How I Dealt with Morning Sickness

How I cured my morning sickness


Morning sickness sucks. There’s literally no other way to put it. It’s like having a severe hangover that will never end. In my case, I was served up 17 weeks of nausea and narcolepsy. I remember my IVF doctor telling me that it should pass around 10 weeks – of course my doctor has never been pregnant because he’s a man. Thankfully, in my case I never threw up – I just felt like I had to all day, every day.

My morning sickness started right after I found out I was pregnant during week 5. I had friends tell me it likely wouldn’t start until week 7 – those lucky beotches. For 3-4 weeks I moaned, groaned, and made one with the couch. I had a friend ask me last week what I watched on tv for those first few weeks and my answer was “my eyelids”. Not only was I nauseas, I was also so ridiculously tired. I would fall asleep sitting up, laying in a ball, putting on my gym shoes, in the car, on my couch, and randomly in my bed. It was like musical chairs for sleeping. So if you haven’t grasped so far, morning sickness… yeah it sucks.

At week 8, my IVF doctor told me he had something to take away my misery and suggested that I start Diclegis. What!? There’s actually something that would make me feel like “Heather” again?! Before agreeing, I wanted to look into this miracle drug. I found out that Diclegis is a FDA approved prescription for morning sickness. The two active ingredients are B6 and Doxylamine (which is an antihistamine and causes sleepiness). It first came out about 30 years ago and was pulled from the US when some moms started reporting there could be birth defects that came along with the drug. Well, off the market it went and it was thoroughly studied until a few years ago when it was deemed completely safe. In the mean time, it was still being distributed around Europe and Canada without any problems. I looked up studies just to be sure and scoured dozens of mommy groups and blogs to see if any kids were born with like 5 eyes after taking Diclegis. Thankfully, all I came across was how happy morning sickness mommies were with the drug.

I’m not joking when I say it was literally my lifesaver. I took 2 pills at bedtime and if I was still SUPER nauseas I could take two in the morning (although I never did because it would knock me out into an all day slumber). I still randomly felt gross or super tired over the next few weeks, but overall it was a huge success. At around week 15 I tried to come off Diclegis and had a few terrible days of sickness, so I stuck with the meds until week 17. For a few days after I felt kind of crappy, but eventually by the middle of my 17th week of pregnancy I was ready to get back in the game of life.

I’m absolutely not getting paid by the manufacturers of Diclegis, I just genuinely want to tell other mom’s that this really worked for me after weeks of calling off work and feeling like death. Talk to your doctor about whether this is a good option for you and definitely do your research.

Other things that I tried that kind of helped with my morning sickness were:

  1. Ginger Tea (worked for 30 minutes at a time)
  2. Warm showers 
  3. Eating carbs – not joking but carbs would help take away the nausea feeling for about an hour.
  4. Exercise – this one was so terribly hard for me when I felt like i was going to vomit, but every time I would complete a workout I would feel brand new for a few hours.

Something you could try before trying Diclegis would be B6. I hear a lot of moms had great success with just that vitamin alone. Again, talk to your doctor!

Alright that’s my roundup of morning sickness cures. Let me know in the comments below if you’ve tried anything that you loved so we can spread the word to other moms. Believe me – morning sickness advice is like receiving a Christmas Gift… all are welcome.

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