Vomiting phobia and TTC

[childishbambino]

Am I being unreasonable...

This could be a long one sorry.

I've suffered from crippling emetophobia for the past 25 years - I have seen a therapist for this for many years on and off. I have made quite a lot of improvement.
However, whilst certain aspects of my life I have managed to regain some perspective and freedom, I am still an emetophobe - I am still petrified of being sick.

I found out a couple of years ago that my fertility wasn't great - I have a blocked tube and endometriosis. This completely changed my life and I have been at the lowest I've ever been in my life at the thought of me not being able to have the child I have longed for, loved every single day and have been working towards getting better so I could ttc. I don't even recognise myself anymore as I feel so empty due to my fertility struggles.

We had been ttc a couple of months prior to my diagnosis as I felt like it was now or never in terms of my phobia and I did feel that I'd made enough improvement for me to at least try.

I'm now two years down the line and still not pregnant so considering IVF as a very real possibility.

Over the past week I've been second guessing myself and I'm now terrified I can't do this due to my emetophobia. I want this so much and this f**ng phobia is standing in the way AGAIN. Despite all of my fertility problems and the heartache it's caused I'm still stuck on this bloody phobia.
I've read a further thread tonight about children vomiting in a restaurant and I couldn't believe the amount of comments of people who have had similar situations happen to them! It's just caused me to panic even further and wonder if I can actually do this or not.

Am I being unreasonable?

I feel so weak and pathetic to be on here moaning about the prospect of being sick when I've already got fertility issues. I have been to hell with both this and my phobia so I truly know hell from both sides. I decided not to let my phobia win but I'm now just doubting myself again as I know I need to make a decision.

I know this post sounds so ridiculous to anyone who doesn't have this phobia but I'm really hoping that there's someone out there who will understand and be able to guide me to making the right choice. Please don't comment if you have nothing constructive to say - I cannot cope with it. This is a serious phobia - not just a disliking of being sick.

Thank you to anyone who reads this 🙏🙏

Hi op, I have 3 kids. Never vomited once.

none of my kids has vomited in public, dd17, dd12 and ds12.

hope that is a bit reassuring x

Sorry, kids never vomited once in public!!

@Workinghardeveryday

Thank you - prefer the typo of never vomited once but I'll take it 😂 ♥️ x

I have bad emetophobia too and I have three grown up kids. None have vomited in public. My husband was great, he knew about the phobia and would take over if one was ill and I'd do other unsavoury jobs he didn't like, like the cat's litter tray and scooping the dog's poop! When I was pregnant I never vomited, although had nausea for three months with both daughters but not with my son. It wasn't great but I coped. To give you an idea of how bad I usually am, I didn't go near pubs for years and years in case someone vomited outside, struggled with public transport, used to cry in the night for many in case my husband got a migraine 🙄🤷‍♀️

@nevertakeadvicefromsomeonewhosfallingapart

Thank you so much.

I feel so guilty even typing all of this as I'm struggling to even get pregnant in the first place!

Yep, I'm completely with you on all of this! Amazing how emetophobes all have exactly the same behaviour patterns! If my husband even complains about a slight tummy ache he has to basically go through an interview process with me so I can make a decision if he'll be sick or not! Ridiculous 😩

Yes I understand that, I'm the same. It's very difficult to live with because you've no control over where it could happen. I think talking to your partner about how you feel is essential, so that he can step in and help when needed.

I started to read that thread and had to come off because like you, I'm petrified. I read somewhere that if you are scared of being sick, your body tries to actively stop you being sick (no idea how true that is!) I was terrified of being pregnant but I wasn't sick and I wasn't in labour either.

Even writing the word I'm starting to sweat ha

@chelle0

I've read that too! I often think about that.

The thread did have a trigger warning on but I just punish myself by reading it 🤦🏻‍♀️ it will haunt me for so long as well but I just have to do it 😩

Have you coped well with motherhood so far in terms of sickness?

So sorry you suffer from this too :(

Ex emetophobe here!

I have three children and I wasn't sick once in pregnancy. Nor have any of my children ever been sick in public (had to stop reading that thread). Yes, babies are sick a little, but it's just milk and weirdly doesn't bother me at all like sick does.

