June 20th 2011 - Morning sickness has settled in.

I'd love to have been one of those women for whom morning sickness finished at twelve weeks, or who merely felt a little nauseas in the morning. Oh no. I had morning, day, and night sickness. It started when I was about six weeks gone, and just got worse and worse throughout my pregnancy.

I was vomiting so much I was loosing weight and was extremely worried because I thought I should have been gaining it! I was terrified that my inability to eat or to keep food down would have an adverse effect on the baby, and the constant nausea was having a detrimental effect on my mood. I'm sure any woman who's suffered from morning sickness will be able to sympathise with the awkward shuffle to the toilets at work when you're desperate to be sick but also anxious that your colleagues don't put two and two together and come up with "knocked up". Due to my extreme and unrelenting sickness (as well as a fainting episode where I wound up in A&E), my colleagues discovered I was pregnant at about 8 weeks. This resulted in what seemed to be the longest pregnancy ever as I was asked every week where the baby was!

At about 16 weeks pregnant, I had had enough and I decided to see the doctor about my sickness. I was quickly diagnosed with hyperemisis gravidarum and given some anti emetics by the doctor - I was a little unsure about taking them as I was worried about the effect on the baby, but I was reassured that they were a type of anti histamine and would have no adverse effect. I was so desperate by this point that I decided to take them.

Unfortunately though they helped a little with the nausea, they didn't prevent the sickness, and by the time the date for the 20 week scan arrived I was desperate to know my little baby was growing at a sensible rate.

Of course she was, my GP told me the baby was like 'a parasite' and would take all the nutrients she could from me - hence why I was feeling so rotten!

Seeing my beautiful baby on the screen, her heart beating strongly, even watching her appear to suck her thumb, was such an amazing experience. I have this photo framed and on the wall in the nursery. We were told our child was going to be a girl, and with the positions she contorted her body into, she quickly became The Froglet!