Linking Emetophobia With Mother Love
(it could only happen here)

This post is full of disgusting discussions of vomit and things that a woman is never supposed to say. Consider yourself duly warned. You read at your own risk.

(I promise I tried to hold it all in. At least I was successful with the vomit. As it turns out, I am a master at not hurling the contents of my stomach, however, apparently I have no control over the words that come out of my mouth and endlessly get me in trouble. Ahhh, isn't self discovery a beautiful thing?)


Whether or not Max and I had gastroenteritis or the influenza will probably remain a mystery since we can't afford to go to the doctor for such paltry complaints as upset stomachs, but if I had to give it my best bet, I'm going to bet on gastroenteritis since neither of us had fever, body aches, chills, sore throats (well, Max did, but that was strictly because of the constant vomit that traveled up his throat), or that heaviness of body that almost always accompanies influenza. Max, between bouts of hurling, felt fine. He would perk up and think it was all over...until the next wave of nausea hit him like a hammer.

I was luckier, or more stubborn, or...I'm not actually sure how to describe myself. I've said before that I will do almost anything to avoid throwing up. This is true. I have had an uneasy tummy for days. For most of the week as a matter of fact but I powered through it for two days until the night before last I found myself on the bathroom floor trying to explain to an inquisitive Max why I like to lay on the floor when I feel like throwing up. I never did hurl. I used intense powers of concentration to keep it down. I have heard many people extol the virtues of simply letting it all out and getting it over with- how much better you will feel just letting nature take it's course.

I prefer my method, which is to fight nature 100% of the way.

Nothing that goes down my throat should ever, EVER come back the way it went down. I have what I might describe as emetophobia, though I should say that my phobia is much less severe, apparently, than some other emetophobic's. (Read the link about it. It had me laughing so hard because it all sounds so ridiculous and yet is describing me and my relationship with vomit. Although I don't have any issues around food because of my phobia. Uh, though I do stay as far away from whiskey as possible. And cold butter. And surprise chunks of meat. And fish. And the smell of fish. And green peppers. And questionable food. And other people who might be sick with something that makes them vomit.)

(Don't say I didn't warn you!)

The term "emetophobia" is a real one and comes to me courtesy of my good friend Lisa B. It never occurred to me to see if a fear of vomit was something recorded in the annals of psychological disorders, and I honestly didn't realize that other people suffered from the same feelings I had about throwing up.

I think it's all so clear now why being pregnant was, for me, a nightmare. I was nauseous for six out of the nine months of my pregnancy. I spent a tremendous amount of time cramming myself with saltine crackers and other soothing carbohydrate rich foods while laying prostrate on the couch watching terrifying episodes of that program on TLC where women give birth and other fun programs where the topic of "what can go wrong" genetically during human incubation is thrown around happily like rice after a wedding party. I never once threw up. Six months of feeling like hurling and I managed to power through without once losing my lunch.

Which, honestly? I probably would have been better off losing occasionally.

(It's about to get much worse so now would be a good time to stop reading)

In the FAQ on emetophobia, they mention that many emetophobics say that they would rather die than vomit. I'm afraid that I've certainly thought that in my head, though I'm not sure if I've ever said it out loud.

Whenever the question comes up of having more than one kid (which doesn't come up nearly as often as it used to when Max was still a baby and everyone used to ask me when the next one was coming...in fact, it usually only comes up now because I stupidly bring it up myself out of curiosity about other people's intentions) people like to say that having two is just as easy as having one. Whether or not that's true (and it doesn't matter, because having a second one would make me go over the edge emotionally regardless of how easy going the child might turn out to be) I can't even get beyond the idea of having to be pregnant again.

Every time I think about the possibility of finding out I'm pregnant again I fly into instant panic.

When I was feeling not so great earlier this week and said something out loud about feeling a little nauseous, someone teasingly suggested that maybe I am pregnant...which froze me in my tracks.

I must have looked like I was staring down a sem-truck speeding toward me because instantly the person who suggested this backpedaled as fast as words could take her away from what she'd just said.

What instantly ran through my mind was "I would rather die than be pregnant and give birth a second time."*

Which I instantly realized is one of those things you are never allowed to say. Ever. Ever. Ever.

However true it may be, (and I just told you one of my deepest darkest secrets just now), you are always supposed to view pregnancy and childbirth as a beautiful experience. And enriching. And wonderful. And rewarding. Because of the baby. Because of the prize at the end of it all. Because there is nothing more wonderful than procreation. Because it is sacred. Because if you hate being pregnant and being ripped wide open to spit that little sucker out- it might also infer that you hate your baby. That's why we aren't supposed to ever say such a thing.

Well I can tell you right now that I have never hated Max because I hated being pregnant. I have never resented him for the work and unpleasantness I went through to get him here. Not once have I viewed him as the thing that made me want to vomit for six months straight.

Another lady I was working with that day had a surprise baby many years after her first three because of a little malfunction with her husband's vasectomy. Which freaks me out because Philip has been trying to convince me that vasectomies really do work, for two years now since he got his, and I keep telling him that sometimes they don't. I was finally beginning to believe him. This woman says to me "My surprise baby was a gift from God."

