How I Handled Morning Sickness

By Jeana Lee Tahnk

I'm one of those annoying people who just loved being pregnant. Ididn't walk around asking people to rub my belly all day, but I waslucky to have great, routine pregnancies with all three kids, which Ithink is why it was such a positive experience for me.

All pregnancies were pretty similar in how I felt, how I looked andsymptoms (indigestion up the wazoo), but the third pregnancy definitelyhit me the hardest when it came to morning sickness. Or, in my case, 4p.m.-to-bedtime-sickness. Just like clockwork, at 4 p.m. every day thenausea, sour stomach and flu-like feelings would set in and, of course,that was always the same time I'd have to take my kids to theirafternoon activities and lessons.

Even though moving around sometimes was the last thing I wanted todo, I found it sometimes helped to be busy and distracted. It wouldn'tgive me a chance to sit and wallow in how bad I felt.

Aside from the all-carb diet-namely pretzels, wheat crackers andcereal-that I subsisted on during weeks seven to 14 of pregnancy, Ididn't find many other foods to be helpful. I tried crystallized ginger,pregnancy candies, tea, lemons, saltines ... nothing did the trick. Ialso tried doing what doctors typically suggest, eating small snacksthroughout the day, and it didn't work. Neither did eating big meals.

Since my late-afternoon sickness was always in full force by dinnertime, I often just chose to go to sleep - if I was sleeping, I wasn'tfeeling gross. There were many nights when 7 p.m. was my bedtime and mytwo older kids stayed up later than I did!

I'm an independent person, but I used this opportunity to accepthelp. Lots of it: Someone else had to take over if I was going to bedwhen it was still light out!

I also did a lot of deep breathing, which I think calmed me morethan settled my stomach. But relaxed and nauseous is at least betterthan wound up and nauseous.

And maybe because it was the third time around, I had more of anability to deal with it mentally, because I knew that in the end, itwould be so worth it. That was perspective I didn't necessarily have the first time around.

Morning sickness is no fun at all, but by taking care of yourselfand letting others take care of you, hopefully you can get through thetough phase sooner rather than later. Just take it day by day.Forgetting those tough phases like morning sickness (and um, sleepdeprivation, which I'm going through now) is a reason why parents go onto have other kids. I'm convinced of it.

And with how quickly time passes and how quickly these kids grow up,all those difficulties soon become a distant memory and all thatprevails are the immense joys that parenthood brings.