The Gift of Morning Sickness

Seven weeks: Yesterday I felt the full kick of morning sickness. I wasn’t paying attention to my body and started rushing around in the morning. We’re selling our home and someone wanted to see it…so I was frantically making beds and tidying up. I forgot to take my herbs and forgot to eat breakfast early. Walking my daughter to the bus stop, it suddenly descended on me. I felt so nauseous and light headed and wasn’t sure if I could make it home. As well, a whole emotional overlay came with it—I felt angry, frustrated and totally hormonal and it was projecting itself onto everything. I came home quickly and ate, and had to stay very very centred so as not to start going at Alok or burst into tears. Every thought frustrated me, the whole world looked bleak. After about twenty minutes it cleared, but I paid the price all day as it just remained like a thin veil physically and emotionally.

I’ve decided that morning sickness is a call from the body to be present. ‘What do you need right now?’ it is asking. If something is upsetting me or troubling me and I’m not being present with it, the morning sickness sets in—as if something is making me ‘sick’, or I’m ‘sick’ of something. And if I’m not feeding myself properly, with the things my body needs, again the morning sickness sets in. I notice if I stay present with these things, the morning sickness stays at bay. But like a sentinel, it’s there waiting, keeping guard over my body and my baby’s needs. Embracing the morning sickness as an invitation, as a helpful force rather than an annoyance also seems to help. Interesting how culture ‘informs’ our opinions, that in turn informs how we relate to things such as morning sickness. In medically-based thinking, morning sickness is a ‘problem’. And I can say, in a pregnancy mind, saying something is a problem just makes it worse!!