And I said "Well, I hope God has a gift return policy because I don't need a gift like that."

All because of emetophobia?

Yeah, well...yeah. That and the whole thing about having to raise a whole other different person from scratch and being tired all the time and having my hoo-ha** in pain for six months and the extra depression, the sleeplessness, the cracked nipples, the crying, the excessive bleeding, the impossible to lose weight gain, the incessant chaos, the 24 hour a day parenting...

What's beautiful about having one child is that as we go through these stages of childhood enjoying the wonderful aspects as they come (and there are lots of wonderful aspects to parenting) and say goodbye to the challenges as they pass and know that while we have a hundred new challenges waiting to make us cry, at least we don't have to go through the same ones again and again with other babies.

You know what I would like to do? I would like the powers that be to gift any possible fertility I may have to the people I know who have no children yet because they haven't been able to conceive, because they will probably love being pregnant and giving birth and I have had my turn already, I want others to take any future turns I could have. I want to give them away. Can I do that? I have had my turn and love my child and want no others.

So, is it really so awful to say those things out loud? Even if I am the only woman on earth who feels the way I do, is it so wrong to say what I have said out loud? Will it really harm my child to someday know that pregnancy and child birth were hell for me, that parenting is like a test I will never be able to pass- won't it be enough for him to know that all along, from the moment I could feel him moving in my belly I knew that I was going to love him no matter what kind of genetic mutations he was going to be born with? He could have been born a hermaphrodite dwarf and I would have loved the bones of him more than any other being on earth. Isn't that what really matters?

As it turned out he wasn't born with any interesting genetic permutations. That we know of.

It is a testament of my love for my child that I spent days nestling close to him between his bouts of vomiting in spite of the fact that all that time I was panicking about getting the same illness he had. I breathed his air and hugged that sad little body, covered his face with mama kisses** and sat with him in the bathroom feeling waves of pity for my baby who isn't a baby anymore but a seven year old teenager...while simultaneously strategizing about how I was going to avoid vomiting myself. I pounded down the Wellness vitamins. I tried getting to sleep before midnight. I constantly made myself breath deeply to prevent hyperventilating myself into passing out or getting sick.

Hopefully my son will know how much I love him in spite of all my anxieties and phobias, hopefully he can feel the mother love powering through his mama's crazy brain. Because every day I look at him and I want to hand him the world. I want to smooth his path. I weep for the pain he will inevitably have to experience in life. I worry about his path. I feel the tiger love for him. And most importantly? I sit with him next to the toilet while he vomits and smooth his brow while choking down my wild animal fear. Hopefully he will just know I love him because when you really love a child it hangs between you in the air like stars on the clearest winter night.






*"Tocophobia" is the official word for a phobia of getting pregnant and giving birth. You know it has ceased to be a regular old concern and turned into a phobia when you find yourself worrying about it all the time. And having frequent nasty nightmares in which you find you are suddenly pregnant. You also know it's a phobia when you hear about others getting pregnant and worry that it might be catching. (I'm so happy for you, though, Karmyn, because I know you have wanted this gift of a third baby so much and I was praying in my secular way that it would happen for you.) As I have been reading about it just now I am seeing all these suggestions for "curing" tocophobia and I just keep thinking in my head: I know how to cure it and it's called a HYSTERECTOMY. And I want one. Not being able to get pregnant for certain would undoubtedly instantly cure my phobia of getting pregnant. Duh.

**"Vagina" for those of you who prefer to use the clinical word for your tu-tu. Which I don't. This may be the only word for which I prefer the euphemisms. My favorite euphemism for vagina comes from Mom-O- Matic who refers to her hoo-ha as her "lady bits". I want to use that euphemism too but feel somehow that it would be stealing from her brilliance.

***Something he will only allow me to do when he's ill now. Otherwise I am allowed to kiss him only once a day, at bedtime.

Contagion

I got up at about 5:25 in the morning with Max who has been throwing up since then. Poor not so wee guy. It's been four years since the last time he got the stomach flu. I have to say that a seven year old makes much less mess vomiting than a three year old. I made him drink a little water which he promptly threw up. I have been reading about the stomach flu online and now know that the biggest danger is dehydration. I'd make him sip a little more water right now but he just fell asleep on the couch. I'm going to just hope that he'll feel better after a little rest.

When it comes to vomiting I am a huge wimp. I mean, a wimp about ME vomiting. I have the instinct to run for the hills whenever someone around me has hurled in an effort to be very far away from whatever made them sick. Is there an actual word for vomit-phobia? Because I have it. Most people hate it but I will go to some extreme lengths not to do it. Which you don't want to hear about.

I like to see the bright side of hell so I've always appreciated that bulimia nervosa is not going to ever be a problem for me. Whew! One medical situation I don't have to worry about for myself. (And for anyone ready to harp on me about taking this illness seriously-trust me, I am not joking. I do take it seriously and am seriously glad that I won't ever have it.) (I know that someone out there is ready to assure me that even with vomit-phobia I could end up having a problem with bulimia. If anyone has that in their head right now-all I can do is assure you that no power on earth will make me voluntarily hurl.)

