Shelby's Life and Whatnot

Saint Elmo, Patron Saint of Stomach Distress, has heard my prayers!

Saint Elmo be praised, my morning (all day) sickness has gone away! I'm a believer! For those of you who haven't been in the know, I've had a very rough first trimester. My morning sickness, which lasted all day, was overwhelming. I kept nearly nothing down, was miserable all day, and started to become terribly depressed, thinking I would never eat again. When my doctor discovered that I'd lost 3 pounds of my pre-pregnancy weight (the only time in my life I've been upset to lose weight) and was living off of soda crackers, she prescribed some anti-nausea medication. The medication worked, but left me simultaneously tired and jittery. It was not an ideal situation.

However, my doctor (and everyone else I know) assured me that for most women, morning sickness clears up by the end of the 14th week, when the placenta takes over hormone regulation. Here's your pregnancy lesson for today--for the first trimester, the placenta is just forming (in fact, as my friend Wendy pointed out, you are basically growing an entirely new organ in 3 months--no wonder it's so exhausting!). Until the placenta takes over, something called the corpus luteum is in charge of hormone production. Since progesterone helps prevent miscarriage, the corpus luteum pumps it out in huge quantities. It's the progesterone that makes you feel nauseous. However, once the placenta takes over, the corpus luteum dissolves and the huge amounts of progesterone lessen considerably. Thus the nausea is reduced.

For most women.

This happens around the 12th-14th week. Well, halfway into my 14th week I began to despair and wonder if I was going to be one of those unlucky women for whom the nausea continues. But yesterday afternoon, out of the blue, I noticed it was time to take my second dose of the medication but I wasn't feeling desperately nauseous like I had been oh, the day before. I decided to skip the dose and see how it went. I had dinner with no problems and slept all through the night. So this morning I decided to skip the morning dose as well. And...a whole day with no nausea! I think I've finally turned the corner! Halleluia!

I'm surprised that there is no patron saint of morning sickness. There's a patron saint of everything else. However, Saint Elmo seems to fit the bill. In addition to being the patron saint of abdominal pain and stomach disorders, he's also the patron saint of seasickness, which is nausea. Actually he's got quite an impressive patronage resume including:

against abdominal pains
against appendicitis
against childhood intestinal disease
against colic
against danger at sea
against intestinal disorders
against seasickness
against stomach diseases
against storms
ammunition workers
birth pains
boatmen
childbirth
explosives workers
Gaeta, Italy
mariners
navigators
ordnance workers
sailors
watermen
women in labour

This dude's got it covered.