From: larrabee@cse.ucsc.edu (Tracy Larrabee)
Newsgroups: misc.kids
Subject: I just don't get this nausea thing
Date: 23 Jul 92 18:36:42 GMT
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz (CE/CIS Boards)
NNTP-Posting-Host: arapaho.ucsc.edu

I have been pregnant three times in the past year: the first ended in
miscarriage at 7.5 weeks, the second ended for reasons separate from
miscarriage at 20.5 weeks, and the third I am experiencing right now
(at 14 weeks, just to be complete).

My first pregnancy I felt low-level yucky and exhausted, but no
violent nausea and my second I was sick as a dog and vomited regularly
(in some very inconvenient places).  People told me nausea was
correlated with high HCG levels and it was a good sign (actually, the
day before I miscarried a woman told me it was bad I wasn't feeling
sick because it meant I might miscarry: I will probably never really
forgive that woman).  I know a lot of women never feel sick, but I
decided I was probably a woman who felt sick when her HCG levels were
in the right area.

Well, as people keep saying: every pregnancy is different.  When I got
pregnant this time and I didn't get violently ill, I worried like hell
(well, I was going to feel doomed anyway--why not in that particular
manner).  I spotted at 7.5 weeks and I didn't even get too upset: it
was more like my expectations were being (very sadly) fulfilled.  I
had quantitative HCGs 2 days apart and they went down, so I began
mourning.  The thing was, the HCG levels were really too high to mean
inviable pregnancy (131,000 to 118,000).  I went in for an ultrasound
4 days after I spotted (I only spotted for one day), and there was a
strong heartbeat and everything was the right size.  I got another
quantitative HCG that day, and it had gone back up (to 136,000).  So I
relaxed a little (a very little).

Now I have exited my first trimester and I have positive results from
the chromosomal testing and I feel worse than I did during the first
trimester.  Monday I was walking through the Supermarket when in the 
produce section "yucky" turned worse and if there hadn't been a market
employee willing to guide me directly to the bathroom I would have 
bedecked their produce section.  I can't think of much I did differently
except exit the first trimester and switch to a new prenatal vitamin
(which I took frequently last pregnancy).  Is this just random?  Am I
moving into second-trimester sickness?

Actually, I have another question.  When I am not pregnant I am a
person with an "irritable bowel," and pregnancy seems to irritate my
bowel no end.  My husband says I didn't vomit because I was so busy
having explosive, liquid bowel movements (sorry to be so crude, but I
can't ask the question without graphic detail).  This isn't letting
up, and I have lower abdomen pain most of the time (not to mention
feeling like someone has pumped air into my abdomen).  This is yet
another thing to worry about, because I know from experience that for
me intestinal-origin pain and reproductive-organ-origin pain are very
similar.  It makes me anxious to be constantly feeling what I felt
when I lost the last two pregnancies.

So does anyone who had digestive difficulties before pregnancy have
any advice for me?  I eat well.  I eat a lot of fiber and an
incredible amount of grains and vegetables.  I know I will suffer if I
drink milk, or if I over-eat, but I know no other correlations to
digestive difficulties for me.  (By the way, I have discussed this
with my doctor, and she is sympathetic, but has no concrete
suggestions.)  
-- 
Tracy Larrabee 		larrabee@cse.ucsc.edu