One of the hardest things about hyperemesis gravidarum or severe morning sickness is having to cook. I have survived on the most nutritionally deficient food I can think of because a) I can’t face cooking anything and b) I can’t eat anything I have cooked anyway. However the boys still need feeding and every day I have to prepare meals that makes my stomach heave with displeasure.
So on Friday I made egg fried rice with left-over sausages and bacon. Those three ingredients alone are enough to make me throw up even writing about them. But the children need feeding so I persevere.
The smell from the frying pan is terrible. I cook the rice but when I stir it I notice a piece of black rice. I fish it out and look at it in horror realising it is not black rice but a fly. Unable to believe a fly has got into the rice pan – which has a lid on it – I look again.
I feel so unwell, I can’t start cooking it again, I think in desperation. I know any minute I am going to be sick again.
I look at it, willing it to be a piece of black rice. But it is definitely a fly.
Well, the fly’s out now and the rice will have boiled away any germs.
I can’t avoid throwing up so I disappear to the bathroom for a few minutes. When I get back I don’t feel any better.
I look again at the fly.
Shit, a wing’s missing. That means it must still be in the rice.
My legs are shaking with nausea. I want to get supper on the table and the whole cooking process over with. My type-A personality, which would have thrown out the rice and possibly the pan in disgust on any normal day, deserted me when the morning sickness started.
I review the situation. A wing is in the rice. But the rice has boiled for a long time and any germs will be dead, I reason.
So I serve it up.
(I’m not proud of myself.)
(The boys are still alive.)
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Have you asked your doctor about Zofran? I was so sick during my pregnant, and it worked wonders for me. It’s a drug they give to kids going through chemo so it is safe to use during pregnancy and worked great. It’s expensive, but my doctor wrote a note to the insurance and said that I was starving and needed it for the baby and they covered it 100%.
It’s worth a shot!
I’m so sorry about your morning sickness, but your story definitely made me laugh!
Oh, that sounds awful – the sickness, I mean, not leaving fly’s wings in the rice. Heck, kids’ll put anything in their mouths anyway. One well-cooked fly wing won’t make much difference.
You are so funny. I think I would have fed it to the kids, too, although my meal wouldn’t have been nearly as nice as that. They’d be lucky to get peanut butter sandwiches if I was feeling the way you were!
A bit of extra protein never hurt anyone…..
Oh, I can relate to this! I had really bad morning sickness, too. I used to keep a bottle of water next to my bed and one night I took a swig only to realize a spider washed into my mouth too. A spider!
And you know what? I instinctively suppressed that memory, fast, so I wouldn’t be throwing up all night.
I can look back at it now but it still makes me feel a little ill.