During her first pregnancy with her son Finn, Mycaela Crouse threw up every single day, multiple times a day. As a first time mom, she knew about morning sickness, but had no idea what was normal and what wasn't, she says. She also lived in a rural area in Iowa where the culture is not to make a big deal about health issues. But her nausea didn't stop — for her entire nine months of pregnancy.
Her doctor dismissed her extreme morning sickness
Shortly after she found out she was pregnant, around 5 weeks pregnant, Mycaela's morning (or more like all day) sickness became relentless. "It's genuinely hard to describe how debilitating the illness was," she says. "Whenever I left the house, I would map out where the stop signs were along my route so that I would know where I could pull over to throw up. That's how frequent I was throwing up."
Mycaela also remembers calling into her doctor's nurse's line to describe just how bad she was feeling. She'd start with, "So sorry to bother you, I'm a first-time mom," and would explain her symptoms to the nurses. But their responses were always the same: her nausea and vomiting was normal and expected.
When she went to her first ultrasound appointment at nine weeks, she had already lost almost 20 pounds. "I brought up my concerns to my OB/GYN and she said the same thing the nurses did: "You know, some women do lose some weight. It should go away by the second trimester." But it didn't.
By the time she had her second ultrasound appointment, she'd lost another 10 pounds. "I'll never forget my OB/GYN that day saying, 'You probably just have a really spicy girl in there.' I went home that night and cried, really cried."
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Her nausea was all consuming
As the days, weeks and months went on, Mycaela tried to hang in there but could feel herself starving. "I'd open up the refrigerator and everything in there just made me gag." Since she kept hearing that what she was going through was normal, she thought the problem was her.
"I just felt so weak, like I had no energy and I was out of breath just standing up," she remembers. "I had to plan my life around how I felt. If I went anywhere, I'd never eat out because I would get sick almost immediately afterwards and that's not something I really wanted to do in a public place."
She also remembers having a constant horrible taste in her mouth. "Getting sick over and over again actually felt less taxing than the bad taste I just could not get away from. I used to have this giant bag of lemon drops on my desk that I would just pop like candy, and even that didn't make the taste go away."
Her husband grew concerned about how she was doing. "My husband really got me through it. And I don't think it should be understated the effect it had on him as well," she says. "He felt so helpless. His job as a doctor is to make sick people feel better and because it was someone he was close to, it was a whole lot more pressure because he didn't know how to help." He brought her home daily Pedialyte popsicles, just to try to get some electrolytes in her, she remembers.
In addition to being so sick physically, her all-consuming nausea began to take a toll on Mycaela's mental health. "It felt like I was already failing at motherhood and I hadn't even met my baby yet," she describes.
By the time she gave birth at 41 weeks, she weighed less than she did before she became pregnant — and it wasn't until afterwards, when she was talking to some of her friends who also had kids, that she found out her symptoms had not been normal.
Her second pregnancy was different
About a year and a half later, when Mycaela found out she was pregnant with her second child, she decided to find a new provider and that made all the difference in her experience. "I was finally given a name for what I'd gone through previously," she says. "It was called hyperemesis gravidarum or HG." While she did have HG with her second child as well, this time her OB/GYN was a lot more vigilant.
She remembers that just knowing that what she was going through wasn't just in her head, that it had a name, that it wasn't normal, made such an impact on her mental health the second time around. "It made me finally acknowledge that I hadn't been a bad mom. I had just been a very, very sick one who didn't get the help she needed."
"It's hard to put into words the impact it has when you tell someone you're struggling and they say, 'okay, how can I help?' It's such a different approach than what I had the first time that honestly, it kind of floored me at first."
Her new OB/GYN was vigilant in making sure she wasn't becoming too dehydrated and that her mental health was in a good place. She remembers feeling so much relief that her concerns were not being dismissed. "My concerns were being heard and not normalized and it made a real difference."
She says that what she went through with her first pregnancy was preventable. "It didn't have to be as debilitating as it was," she says, and her second pregnancy experience allowed her to see that.
Mycaela hopes there is a cultural shift in health care
When it comes to all women getting the health care they need and deserve, especially in rural areas like Mycaela's, she says there needs to be some kind of cultural shift. "There tends to be a downplaying of women's complaints and that's unacceptable."
If women say they aren't okay, we need people to believe us. "I just hope women who might be going through a similar thing sees this and really takes to heart there might be better care out there for them and that they feel empowered enough to go out and search for it."
If you too are struggling with extreme symptoms in pregnancy, or you feel like your provider is not understanding you, it's your right to seek out a new provider so you get the care you need and deserve. Here's how to start the process.
Join What to Expect on July 24 for #BumpDay to show your support for safe pregnancies for every mom, everywhere. Post a baby bump pic — yours or one you love, past or present — or simply share a message of solidarity with the hashtag #BumpDay.
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