with my first child. Until then, I simply thought I was failing to cope with ‘normal’ morning sickness. GPs had told me as much.
It's something I feel very strongly about. Something I want to discuss with ministers, policymakers, and other HG sufferers. When I was in the throes of HG I never imagined I might take my baby to an event in London.
It's something that is very hard to explain. Looking back, four, five, six months of sickness sounds entirely manageable. It’s not such a long time, in the grand scheme of things.
But when you are in it, it feels impossible. It is impossible.
Imagine you have a baby growing inside you. You’ve not seen them in any scan, yet you know, in abstract terms, they are there. Imagine you know you are now solely responsible for nourishing and nurturing that tiny being.
Imagine you are unable to keep down food. Or water. Imagine you vomit ten, twenty, thirty times a day. Imagine constant nausea that makes it impossible to move from bed. Imagine you still feel unable to tell anyone because the pregnancy is so new. So fragile.
You’re a mother now. You can’t afford to be fragile.
Imagine you feel like you've already failed as a parent, as a mother. Imagine medical professionals dismiss you when you tell them all of this.
This time around the second time round, I knew that what I was experiencing was abnormal. Armed with research and better prepared to advocate for myself I took myself to the GP as soon as the pregnancy test confirmed what I already suspected. I cried. I told her how desperate I'd been last time. How scared I am this time.
She told me to try ginger.
She told me perhaps the nausea ‘was all in my head’.
She told me to come back when I could no longer hold down water.
I left in tears. I went back. I saw another GP who, thankfully for me, had also suffered from HG so she knew exactly what I was talking about. She knew how difficult and lonely it all feels. She told me that she had been prescribed a particular drug. She told me it was the most effective. She told me she couldn't give it to me yet because it was too expensive. She told me she was required to prescribe me several other, cheaper, drugs first. She apologetically handed me the prescription.
I went home. The medication did very little. Things got quite dark in my brain. I went to see another GP to tell them that the medication that I've been prescribed was not really working at all. I had very little appetite. The carbs that I was able to eat didn't stay down. I couldn't work. I could barely take care of my own child. Things were unravelling quickly.
He immediately prescribed me another medication. This was more slightly more effective. I started only vomiting two, three, four times a day. The nausea was constant but more manageable. I managed a holiday in Ireland with my family, where I spent a great deal of time marooned on a huge bed overlooking the fields and mountains.
Now I'm sitting on the sofa with my daughter, who's feeling a little poorly after her vaccinations. I wanted to take her to the heart of power, into the belly of the beast. I wanted to get photos of the two of us, me and my child who is worth anything, everything.
I wanted to say: this is real. This is a serious issue. It doesn't just impact your mental and physical health during pregnancy. Instead it leaves a long and visceral scar.
But I’ve just closed the front door.
We are back in our pyjamas on the sofa. She smiling at me. She's glad she didn't have to get into the car seat or wait outside a vast Gothic building on a cold February evening. I’m glad too.
I know that either me or her or both of us one day be invited back. I know I strive to be a person that says yes and then work out the logistics afterwards and, generally, I am. My baby is only 16 weeks old. I am still healing and recovering. And sometimes it’s about knowing what to say yes to.
Today, I'm saying yes to the sofa. Yes to Netflix. Yes just snuggles with my daughter.
In a way this feels like a quiet revolution of our own. A way of saying those who need to most can't always go to the place of power. Can’t they come to us? Because I have this. I have my phone and voice and a very modest platform.
So here I am in the beating animal heart of motherhood. Milk sick on my shoulder. Hot breath in my ear. This is enough for now.
Joanna, thank you for sharing this. I’m a doctor and a mother and I struggled so much trying to convey to my own doctors my experience of pregnancy, and felt completely unsupported at a time when I needed help. I feel so strongly that awareness of what pregnancy is like needs to change, so much so that I’m working on a memoir about it right now, I want to be part of changing the medical landscape.
“I wanted to say: this is real. This is a serious issue. It doesn't just impact your mental and physical health during pregnancy. Instead it leaves a long and visceral scar.”
Words like these are so powerful in raising awareness. Thank you again.
Wishing you all the best as you continue to heal from your delivery and enjoy the baby snuggles ♥️
I only recently heard of your book listening to your interview with Penny Wincer on Not Too Busy To Write. I haven’t managed to get hold of a copy yet (I live in NZ), but am excited to read it!
Thanks for sharing, Joanna. I had a little morning sickness but can’t imagine HG. So sorry you suffered that way.
Yes to quiet revolutions. And I completely agree that places of power and decision-making should be far more accessible. It’s a huge (and very convenient for some) issue. I saw it even just at a District level when I was a Councillor.
Enjoy the snuggles for now. And all strength to you in Westminster when you do go!