Fundie obsession with morning sickness?

[rhianna]

Sorry if I am starting too many threads. I just registered and have been lurking forever so I am excited to get ideas out. :D

So . . . it seems to me that a lot of female fundie bloggers are obsessed with their morning sickness, and I think that Michelle and Anna talk about it a lot with regards to their pregnancies as well. On the vitafamilae blog, the mom goes into detail about her latest morning sickness and needing mentos, etc.

Having never been pregnant, I'm not sure how big of a deal it is but I'm pretty sure the pregnant women I've known in real life don't talk about it that much.

If anyone else has noticed this . . .do you think it might be because they like feeling special and feeling like they are sacrificing so much for the sake of reproducing? Maybe it makes them feel like delicate little flowers . . .

[Jessica]

I've read that if you have morning sickness you're less likely to miscarry so they're probably just trying to stay positive. Morning sickness sucks and it lasts all day, not just in the morning. I never threw up but I was so weak I couldn't stand long enough to make myself anything to eat which made me even more weak... And if I took a shower my husband had to sit in the room with me because the heat would make me so dizzy and wobbly. Not fun!

[ladypuglover]

I don't know the fundy women who blog but when I was pregnant I swore I was green from morning sickness. I was one of the unlucky ones who had all day/night sickness and it was all I could think about. Making extreme effort not to hurl while grocery shopping or driving or talking to people took all my effort. And the last 2 babies I had that lovely morning/noon and night sickness until after they were born. So I don't if they are doing for attention or like me because it was something that took control of my life.

@Jessica, severe morning sickness is also a sign that something is wrong with the pregnancy. Infact all the healthy normal symptoms are the same for warning signs, I do believe. I may be wrong but I haven't been pregnant in 9 and a half years.

[Not That Kind of Dr]

Maybe it makes them feel like delicate little flowers . . .

Yes, I know that I never felt like more a delicate little flower than when I had my head in the toilet for four months! In all seriousness, if you've never had terrible morning sickness, it is hard to understand how all-consuming (perhaps a bad choice of words) the condition can be. I lost hope. I lost perspective. I really felt that this was my life and that it would never get better. It was bad enough that I've decided that one child is enough. I'm just not brave enough to go through that again. On the upside, I sure maintained my girlish figure far into the pregnancy because I was vomiting too much to gain any weight.

[Annette]

Ha, I actually just came here to complain about morning sickness. On Chatter of course. :)

[demgirl]

@Jessica, severe morning sickness is also a sign that something is wrong with the pregnancy. Infact all the healthy normal symptoms are the same for warning signs, I do believe. I may be wrong but I haven't been pregnant in 9 and a half years.

When my mom was pregnant with my little sister 20 years ago, she had already had 4 miscarriages (!) between my sister and I (7 years). With my sister, the doctor was so excited when my mom came in at 9 weeks sick as a dog. He said it was good because it meant that the hormone level was high. That's all I know... of course, it could widely vary. I just remember how excited my mom was to be violently ill every morning. My blessed sainted mom.

[bananacat]

Morning sickness varies from woman to woman and even between pregnancies. I think QF moms blog and talk about it so much because that's all their life is. What else do they have to talk about? It's also one of the few outlets of acceptable complaining where they can admit they are uncomfortable instead of just suppressing it all and putting on a sweet face. Of course they still have to do it in a cheery way, but at least they can admit that they don't like it.

[rhianna]

I get that it is a major and uncomfortable part of pregnancy, but beyond morning sickness and birth stories, I feel like fundie women don't talk much about any other aspects of pregnancy. Like, they don't seem to bring up the baby kicking, or their skin improving, or whatever.

[tehgoobster]

It's got to suck to suffer from hyperemesis when you've got 5+ homeschooled kids between the ages of 2-10. I wonder what a fundie woman would do if she suffered from hyperemesis with each pregnancy.

Edited to fix a lame ass riffle.

[Jessica]

It's got to suck to suffer from hyperemesis when you've got 5+ kids homeschooled kids between the ages of 2-10. I wonder what a fundie woman would do if she suffered from hyperemesis with each pregnancy.

Ask Zsuzsanna.

[ladypuglover]

Ask Zsuzsanna.

No wonder she is such a bitch. :think:

[tehgoobster]

Ask Zsuzsanna.

Nah, I'm all set with that. :lol:

[emmiedahl]

I had pretty bad morning sickness. I hardly ever vomited, but I would get vertigo really bad and feel like I was going to throw up. I cosign the theory that a lack of it is related to miscarriage; with all of my mc's, the morning sickness and exhaustion stopped abruptly right before.

I think fundies want to be martyrs for the cause, and you can't be a martyr if there is no pain involved. Also, they don't like it when women stop reproducing because of a history of hard pregnancies, so they must emphasize that they, too, had hard pregnancies.

Ironically, among my mormon friends it seems popular to talk about how blessed they are to have such easy pregnancies. They are sloshing around, with ankles that look like they are about to burst and dark circles under their eyes, and they'll be like "I LOVE being pregnant. I have the easiest pregnancies! God has truly blessed me!" but you can tell they are as miserable as the next woman.

