3 weeks in bed with morning sickness - fair enough or milking it?

[redstripeyelephant]

My friend is 10 weeks pregnant and having morning sickness, as you do! It sounds pretty normal - feels nauseous most of the day, throws up every now and then (not every day). She has been either off work sick or working from home for the last 3 weeks. I'm a SAHM and have tried popping round or inviting her over or to the park with me and DD (we live 5 mins away) but it's no good, she wants to stay in bed. Fair enough, I thought.

DH went to the pub with her DH last night and came back saying her DH is 'sick of it', thinks she is 'milking it' and wants me to talk to her and convince her she is 'not ill, just pregnant'!

He says she literally does not get out of bed, just lies there watching tv and waiting for him to bring her food. They recently bought a new house that needs lots of work and he is doing everything on his own. My DH went round there the other day to help with some DIY and said she just shouted hello from the bedroom. When he made some sarky comment about getting out of bed she said 'I am actually on medication you know' (antibiotics for a uti).

My feeling is I'm keeping well out of it! Plus, I do sympathise with her, it does feel shit. But most people do get on with it and don't stay in bed all day, but then different people cope with things differently, right? I threw up pretty much every day with DD2, and had to go to work and look after a toddler. But then I guess you have a better threshold for getting on with things when you're already a mum.

I thought I'd throw it open to the MN jury - is it normal to be so absolutely flattened by morning sickness that you literally can't get out of bed? (We're not talking hyperemesis by the way - she can keep food down, and has been to the doctor several times who says it'a just morning sickness).

?

I think the side effects of a UTI have been under-estimated too. I have had lifelong problems with UTIs and they can make you nauseous too. On top of morning sickness and tiredness, I should imagine she's feeling very under the weather. If I had the opportunity I would have spent much more time in bed resting with both of my pregnancies, especially the second, where I was prescribed anti-sickness tablets due to morning sickness and painkillers making me feel ill.

I've looked after a toddler and a four month old with gastroenteritis, I crawled about the house for over a week. Doesn't mean I think someone else who went to bed with gastroenteritis while her DP looked after her is weaker than I am, you just cope with what's dealt to you at the time. I don't get the whole, well I managed, so should you attitude, I remembered how shite I felt and how much I cried wishing someone was there to support me when I felt bad, makes me more sympathetic to others, not less.

babyapplejack I'm not judging weather she has hyperemesis (?sp) just letting the op that in my (badly judged but still my own) opinion she is not being unreasonable. TBH it is how I feel, but this thread is a bit like 'coming out' with what I know is a mean spirited opinion. I can be at how mean I can be to people in my head when I know it is pure jealousy and I am VDBU (very definitely being unreasonable?). On the other hand it may go some way to explaining why her (D)H is coming across like he is, doesn't excuse him but might explain.

Gah what a vile chatacter flaw, I would never admit to being like this in RL!

I do sympathise (really!) with people who feel so awful, I have shit teeth after all the vomiting, it's vile and evil feeling being nauseus and/or being sick all the time. (Anyone reading this who is suffering at the moment my tip is drink ribena instead of water, you know it's going to come back so it may as well taste nice when it does )

UTIs in pregnancy can cause fever and being very poorly.

I can confirm that's UTIs in general

In fact, in spring last year I moved in with my mum for two weeks because my UTI got all the way up to the kidney, and I was feverish, vomiting, with diarrhoea, in a lot of pain, and should really have been in hospital on morphine. I stayed in bed for over a week, and was as weak as a kitten for weeks afterwards.

Hence why I think her husband is underestimating the UTI, on top of morning sickness. I think sometimes because something can be quite common in pregnancy (UTIs and morning sickness, case in point, also SPD another one) that it isn't considered particularly serious and you can't possibly be as ill as you say you are.

BettyCash, as I said, I have been round to see her, cooked her lunch, brought her magazines, given her lifts to the doctors and generally tried to be as supportive as possible. I don't think she's milking it, those were her DH's words!

aliciasilverstone, when I say sarky comment I mean a jokey comment along the lines of 'oi lazybones, are you still in bed?!' accompanied by a smile - we've known her for a long time and she wouldn't be offended by that - though I'm not saying it was the best thing to say at the time, obviously. But we are actually nice people, honest!

