I’ll get to the POINT for those mamas who’ve come here in the thick of it, and then I’ll go into more detail and why I think each thing helped so much. This article is FREE and will always be free.
WALKING
I started walking about a mile, 3x a day. Even though I wanted to curl up on the couch, even though I was painfully nauseous, I walked anyway. If you’re reading this, curled up with your phone, feeling absolutely miserable: get up, go outside, go for a walk. Then come back and read the rest later.
LEMONADE AND SWEET TEA
I sipped on lemonade and sweet tea ALL DAY. A constant sipping, every 15-20 minutes probably. For the lemonade, Nick just bought a jug of Milo’s and then he added even more fresh squeezed lemons to it, to make it more acidic.
CALM SELF-TALK
I told myself that my nest was safe, that this baby was safe, and that my home was a safe place for me to have a baby in. Anytime I noticed a negative thought try to creep into my mind, I would counter it with a positive affirmation. I kept flooding my mind and body with “everything is okay, you’re safe, this baby is safe.”
Disclaimer
I struggled with the title of this article, because I want to say I cured my HG, or healed it completely. Because for me, these things had nothing short of a miraculous effect on a condition I thought couldn’t be beaten. Because there are whole groups of people out there who want us to think that this is “just genetic.” Because people don’t want cures or natural fixes - they find comfort in a diagnosis and a pharmaceutical “treatment.” But after the most-used “treatment” for HG killed my baby, I wasn’t having that. I refused to believe there’s just something wrong with my body, that I was born to have these terrible pregnancies: because the math doesn’t math on that claim. I had two pregnancies without HG, and then suddenly, I started getting it. There was a reason for it. There’s a reason for these symptoms, and there are ways to manage and reverse these symptoms naturally. I’m sharing in as much detail, what worked for me. I’m also sharing the tough story that led me to this point, because it’s a part of this. A loss that led to learning that led to healing. I hope this information helps whoever it was meant to reach!
Why This Topic is Important to Me
Hyperemesis gravidarum didn’t kill my 4th son, but the medication I took did. And women are prescribed this EVERY DAY, despite it being incredibly toxic and dangerous in pregnancy. Zofran.
It’s not approved for pregnancy, other countries have banned its use in pregnancy, but the U.S. has made it part of the nauseous mama culture - even prescribing it to women who DON’T HAVE FULL-ON HG, and just feel a little queasy.
But even a Google search will show you that Zofran has tons of lawsuits against it for kidney defects, heart defects, cleft palate, etc.
I was mainly worried about cleft palate. I truly thought there was no way something as serious as those other things could happen to my baby.
It was my first pregnancy taking Zofran. I had HG with my 3rd, but just battled through it, and it really ripped us apart. I decided to take the meds with my 4th because I truly thought it would be the best thing for my family: I didn’t want my kids to see me so sick, so deranged. Yes, deranged, because HG for me means NO food, NO water. My body and brain are literally just surviving on my own bone minerals or something, because I couldn’t eat. My mental health plummeted and I was hardly human anymore. It was a sad time. I would yell and cry at God for an answer. Why does this happen to some women? And WHY ME?
So when the symptoms came on during my 4th, I figured I would be proactive and take the medicine. And I beat myself up about it afterward, because I KNEW. I KNEW pharma was bad, I knew they were crooks and they lie and they cover up things and they don’t report side effects. But I thought, just this once, it will be okay.
At 28 weeks, I went to one of those 3D baby scan places so I could take a peek at his face. I genuinely had this gut worry that he had cleft palate, and wanted to check. But, we couldn’t see him at all, there wasn’t enough fluid. We chalked it up to, oh, you’re dehydrated, just drink a ton of water and then come back in a few weeks.
At 31 weeks, I went to another 3D place. Same thing: black screen. Only this time, she didn’t brush it off. She looked at me and said, “This isn’t good. You’re going to need an OB.” She happened to be a nurse, and she took the time to look around for his organs. She could see them better than we could see his face: and she could only find one kidney, and it was covered in cysts. She explained to me that the cystic kidney can be normal, but since she couldn’t find the other kidney AND there was a lack of fluid, that it looked like there was something very wrong. Maybe, just maybe, there was a second kidney that was functioning, and we just couldn’t see it? His life would depend on that.
2 or 3 long weeks later, I was able to get an appointment at a Maternal Fetal Medicine clinic in Conway, AR. They confirmed that he had bilateral displastic kidney disease: two kidneys that would never work. One had never formed or had long since been destroyed by cysts. The existing cystic kidney was not working. What this means is, he was never able to produce urine while in my womb. Urine is what creates amniotic fluid, and amniotic fluid is what helps a baby’s lungs form. So this downstream effect: Zofran causing his kidney defects, kidneys not producing amniotic fluid, fluid not forming his lungs: that’s what made life impossible for him.
