12 weeks appointment to check on twins development. By this time wife is feeling horrible because of HG (you can check my post on HG to see the 'nice' side of pregnancy and the useless advice and take from the health services).
We drive half an hour to the hospital where we're told there is an expert in delivering twins. Nurse recommended it, and so did a couple of friends. The hospital has a good national ranking in matters of antenatal care and baby delivery.
After the drive wife is feeling so poorly that when we arrive to reception she faints. Luckily I can grab her before she falls further. We are now the centre of attention of everybody. We're given a wheel chair to get to the antenatal care unit.
As she arrives one of the nurses (not nurse mentioned previously) takes her to a room to check blood pressure and calls angel nurse. Angel nurse is our saviour. She patiently asks the questions that nurse, GP and other people should have asked the wife. She listens, does not give any advice, just takes notes and comforts both of us.
Then she decides to make a phone call to the hospital ward that cares for women with some pregnancy complications. She advises us to get admitted to the ward as she notices that wife is dehydrated. The appointment to check for babies health is cancelled. Mother's help gets a priority (finally!)
Wife is taken lots of tests, she gets hydrated and given some food, her pressure, sugar levels and the like are monitored during the night. I go home thinking that finally I feel some kind of support from the health system.
Next morning Wife jumps at the sight of me. She looks better and relieved to see me. Despite not sleeping much she has gained some colour in her cheeks. She has also eaten and is able to take a shower. She had not done that for a few weeks. All in the name of enduring the pain that mothers are supposed to endure. Rubbish.
In consultation with some of the doctors I show charts that I have been drawing with the wife's intake of fluid and times she went to the toilet. I have been given these charts by people who accept that HG is a serious condition. Hopefully doctors will make more sense of what wife has. To no avail. Doctors just ask us (wife and I) to keep an eye on wife, and if she feels dehydrated again she can call. We go home to start again. We're also told that after 12 weeks symptoms will easy. But we're in twelve weeks. The magic number of three months is not working. I should talk about this magic number in a future blog post.
It was due to the kind heart of angel nurse and the availability of beds at the hospital ward that finally wife gets noticed by the health services. But the wife had to faint to be noticed.
Useful advice
-Faint, or find an angel nurse that is able to listen rather than tell you the slogan phrases "it will be worth in the end...after 12 weeks things will be OK...have some ginger, crackers and tea...poor you...ohhh...the joys and pains of motherhood"
-Stand up to doctors and challenge their knowledge about HG. Show them evidence, show them records of what the wife has been through.
-Be prepared to change advice if it does not work.
Useless advice
-Slogan phrases like the ones just mentioned.
-Ginger in any form (tea, biscuits)
-It gets worse before it gets better.
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