I was just surprised as in RL I have never known anyone be bedridden for quite so long with morning sickness, apart from one friend who was hospitalised with hyperemesis. Which, for the record, my friend has not got. At least the GP doesn't think so, and she is still managing to eat and drink. But I do sympathise a lot, as I know how rough it is feeling sick all day.

I don't know how a UTI makes you feel, but I certainly know about hyperemesis. I had it during both my pregnancies for the entire none months. I spent around four months in hospital each time, on a drip for the dehydration and taking meds to stop the sickness as it was affecting my babies. There was not a day during either pregnancy when I wasn't sick at least once and usually more. It was hell. When I was at home I spent most of the time either in bed or lying on the settee. Unless you have suffered it you cannot possibly understand how wretched it make you feel.

The only consolation I had was that each time my doctors told me that often the HE indicates a healthy baby for some reason ( something to do with hormone levels I believe) and I do wonder if there is something in this, as both successful pregancies produced big, healthy babies, whereas my other two pregnancies, when I had no sickness at all, ended in MCs.

Good on her for staying in bed and not dragging herself through the day like I did. The less tired she is, the less she will suffer from morning sickness. I ended up in hospital with a kidney infection on IV antibiotics because I "soldiered on". She's doing the right thing, IMO.

Ask her DH how he feels when he has a sickness bug. Then ask him to imagine that feeling never lifting for even a minute and not knowing when it's going to end.

I had weeks off work and believe me, I didn't want to - I wanted to be going about my normal life, interacting with my ds and enjoying my pregnancy.

It sounds like he is being helpful, anyway, and as long as he doesn't tell her to her face she's "milking it" and continues to support her, it will probably do him good to let off some steam - it's hard on the partner, too.

Or ask him how he would like to have the worst hang over he's ever had go on for days and weeks!

Mostly I'm of the "get your arse out of bed and get moving" brigade, but in this case I think it can be profoundly upsetting to find yourself pregnant, even if it was planned. A friend of mine took to her bed for 3 weeks when she found out she was expecting. She just found the whole thing too overwhelming - the life changes, the diet (she is a can of coke/packet of crisps girl normally!), the whole ramifications of telling her insane mother in law, not to mention actually being pregnant and her hormones going balistic.

Give her another week and then offer to call the doctor in so he can assess her "...and hospitalise if necessary!" - might scare her into pulling her socks up a bit.

northerngirl41, are you serious?
have you even read any of this thread?

It is profoundly insulting to people with HG to suggest their symptoms are psychological, let alone that they could pull their socks up

its not like people want to be ill when pregnant northerngirl, I would have loved to have 'glowed' and felt fit and happy for 9 months, not having HG for 9 months and put on a drip on two occasions to be rehydrated (mine started really early on and didnt let up with ds, with dd it was a bit better but I still felt really rough)

memories of hyperemis flash through her head

checks implant is firmly in place

relaxes

i had hyperemis and since then every time i vomit i have to do a pregnancy test, i want to cry even remembering it.

Wow I wish I had thought about pulling my socks up the three or four times I was hospitalised with HG.

Pulling my socks up would have involved bending over though, which would have made me puke on the socks! Do I have to pull up my barffed on socks, that's not nice!

Has she actually tried pottering around or getting about a bit?
My own experience with DS2 was that week 6 or 7 we were on holiday and I could stay in bed all day. I did and I felt crap.
We came back from holiday and I struggled into work and I felt crap, but at least time was passing more quickly.
To me it didn't feel the same as a sickness bug where resting up helps you recover. Whatever I did didn't help so getting into work (I'm lucky, it's a desk job) seemed to help me at least feel a little better about myself.
Of course, if she can't get out of bed then of course she's not milking it and heck, if she doesn't have other children to care for, or need to be in work then she's not doing any harm.
If she's using it as an excuse to get out of other responsibilities then I worry for her, but as you say, I'd stay out of it.

HG with both of my pgs and agree that its not always easy to get diagnosed and that you do feel somewhat better when lying still. So that combined with UTI, 1st trimester tiredness,unsympathetic DH and the whole emotional rollercoaster is prob making her feel pretty shit and only able to lie in bed.

Words cannot describe how grim HG is, for me being pg with DD (2nd pg) was worse than with DS, made harder by having to look after toddler.
I was signed off for most of pg with DD, hospitalised twice, 4 different meds, all fairly crap. Then was so depressed and going a bit insane I tried to go back to work for 2 months in the middle but meds stopped working so had to go off again. Still sick up to 4 times a day up until 34 weeks then eased to once or twice a day. Was sick during labour with both, puke, contraction, puke, contraction is particularly horrendous.