They told me: a baby can live without kidneys, but they can’t live without lungs.
Finnegan Rhodes Moran was born at 38 weeks, on his own timing, in Little Rock, AR. They put him on my chest right away: he was beautiful. No cleft palate, no deformities. He looked perfect. He looked just like his brother Thom. I held him for less than a minute and he started to turn purple. The MFM gave me a look and said “it’s time.”
We had agreed to let them take him from me so they could see if it was even a possibility that they could save his lungs. The brought him back on life support 30-40 minutes later with the news. I took him back into my arms. Nick and Fin’s brothers surrounded us as the doctor removed the life support, and we had just a few moments with our Fin. We sang to him as he passed away in my arms.
It was just so, so sad. Even writing this, all I can think of is how SAD it is to lose a baby. And I have a lot, a LOT of reasons to feel guilty, to blame myself. And part of me did for a few months. I knew better than to take pharma drugs while pregnant. I trusted them out of desperation. And I shouldn’t have.
But now as I sit here, a year and three months after Fin’s death - I know that he had a purpose. His story, that I was able to share to so many, has saved THOUSANDS of babies. I still get messages to this day from moms saying they will never take Zofran, or that they stopped a friend from taking Zofran because of Fin’s story.
I explained this to Hudson the other day, too. How cool it is to spend your life being a hero, you know? To have a BIG IMPACT in the world. And how Fin, little baby Fin, managed to be a hero to so many, even though he wasn’t here for very long. It really is a “wow” thing.
I Got Pregnant Again
Just 8 months after Fin. It was definitely a surprise, but a welcome one. Because I cannot EXPLAIN how empty it was to have a postpartum without a baby in your arms. It was just so so lonely.
I was also scared, though, when I got pregnant. Scared that HG was going to come back and I wasn’t physically or emotionally ready to handle it. I had told myself I would find a way to NOT have HG, and then get pregnant again when I felt like I had a plan.
But, I didn’t, I didn’t research HG or do anything because honestly, I just didn’t want to think about it for awhile. So, I didn’t prepare. And when the blue line showed up on the stick, I cried. I was legitimately terrified to go through a pregnancy again.
And that’s what happens to us HG mamas. Pregnancy becomes something to be scared of. It’s not this exciting beautiful celebration that it seems to be for the lucky moms around us, and that feeling really sucks. It feels unfair. And it feels counterintuitive: like, why is this VERY NATURAL and normal part of womanhood, literally trying to kill me? What’s wrong with me that I have to suffer like this?
Around 6 weeks with this baby (I’m 35 weeks as I write this) - the HG started back up. It was hard not to feel just CRUSHED with dread, anxiety, fear, worry. That I was going to suffer all over again. But I knew I would gladly suffer it all over again, med-free, to know I would hold a breathing baby at the end. To nurse a baby. To hear one cry.
But still, the sickness hit so hard. And I wanted to give up. I was just so tired from what I had just been through: the HG, the trauma, and the grief.
The Clue That Unlocked the Cure
I was texting an HG coach, considering hiring her because I didn’t know what else to do. And I remember laying on my couch, texting her how I felt, in detail. And she said something that turned everything around. “It sounds like you’re not digesting your food.”
What I had told her was, I throw everything up. I’m starving, but nothing stays down.
And she said the most obvious thing. My body couldn’t process my food, so it was sending it back.
Like, WHAT??
I didn’t even need anything past that. (Though I would have 1000% worked with her, if my HG hadn’t been fixed so easily. She’s doing a great service! You can find her on IG here)
For me, though—that clue was enough to unlock what cured my HG. I simply asked myself, how can I digest my food better?
EXERCISE. So I immediately went walking. As I mentioned, 3x a day. I would eat something small, then immediately go for a walk. So instead of throwing up my food, my body was working to digest it during and after the walk, as I boosted my metabolism through movement.
When I was able to hold down and digest some food, I was able to handle more food. If you’ve gone through the HG cycle, you may know that an empty stomach triggers nausea. And then when you’re nauseous, you can’t eat. So it just continues. Getting over that hump of having some food in your stomach, helps to keep the nausea down, allowing you to eat again, and again.
At first, I did not want to walk. But I started feeling so much immediate relief from it - I was so grateful to have something to DO, rather than just feeling helpless while the nausea and vomiting took over my life. Nothing is more uncomfortable than that. I immediately felt better after the very first walk. And the amount of food I was able to hold down changed immensely within 2-3 days. By the end of the first week, I was smiling and laughing and excited for the future.
LEMONADE AND SWEET TEA.
I started drinking lemonade for the digestion. Nick added extra lemons so I could have a super-powered lemonade. It helped a TON with nausea, when the ginger stuff that everyone talks about had never ever helped. Lemonade is where it’s at!