[TVR]

Actually every single woman I know who has had morning sickness has spoken about it extensively during the first trimester (or longer). It sucks big time. It is NOT a fundie thing!

[fundifugee]

Usually, morning sickness is a good sign during pregnancy as studies have shown less chance of stillbirth and miscarriage with pregnancies troubled by morning sickness.

The main exception is the severe morning sickness that accompanies a molar pregnancy - may read about hydatiform moles here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydatidiform_mole if interested. It is basically a bad egg that implants when combined with a sperm, and only the sperm's DNA replicates. It can act like a cancer, with metastasis, etc.

I had a patient once who was quite religious and did not want to end her molar pregnancy because it was an abortion. It metastasized to her lungs and finally she got the ok from her husband and church to take the methotrexate. Crazy. It is not a giant grape-jelly blob tumour, it is a baby! Spreading to your lungs even! What a Blessing!

[FireIsCatching89]

Four words: Sufferin' for the Lord.

No, seriously, I feel like it feeds into their martyr complex, and that they're so noble to take on this awful morning sickness in order to build their quivers and produce more soldiers for God (a phenomenon I have termed "worshipping machine gun Jesus").

However, I have genuine sympathy for any mother with morning sickness. I had a terrible stomach flu a couple years ago that lasted close to a week, and my mom said it was just like morning sickness. I can't imagine dealing with that for months on end. Hugs and kudos to any woman strong enough to get through it with a smile OR a frown.

[Cassandra]

No wonder she is such a bitch. :think:

She has 6 children, so that's 4.5 years of pregnancy, and 4.5 years of her life spent almost permanently nauseous. :o I can't say I'd be a nice person in that situation.

I can't imagine having morning sickness. I am not one of those people that takes being sick well, I whine and complain and pretty much lash out at anything that moves unless my fever is too high for me to think.

[Lillybee]

I had morning sickness all nine months with my three pregnancies. With the boys, it was wake up, feel queasy, vomit and then be fine for the rest of the day.

With my daughter, it was 24-7 for the whole nine months, except for a small window at lunch time, so at least I could eat one meal a day. The doctor did not do anything for it.

After she was born, instantly I felt so good. I still remember the hospital mean they gave me, salisbury steak, mashed potatoes and canned green be4ans and it was the best thing I ate in a long time.

[VodouDoll]

My cousin's morning sickness was so bad that she lost 15 pounds in her first trimester. They eventually had to give her anti-nausea drugs that were usually for chemo patients. You'd better believe she complained about it.

[DamnPrecious]

Four words: Sufferin' for the Lord.

No, seriously, I feel like it feeds into their martyr complex, and that they're so noble to take on this awful morning sickness in order to build their quivers and produce more soldiers for God (a phenomenon I have termed "worshipping machine gun Jesus").

However, I have genuine sympathy for any mother with morning sickness. I had a terrible stomach flu a couple years ago that lasted close to a week, and my mom said it was just like morning sickness. I can't imagine dealing with that for months on end. Hugs and kudos to any woman strong enough to get through it with a smile OR a frown.

Exactly.

[maybeizfundie]

Gotta go with the "not a fundie thing" side.

Anytimes moms talk about pregnancy, someone's going to bring up morning sickness. Mommy boards often have long threads dedicated to the subject. Because it really does suck. But it's also often the main physical indicator that a woman really truly is pregnant (before her belly pops and she can feel the baby or hear a heartbeat).

[lilah]

I remember some fundie posting about hyperemsis (*shudders*) and how she had to throw up all the time. And how even if you are constantly vomiting and miserable during pregnancy that shouldn't stop you from homeschooling and cooking cleaning and running the house.

[Joykins]

I didn't have morning sickness, not really. Every now and then I'd get a funny feeling that immediately went away if I ate something. I worried that this meant that my pregnancies were going to go wrong or something, until my mother reminded me that I am just not very sensitive to abdominal pain/nausea in general. I feel fortunate, I know most people suffer much more. My deliveries and immediate postpartum issues were generally pretty bad though. I just think if you're QF and have a zillion kids you spend so much more of your life pregnant and kind of enmeshed in the symptoms of it, naturally that's what you're going to talk about.

[cjsmom]

I had extreme nausea every day for about 6 months. It sucked. The thing is, once people know you have it over and above their experiences, people keep checking in, wanting to chat about it, and at least offering sympathy (which is about the only thing they can offer - nothing really worked for me). Add in that pregnancy and birthing is so central to a fundie woman combined with not having to share immodest things (anyone else get blessed by the boobie fairy when they were pregnant? Hell to the yeah for going from a B to a D in 6 weeks!), and no wonder they talk about it a lot!

[ElphabaGalinda]

I think it's such a fundie thing because that's all they're allowed to complain about. They're not supposed to complain about all their housework or their husband or whatever, because that's not keeping sweet. But their whole life purpose is to be pregnant all the time, and as long as they're fulfilling that purpose they can let loose with the keep sweet thing for a little while. I'm sure normal people do it to, but I don't think they do it as much. It could be since the QF people spend most of their lives pregnant, or otherwise doing boring stuff, they don't really have much else to talk about.