Oh yes @Pleasedontworry I took ranitidine in both my previous pregnancies, but I vaguely remember seeing they don't recommend it anymore, I don't know why. I remember my Dad (who was a retired doctor) saying that it was a very good, reliable medicine which had been used for yonks. I've just been prescribed Ésomeprazole (I'm guessing that = omeprazole which @RockinRobinn mentioned?), plus Gaviscon sachets to dissolve and drink, and something else. (They love their prescriptions here in France!) I don't fancy my chances drinking the sachets though so will prob do the omeprazole + continuing with the chewable tablets which I find helpful too.
The essential oils are lemon & chamomile I think -- the lemon says to put a little in a spoonful of water and drink, the chamomile dissolve a larger amount in a litre of water and drink gradually during the day. I haven't got them yet but will give it a go and report back. I agree that I quite like the idea of sniffing the lemon at least! And it all sounds pretty innocuous. She also prescribed me some herbal remedies to help with sleep.
@RockinRobinn I was pretty bemused to feel like that after DS2, I didn't expect it at all and it took me years before I was honest with DH about how I felt (because he was so volubly relieved we never had to do it again!). For me the feeling didn't go away, but I've met several women who felt similarly immediately after birth but then their feelings did change quite fast. To be honest it would have been easier all round if I'd felt "done" as I expected to, but I just really didn't. I am so pleased to be pregnant again and just hoping this one holds on.
Despite loads of pre-emptive meds my second pregnancy was (unbelievably) a lot worse than my first one, which was already pretty extreme, but surprisingly this one has been quite a lot better: I haven't been admitted at all so far and I've passed 10 weeks now, whereas both times before I was an inpatient for weeks and weeks (about a month with DS1, weeks 6-9; a horrific two months with DS2 (7-14)). I started taking Xonvea (which wasn't available in my previous pregnancies) at 6 weeks, so early but not from the start of any nausea, which is what is usually recommended to avoid the worst and is what I did with DS2 to no avail. So I'm not sure whether the Xonvea is just particularly effective for some reason or whether this would have been a less severe pregnancy anyway, perhaps a bit of both. Even at 6 weeks I was already fairly hopeful it wouldn't be quite as bad as DS2 because I was a good deal iller at the same stage with him. Maybe the long gap helped too? I did once read somewhere that HG may be exacerbated by short gaps between pregnancies: DS1 and DS2 are two years apart, so I only had about a 15/16 month gap between the end of one pregnancy and the start of the next. We were both sure we wanted two and I was so dreading doing it again that I wanted to get it "over with". We went for it pretty much as soon as I felt fully recovered from the first pregnancy and then I got pregnant immediately but perhaps in retrospect that was a mistake and a bigger gap would have been better.