Dear everyone,/howdy!

I dropped a line on Twitter earlier this week about still being sick and how I would explain things here somewhere after Thursday. Things took a modest dramatic turn shortly after, and I ended up being admitted to the hospital on Wednesday.

So, what’s the deal, Neil?! Let me start with the good news: after years of trying, I am finally [insert pause for dramatic effect] pregnant!

The crappy news: I’m one of those women suffering from HG (Hyperemesis Gravidarum). Now, whenever I tell this to someone (not that I’ve told a whole lot of people yet), I get a somewhat “OH, but all pregnant women are nauseous!”. Yeah, there’s a difference.

Distinguishing between morning sickness and hyperemesis gravidarum:

Morning Sickness:	Hyperemesis Gravidarum:
Nausea sometimes accompanied by vomiting	Nausea accompanied by severe vomiting
Nausea that subsides at 12 weeks or soon after	Nausea that does not subside
Vomiting that does not cause severe dehydration	Vomiting that causes severe dehydration
Vomiting that allows you to keep some food down	Vomiting that does not allow you to keep any food down

Source: http://americanpregnancy.org/pregnancy-complications/hyperemesis-gravidarum/

For the past 3.5 weeks, I’ve been nauseous practically non-stop and vomited up until the point of damaging my oesophagus and coughing up blood. Eating is a nightmare. Drinking is a nightmare. My ritual of drinking tea three times a day is gone. Just thinking about tea makes me gag. There have been a lot of days where the most I could get into my system without it coming out again was half a banana and a glass of water.

Being completely exhausted and apparently dehydrated, I was admitted to the hospital and put on an IV drip this week. This didn’t solve much, though. I’m still nauseous 24/7 and am hoping the new anti-nausea meds I got today will finally work.

Seeing my main activities are sleeping, lying down, vomiting or trying to shove food in and keeping it down, there still won’t be any blogging activity from my side until I can at least read properly again. So far, reading is making me extra nauseous, so I haven’t done a lot of it. I’ve sent some letters to publishers and authors whom I still owe an ARC review. If I haven’t written you a letter, I hope you’re reading this and know I will get to it whenever I can again. For now, my health comes first, though.

I can’t put any timeframe on this whole ordeal but I’m sincerely hoping it will get better 3-7 weeks from now, and I can be more excited about having a baby in general! It’s pretty hard if you’re feeling like shit every day for almost a month now.

Thanks to my awesome friends for listening to me whine about this and/or having supported me in general for the past couple of weeks. You know who you are! ❤

If there’s anyone else who has gone through this, feel free to share your experiences in the comment section! I might not always reply at the moment, but I will still read the comments (if there are any) and will be forever grateful to you for making me feel more like I’m not alone in this!