I shared this with someone, that it was working, and they said it was probably helpful to have the blood sugar boosts throughout the day, too. Blood sugar dips can trigger nausea, too, it turns out, so having constant sips of this sugary drink PLUS the acid from lemons (helping digest my food when my stomach acid is low) - made it the ultimate natural medicine.
As far as sweet tea, my dad came over drinking one and I just felt RAVENOUS for it. I started drinking sweet tea along with lemonade, and the caffeine and sugar combo seemed to work, too.
All day sweet sips, with digestion-boosting qualities. It worked.
MINDSET SHIFTS AND SELF-TALK
Something I definitely learned from the HG Coach, Jess, was that HG can be a mental and spiritual issue, too. Women with HG tend to feel unsafe in their nest: like they’re taking on too much of a load, feel like their partner is not supporting them, or their literal environment is not safe enough to raise a baby.
And then the nausea is a symptom of this feeling of unsettled-ness. Meant to make us listen and get us to take action or ask for help fixing our environment.
This one is so nuanced and personal, it’s hard to give advice on.
For me, I just remember feeling like: okay, yes I have some problems with my environment. The three pregnancies I had with HG were all here in Arkansas, in our small, still-being-renovated house that doesn’t feel quite like a cozy nest. Moving was hard for me, and the epitome of unsettling. So it really tracks that this emotional uprooting would have some kind of physical effect.
Because, WHY is my body not digesting food normally? What suddenly caused my body to have this physical (allergic?) reaction to pregnancy?
It makes sense to me that there would be some sort of emotional root cause. So even though doing the walking and sipping the lemonade helped with the symptom of poor digestion, there’s still something deeper going on.
And to be honest, I’m not quite sure I solved it. I mean, how do you know when something that’s outside of my consciousness is. . resolved?
This is something I’ll have to learn as I go. I know there are people out there digging into this, and it’s probably the future of the wellness space. Like, healing our nervous systems is just this gateway to a whole different field of health: centered around our emotions and reactions to events happening around us.
I have clues as to why my body would feel unsafe in pregnancy, but they aren’t easy fixes. So the self-talk I would use was basically just grounding myself in gratitude:
-This home is enough
-This home is full of love
-There is plenty of space for you here
-There is plenty of space for me here
-Everyone loves you
Stuff like that.
So, along with the walking and lemonade, I recommend self talk. When I was sick, I couldn’t stand to write, so verbal was enough. Just talking to yourself. Talking to your baby. Trying to take gentle inventory of why you may be feeling unsafe, and then reassure yourself like you would a friend. Bathe in gratitude for your life, your husband, your family, what you have. We can still acknowledge that things can be better while settling into gratitude for what is, today, and allowing ourselves to be safe and held in what we have today.
That’s all I’ve got on this topic for now. I’m 35 weeks, just a few weeks away from holding our 5th baby, my rainbow, and the little brother that my 3 living boys have been waiting for. There are no words for how eager we are to hold him, watch him look back at us, cry, wiggle, snuggle, nurse.
And we will send a prayer with a thank you to Fin, for everything he taught me - and has taught mothers all over the world.
Without him, we would have never seen the loss that Zofran can cause. And without him, I would have never had this pregnancy with Milo, that taught us what we can do naturally to handle our HG.
I can’t claim that this will cure everyone. But when I shared this on Instagram, I had many women tell me that they felt 60-80% better within days. I’ve had zero women tell me it didn’t work for them. Not that I’ll never hear that, but. Anyway. I don’t want the fear of this being imperfect keep me from sharing it.
It worked for me, and I hope it helps everyone who tries it.
For those suffering with HG, I am praying for you! And for those without, please bookmark or save this post to share with friends who will need it. It will always be here.
Thank you for reading!
I had 5 babies with horrible HG with every one. Throwing up multiple times a day, every day, for months. Medication helped some. But still felt pretty awful.
With baby #6 I had happened to switch to fresh milled flour at home shortly before getting pregnant (fresh milled flour is packed with all the b vitamins that help with nausea. Not synthetic vitamins you find in enriched stuff and bottled vitamins but ones you can actually absorb. Not to mention actual folate that is so good for a growing baby) and never threw up once. I kept thinking something was wrong with the baby it felt so strange to not be deathly ill. Had only a wave of nausea one day of the whole pregnancy. It felt miraculous.
I can feel how much you went through in your words here, and how hard you kept trying to understand what your body was asking of you. And I feel inspired by your refusal to accept that things were simply broken.
Staying with your body, even through loss, and following what it’s trying to say, can be SO hard. I think a lot of mothers will recognize themselves in that search. I know I did. Thank you for writing this.