Flotsam

I have decided on names for my hopeful future potential possible children: Zofranny and Zooey. Nice and literary, and this way both can have the honor of being named after my new companion, Zofran.
About ten days ago, I awoke at three a.m. and threw up. At the time I was not displeased—my first pregnancy vomit! Surely a sign of live Science Babies!
When I failed to keep down even broth and managed to PULL A MUSCLE in my chest with the force of my repeated retching, it became less charming, and I called my doctor. Zofran keeps me from puking and allows me to eat whole meals, and for that I am grateful enough that naming my children after it seems an appropriate response. It doesn’t do much for the nausea, so I still spend a majority of my time feeling as if I am minutes from losing my stomach contents (and the drug is delivered via foul-tasting dissolvable tablet), but all in all I have to say it is a miraculous medication.
However, I feel guilty about taking it. Or rather, about not waiting longer to take it.

I have had two previous bouts of hormone-induced hyperemesis. One, the summer I was 14, was judged by a coterie of baffled doctors to be the result of some combination of birth control pills, blood sugar, and hormonal shifts, exacerbated by gastritis and the vicious cycle of vomiting (vomit because your stomach is empty–>feel too sick to eat–>vomit because your stomach is empty). By the end of that summer I weighed 85 pounds and was starting to have my first panic attacks. It was a horrible time.
The next bout was years later, brought on by a switch to a new brand of the pill. It was milder, but still severe enough to require three days in the hospital for dehydration.
Both episodes affected me perhaps more than they should have. They undermined my confidence in my body and made me feel fragile and vaguely unsafe. Also, never-ending nausea and dehydration are not conducive to emotional clarity, which is a polite way of saying they made me crazy.

So when the puking started ten days ago, and quickly progressed to the point where even liquids were an impossibility and my nose burned from my own bile, I lost it, a little. And after only ONE DAY of this, before I was dehydrated or in any real danger, rather than wait to see whether I could manage things on my own, I called my OB and asked for Zofran by name. And got it, and haven’t thrown up since.
And now I am a bit ashamed. There is little research regarding the safety of Zofran in pregnancy. There is nothing to indicate that it is unsafe, but as with all medications in pregnancy, the risks of treatment must be weighed against the risks of doing nothing. Which in my case were somewhat theoretical—if things had continued as they were, I would almost certainly have ended up needing IV fluids and being put on Zofran, but that is a big if. And so I feel guilty. I am afraid that I put my mental health above the health of my hopeful future potential possible children.
In my defense, I did try both Unisom and Sea Bands in the days prior, and neither did anything once the vomiting started. The Unisom has been indispensable for the intractable nausea the Zofran leaves behind, but on its own it just wasn’t strong enough.
I am telling myself that this is merely practice for all of the many things I will surely feel guilty about as a mother, should I be lucky enough to become one. But it is difficult, because every time the nausea seems slightly more manageable than usual, I cannot help but think that the decrease is due to a recently deceased Science Baby. This is how my mind works, you see. Of course if I weren’t taking the Zofran I would be weeping on the bathroom floor wishing I had cleaned more thoroughly and worrying about Charlotte Bronte, so it seems one can’t win. Thankfully I have an ultrasound tomorrow afternoon.

I am eight weeks and four days pregnant, for those of you keeping track at home. When last I saw the Science Babies—on Friday when I graduated from my clinic—they were each measuring 7w4d with strong heartbeats of 154 and 158 bpm. My RE’s ultrasound machine was much fancier than my OB’s, and Scott and I got to hear their heartbeats, trumpeting away. You could just make out the head and tail ends, and if the Science Babies are still alive in there today, they must look like this. Like people.
It is almost too much to grasp. I look down at my (shockingly large for eight-and-a-half weeks) abdomen, and think: That’s not all cheese in there, after all.