You can do this xx

I read the whole restaurant thread 😩 and am also emetophobic! Why do we do this to ourselves!!!

I’ve had this phobia for most of my life. It’s always there in some way but I get bad flare ups which are really hard to cope with. I have a two year old. In pregnancy I had bad nausea for the first 4ish months but no actual vomiting. Now that little one attends nursery I am finding it hard to cope with the reality of bugs coming home. That has been really hard. It’s the fear of contagious stuff that really stresses me, I’m not too bothered when I know it’s not contagious.

Having said that, I absolutely love my baby and am glad i didn’t let it stop me having a child. I think with this phobia we are likely to always have to live with it. Having a child does expose you more to the things that we emetophobes naturally duck away from! So it’s really a case of weighing up how much exposure you can cope with. Another emetophobe might regret having kids. Others have said that having kids has almost cured them. There’s no way of knowing. I said to myself I’d take each step one at a time. Pregnancy, then the newborn stage (during lovely germ free lockdown lol) and now toddler stage. It’s hard but I take it day by day.

Im considering meds in the near future to see if that helps me. And more cbt. There are options out there! Oh what I’d give to have a normal reaction to all this!

Of my two kids, the eldest has only thrown up a handful of times and always got a decent reason. Usually in her cot. I bin the bedding. I'd happily pay a tenner for new bedding to avoid cleaning that! Nothing worse.

My younger kid had allergies as a baby, but once we'd identified them he stopped. He's never vomited again.

If it helps at all, baby sick isn't like adult sick. It's more like runny yogurt. It doesn't even smell. Older kids tend not to any more than adults do.

@childishbambino

Last year my husband and daughter both had norovirus for Christmas 😩 daughter got it first and it was like a scene from the exorcist. I couldn't deal with her actually being sick, but I managed to clean it up while my husband looked after her. Took me a while but I did it. I washed my hands raw and masked up. Him being (I'm struggling to write the word) I couldn't deal with. I had to go to my mums. I feel bad because he was so poorly.

Sometimes I cold sweat panic before I go in her room at night incase she's been. It's awful, and I feel like a bad mum. She's got a horrific cough and I'm dreading what else is going to happen. Luckily my husband does not care about bodily fluids what so ever!

I get it, it's so hard. And those who don't have a true phobia do not understand.

I am also massively emetophobic and also sat and read the whole vomiting in restaurant thread! I have no idea why. It's like a car crash.

Everything you have written resonates with me. It's the only thing DH and I fight about as I give him the third degree about whether he's cooked his food properly or if he feels ill etc.

I don't have kids but if I spend time with my nieces I bleach my hands when I get home because I know how many germs children spread. I realise this is sad and not normal.

I don't know the answer as I feel the same as you and haven't overcome it. But I understand.

I'm emetophobic and I've found having kids has really helped me. Although I was definitely at the milder end of the phobia to start with (it still had a significant impact on lots of areas of my life though). When it comes to my kids I find the nurturing instinct actually trumps the fear. I know that my fear started from someone responding badly to my first experience of anxiety about vomit. Because I recognise the impact this had on me I won't allow my children to feel that there is anything to worry about. I've done a lot of work and reflection to get to this point but there is no way I would have improved to the extent I have if I hadn:t had kids.

It’s all very well having X number of people here saying they weren’t sick at all in their pregnancy and that their kids haven’t been sick in public etc, but does this really help? You already know that pregnancy sickness is extremely common and that babies & children easily pick up unpredictable stomach bugs.

Is it just a phobia of being sick yourself that is so crippling, or are you equally as affected by others being sick? Would your GP be able to advise if pre-emptive anti-emetics could be given to you in pregnancy I wonder?

Ultimately, I do think you need to think of the worst case scenario of frequent, untreated sickness in pregnancy and how that would impact on your mental health even though- hopefully- the worst wouldn’t happen.

I’m genuinely so sorry that you’re in this position, my heart goes out to you.

I had terrible morning sickness, I hate being sick and do whatever I can to avoid it. Luckily it went after the first trimester. My kids were probably sick twice a year on average up until age 7 or 8. After that very rarely.

I'm the same with vomit but managed 3 pregnancies. While I was sick occasionally, I was able to get anti sickness meds from my GP, and reminding myself, is all for the baby and I'm not actually ill, helped a lot! I hope everything works out for you!

