Sunday, July 17, 2005
Do pregnant women worry too much?
Yet, when I was several months pregnant and told a woman who I was interviewing for a story that I had no hyperemesis gravidarum, she lowered her voice and said, “Oh, please tell me you were maybe a little queasy a few times.” She was suggesting there was something wrong if I wasn’t sick!
So I did what any sane person would do: I lied to get her off my back. I just wanted her to stop freaking me out. The minute I hung up the phone I started calling recently pregnant friends and Googling “morning sickness” and “hyperemesis gravidarum.” After some Medline research and a few phone conversations, I learned that roughly half of pregnant women have some morning sickness and half don’t. In some cultures, a word for the condition doesn’t even exist.
So either I was a displaced native of the Republic of Seychelles or I was just one of those 50 percent who didn’t get sick. The point is there was nothing wrong with me just because I didn’t have morning sickness — but I spent a couple of sleepless nights worrying about it.
Me thinks perhaps . . .
So I did what any sane person would do: I lied to get her off my back. I just wanted her to stop freaking me out. The minute I hung up the phone I started calling recently pregnant friends and Googling “morning sickness” and “hyperemesis gravidarum.” After some Medline research and a few phone conversations, I learned that roughly half of pregnant women have some morning sickness and half don’t. In some cultures, a word for the condition doesn’t even exist.
So either I was a displaced native of the Republic of Seychelles or I was just one of those 50 percent who didn’t get sick. The point is there was nothing wrong with me just because I didn’t have morning sickness — but I spent a couple of sleepless nights worrying about it.
Me thinks perhaps . . .
