Editor’s Note: Kara Devlin is in her seventh year as a news editor for CNN Domestic.
Story highlights
CNN's Kara Devlin was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum
Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, was hospitalized with the condition
Devlin was put on intravenous medication and nearly hospitalized
She says her illness disappeared when she was 30 weeks pregnant
In September 2005, I found out I was eight weeks pregnant with my first child.
Everything was fine – better than fine. I was working full time, working out with a personal trainer, and in the gym on my own every day – sometimes for two hours. All this was cleared by my doctor, as this had been my normal routine for almost two years.
In my 12th week, I started to feel a little queasy in the morning. My doctor advised me that I should probably try eating a little more, but that it would pass eventually. I never would have dreamed that it would be 18 weeks and a lot of heartache later before it subsided.
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I went from feeling queasy to not being able to hold down water and struggling just to brush my teeth. I started to plan my life around when and where I was going to feel sick.
I learned not to go to the meat department in the grocery store, and to travel with grocery bags lined with napkins in my car. When I woke up, I figured out that I could not open my eyes too quickly or my head would begin spinning, making me dizzy – and eventually making me sick.
I lost my voice because my throat was burned from acid. I even started making a pallet on my bathroom floor to sleep on because I didn’t have the energy to keep getting up and going to the bathroom.
Concerned, I went back to the doctor. As my primary doctor was on leave, I saw another doctor. She told me that a lot of women come in with these symptoms and sometimes they just have to “suck it up,” and that since I had heard about morning sickness, it was probably in my head all the time anyway. She made me feel like I was crazy.
But when my primary doctor returned, I was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum – the same condition that put Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, in the hospital.
Then came the parade of medicines. I started with Zofran, an anti-nausea medication commonly given to cancer patients, but I couldn’t keep the pill down long enough for it to work.
Next was a drug called Reglan, compounded and applied topically on my wrists. The side effects made me feel as if I had a constant hangover, and I couldn’t stay awake – then, it stopped working altogether.
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By this time, I was 20 weeks pregnant and I had lost 20 pounds. I found out my child was a boy and he was healthy, but I worried neither one of us would make it.
A feeding tube and hospitalization entered the discussion – my doctor said there was no choice unless I was able to gain 5 pounds in a month. I had already been to the ER so many times for dehydration, I knew most of the nurses by first name and they knew me.
The last resort before hospitalization was a subcutaneous IV delivering anti-nausea medication 24 hours a day under my skin.
By this time, I was out of work on bed rest. I was drowning in my illness. Life as I had known it was over. I had a home nurse who came to once a week to give me IV fluids in my home. I had a full IV stand that I could wheel around my house.
My nurse taught me how to insert the IV into my thigh and change the medicine every two days. It took a week, but slowly I began to feel a change for the better. The medicine decreased to every three days and finally, when I was 30 weeks pregnant, I was taken off.
Then one day, it was over. I woke up without medication, without dizziness and without being sick. I was almost scared, but it was over.
I stopped feeling nauseous and I was able to gain all the weight I lost and what I should have gained in the last eight weeks of my pregnancy.
My son was born in May of 2006, – 6 pounds, 11 ounces and in perfect health. For him, I would do it all again.