29 weeks today and in exactly the same boat!
I didn't (touch wood) vomit through my first trimester, though felt dreadful (there was one week where I literally got up once a day to use the bathroom).

My saving grace was contacting my GP pretty much as soon as I got two lines on the stick, and was prescribed cyclizine (one of the weaker anti-emetics, but did the trick!). I'm not sure whether it really worked, or whether the effects were psychosomatic, but they helped for sure.

My stepson (with us 50/50) has been sick on 2 occasions at ours, once because of concussion and once with scarlet fever. I still can't be with him while he's physically ill, but I have got so much better about cleaning up and stripping beds etc.

I would fully recommend going for it - if you do get morning sickness, take it one day at a time - it absolutely will not last forever, though it may feel like it, and each day is one closer to meeting your baby.

Wishing you all the best with your journey OP!

Huge sympathy, op. I am an emetophobe too, but mine developed after I had Dc. It's so draining, isn't it?

Some kids are more sicky than others. Both of mine have only ever had one sickness bug, and have never been sick in public. But my ds also has emetophobia. Handling that is hard and limits our life in ways.

Please don't let this stop you from having Dc. Wishing you all the very best.

If my husband even complains about a slight tummy ache he has to basically go through an interview process with me so I can make a decision if he'll be sick or not!

Yes! I do this too!

Emetophobe here. Not sure I would have had kids if the first one hadn’t come along by accident.

Was more scared of being sick in labour than any other thoughts about labour itself. There are times when I’ve had really poor mental health because of it and leant on therapy to get me though some tough periods of parenting. On the flipside, overall my kids have provided some form of immersion therapy and I don’t find some aspects as challenging as I used to before having children.

it’s a very personal decision. I won’t say it doesn’t affect me at all since having children, but it’s also not been as bad as I thought and I’m glad I didn’t put myself off. Having a partner who knows to step in when I’m feeling overwhelmed helps a lot, although he works away frequently which is a source of anxiety as I know it will fall to me if one of the children is ill.

Ex emetophobe here.

With my first two kids I wasn’t sick in pregnancy, dH dealt with the rare occasion of vomit and the boys learnt at a very young age to manage themselves or call dad. With DD I vomited every single day of my pregnancy until I gave birth. It was a bit like forced aversion therapy tbh as there was just nothing I could do, I had to get through it. I still remember 9yo DS1 holding back my hair and rubbing my back as I sobbed into the toilet in the early weeks and I knew I needed to cope better as it wasn’t fair on him (DH was working away at that point). I will still do everything I can to not vomit but it is no longer the fear it was.

Don’t let the fear stop you getting pregnant, you will be strong enough to cope if you have to.

DH is an emetophobe. We have a 10 month old DD who recently caught norovirus. Thanks to her penchant for sticking her hands in our faces, we also got it. I don't care about being sick, but even I found it properly grim. The reality is kids get sick, even more so if they go to nursery and it's likely at some point you will catch it from them. I see how difficult it is for my DH, but fortunately, it isn't a regular occurrence and because I'm OK with sick, we manage. I think if you have a supportive partner who doesn't mind dealing with sick kids and clean up, then that part can work fine. I'm less sure about how you'd manage your phobia in relation to being sick yourself. I agree with PP that regular baby sick is a completely different ball game and DH isn't in the slightest bit bothered by that - and we've had plenty with it (reflux and allergy baby). We also had IVF and I was only sick once through treatment (because I got ohss) and in never in pregnancy. I'm sorry OP, it's a really debilitating phobia.

Would prophylactic anti-sickness medicine make you feel safer in pregnancy? The medics may be a little hesitant (maybe private doctor would be the way) but as there is very little risk to the foetus using things such as Cyclizine (nothing is obviously licensed for use in pregnancy but millions use it with no problem) it may make you feel much safer if you get that far?

I’m not going to lie to you. I am very sick in pregnancy. I had a medicine called Xonvea that changed my life. It stopped my sickness, stopped all nausea and didn’t make me tired. Weirdly, exercise like swimming also helped.

@pinkyvase

Thank you so much. Very pleased to see you are an ex emetophobe 😊😊