Also have teeth ruined by acid

but have 2 lovely DCs and they are worth it but NEVER, NEVER again. Only convinced to have DD as thought it might be a one off with DS.

By the way lostinwales - what a load of bollocks you talk. I am mega hardcore, had both my babies with no pain relief (except anti sickness meds!) and always have gone to work with all manner of colds, coughs etc. As some other wise poster said imagine a nasty D & V bug where you literally are sick every hour...now imagine that for weeks amd months at a time. Nowt to do with toughing it out, dehydration can kill you and your baby. So ner.

agh yes i ahd a UTI with my HG, too, so my feeling crapness felt even worse! I swear i thought i was going to die
will never forget..
i was peeing blood
vomiting blood

but even with the canualar directly into my vein, and using a syringe to try and SUCK the blood out, they still couldnt get any. (not even the 3rd doctor to come to try!).... i had to be rehydrated before they could actually get any blood out of me.
(could not have pulled my socks up at this point either, to stand was an issue sometimes, and getting downstairs impossible)

i think if you havent yourself had HG you actually have no idea what its like!... and you simply CANT carry on, or get up, or go to work, it is quite simply not possible!.. and im fortunate enough that now im 15 weeks its easing off slightly, ie i can now get dressed most (but not all) days. Am still sick pretty much every day though, sometime just once, but other times too many to keep track... more than 10, maybe a lot more!, but in between most days have a few hours where i can do non strenuose stuff!

when I had HG I came up with a scale of 1-10 to describe how crap I felt (in order to communicate it to dh without having to speak too many words, people who have been there will understand why this is important ). Level 5 meant you could still just about distract yourself, so it was worth making the effort to work or read to make time pass quicker, as Bonkers20 describes, but level 6 meant the nausea was so bad it was simply impossible to read or concentrate on anything anyway, even if you could physically get to your desk.
I suspect people who think it's all about making an effort have never been above a level 5....

Am glad I am not the only one who now panics and buys a pregnancy test every time they start feeling a little bit sick!

I only need to start feeling slightly nauesous to put all broody thoughts right out of my head, I honestly don't think I could cope again, getting pregnant worries me greatly

With my first I remember getting to 5mths pregnant and realising that it probably wasn't going to go away or get any better until I gave birth and the realisation, that that meant I had another 4mths still to go, had me sobbing in my husbands arms that I couldn't cope anymore and that I wanted to die :(

As I said before I escaped any form of morning sickness - maybe more prone to travel sickness but that has mostly been nausea - but I'd love my symptoms to be psychological! For a week, before I knew I was pregnant, I had vertigo so bad anything other than lying flat on my front in the dark made me spin at 100 miles an hour. Dad took me to the GP and had to go in with me because I couldn't open my eyes or talk easily. I've had it on and off through the pregnancy but not quite so bad.

Having contractions last night would have been nice if they were in my head but considering that my 4 year old, partner and Dad could all see them I doubt it!

Daily injections, crutches to get about, fibromyalgia in my chest making the stairs seen like a marathon, constant pain relief, fortnightly scans, monthly blood tests and swabs... I wish pregnancy was easy and all this in my head!

I had really bad sickness but lucky for me I got it at 10.30pm and after half an hour I would be okay again. I ended up not going out in the evenings and would be in bed at 11pm completely exhausted.

I dont understand my his asking you to speak to her. Its up to him to sort her out not you. I would tell him to say to her we need to take you back to the doctors I cant cope doing everything anymore. This should be her wake up call.

Or get her mum to pop over and speak to her.

I have my own form of reaching for the pregnancy test - since I don't have a cycle with breastfeeding and don't get sick I usually miss it - it's the pain in my dimples!

DD2 I had morning sickness up until about 16 weeks but DD1 the hypermesis lasted 10 days over my due date. The first words out my mouth about my beautiful DD1 were not "isn't she beautiful" they were "I don't feel sick anymore".My teeth never recovered from the constant vomitting. was in and out of hospital, different tablets tried and then stopped (one actually banned). I shake at the memory and resent anyone thinking I could have pulled myself together. My DD1 is now 33 and the memory just a vivid.

The OP has stated more than once that her friend does not have hyperemesis.