You know what I really want to do? Clean my house. Nothing like contagion to make you want to clean. I have to work again today so I'd better get something done before I go. I can't bail on work so Philip has to bail on his for half a day.

I'm going to go clean some toilets. So what are you all up to today?

How To Wake Up On Sunday Morning

Late into the night my sewing machine was tapping out it's non-encoded* rhythms as we worked together to cover some cushions for a neighbor in a very cool bark cloth that, being mostly white, I could destroy in less than two minutes. In fact, when I stopped to eat some dinner at 11:30pm I had to put all the white fabric in a haz-mat container while I ate to prevent any marinara sauce from leaping from my fork onto the project as it is wont to do around here.

I've never covered cushions before and I am dying to show you the results. I'm quite proud of the zipper work. Even though I have the clearance to share this project with you, my technical team hasn't yet cracked the necessary procedures to allow me to upload pictures from my camera to my laptop.

When you watch too much Alias you can't help but start talking like a fake CIA agent.

I didn't finish the cushions until 2:30am. I kind of wish I hadn't stayed up so late. But only because of how I feel this morning. I got on a roll with them and didn't want to lose steam only to discover I still haven't finished them come next Thursday.

At 7am Max came into my bedroom with a gusher. And a mild panic about the gusher. Normally I can handle bloody noses almost any time of night or day, because I've had to. What's amazing is that until now I've never woken up to one of his extravagant nose bleeds. At first it was fine and I was awake in exactly one second, putting pressure on his nose with tissue, trying to induce calm in him. However, the bleed didn't ease up and Max was making it harder by freaking out when some blood got on his lip, then his hand. Suddenly I felt kind of sick.

Sick like I was going to throw up. Or pass out. Or throw up right before passing out. Or pass out and then throw up and choke on my own vomit and die unexpectedly leaving Philip to deal with all bloody noses in the future which would be so ironic because he's the one with vasovagal visual response to stimuli. I shoved the tissues at Philip and ran to the spare bedroom recently vacated by my mom and tried to ride out the waves of nausea.

This isn't how I prefer to start my day. A day that feels like it may turn out to be a tactical nightmare**. We need to pick up the freezer I bought at Lowe's (for $70 less than I had intended to spend-I'm so proud of that!), but to do that we have to borrow a friend's truck that has to be jump started and kept running which means we all have to go on this errand. So I suppose I also need to clear out the space intended for the freezer. We're going to Portland to see my mom, though I don't really know when or what the plan is because I'm a total lame-ass and haven't figured any of that out ahead of time. I'm not sure what we'll do with the dog, I don't want to leave her for that long alone at the house, but I'm not sure it's a good idea to bring her either. Somewhere in there I need to drop off the cushions too.

On a day like this, one should wake from a long restful sleep, refreshed, with a Stepford style calm child whose nose doesn't bleed copiously all the time, and one should have everything all planned out.

To look for the good in everything is an annoyingly noble goal. Here's some good:

• Max isn't a hemophiliac, which is a comfort. If he was he'd probably already be dead or I'd be institutionalized from the trauma of dealing with potentially deadly bloody noses all the time.

• Freezers don't have legs. This is good for many reasons, one of which is that the freezer I bought can't walk out of Lowe's without us so there's no reason to get all panicky because we have to arrange to pick it up. Us anxious types will panic about anything. We've got no discerning taste whatsoever.

• I didn't throw up. I hate throwing up and fear it. Seriously fear it. I will not tell you the lengths I will go to to avoid hurling. You could almost say I have a phobia of vomiting. Which isn't surprising since I have a highly sensitive gag reflex.

• Because I finished the two projects hanging over my head I can be free to enjoy myself and my new freezer without the guilt I would experience if I knew I should be sewing instead of chopping the last peaches of the season to freeze. Which I'm praying I'll get to do. Peaches are almost completely gone.

• Plus, I'll get paid for the projects I finished which will help to offset the cost of the freezer which, if it had legs, would be tapping it's toes in impatience right now in the loading dock. And also freaking out all the Lowe's employees who aren't getting paid enough to deal with mutant angry appliances.
  

I'm really trying to focus on the good but Max is being a complete stinker and I see what the real tactical nightmare is going to be today: dealing with Max. Max isn't going to cooperate with anything we've got to do. He's going to drag his feet and that mouth of his is going to let out the longest string of complaints that any child has ever been able to sustain. He's very skilled at this. He could win awards for his ability to maintain a constant string of negativity. Sometimes I get so weary of his bad attitude that I kind of wish I was deaf.

I guess I better go untangle the day's objectives. I could really use some good disguises too but I'm afraid that if I were to wear disguises I wouldn't look cool like Sydney Bristow, I would look like Divine. I think I should avoid that for all of our sakes.

Copy that.




*I've been watching A LOT of Alias. Everything in my head is theatrical agent talk.
**I love this expression and am constantly looking for an excuse to say it.