Being a Work-at-Home Mom with Morning Sickness

There’s a reason why I haven’t been writing much on this blog lately. It’s not just this blog. All of my blogs have been neglected. I’ve been feeling, to some degree, unwell for the past few months. First trimester pregnancy was difficult for me the first time around, and the trend repeated. Here I am, out of the first trimester and 15 weeks pregnant, and I still had to take a “sick” day today (for a work-at-home self-employed entrepreneur, this meant I did the bare minimum and tried to ignore my growing inbox while I vegged on the couch). Feeling unwell for months meant I needed to drop things, many things, so I could get done what I needed to do to survive. Blogging was one of those things.

I was a mostly-work-at-home employee for another company when I was pregnant two years ago. I remember waking up minutes before weekly morning video telecons, dressing in a good top, putting on make-up, slicking back my hair, and pretending I was just fine when I was really exhausted, sick, and struggling. Thankfully, I could lounge around the house and take naps during most days. I remember being so thankful I worked at home because I wasn’t sure if I could get through a standard 9-to-5 office job with pregnancy taking such a toll. I certainly wouldn’t be able to hide my pregnancy if I was in and out of an office bathroom several times a day every day. At home, I was grateful for privacy.

Pregnancy #2 finds me working at home on my own company and caring for an energetic little tornado – I mean toddler. I can’t take time off, but I can sleep in when she lets me and occasionally snooze during her naps. No matter how rotten I feel, I must get up every day and make sure my daughter is fed, cleaned, changed regularly, entertained, loved, and kept out of the mortal danger she continuously tries to put herself in. She’s usually displeased when I need to pause her needs to race off and be sick, but thankfully she’s independent enough to be alone for short times. Not that we have much choice.

Being an entrepreneur means working under my own expectations and deadlines (unless a client specifies otherwise), but it also means I’ve got ambitious plans and am constantly pushing myself to do more. I can work long hours of the day and night, even weekends, if I’m really into a project. I’m a night owl and work best in the late hours when my husband, toddler, and much of the United States are asleep. But during the first few months of pregnancy, I just couldn’t. I was exhausted all the time. I went to bed early (for me), slept in, and still craved naps. The extra time I usually had to be productive, those late night hours, were gone. I couldn’t physically work those hours anymore, even when I wanted to. I had to temporarily give up several productive hours of my day every day in order to allow my body to focus on growing a baby. Only last week did I find my ability to stay up late return again.

For me, morning sickness isn’t just about throwing up. I feel as if I’m going to vomit all day long, regardless if I was just sick. It’s a nearly daily occurrence every day of my first trimester, starting around the time I discover I’m pregnant. It lessens but doesn’t stop after my first trimester, either. Today I was sick in the late morning, then felt sick for the entire rest of the day, including now. Feeling constantly sick destroys my motivation and concentration. On days like today, when it’s really bad, I give up all hope of accomplishing anything important and instead feel satisfied with surviving. Tomorrow is another day.

An ambitious, driven career woman such as myself finds it very hard to accept less than what I’m capable of. I know how much I can accomplish when I put my mind to it. But pregnancy is more than just my mind. My body and the body of another human being must be taken into account. There are physical changes that are beyond my control. The hardest part for me is accepting these physical changes and adjusting for them without guilt. Yes, I may need to work at a reduced productivity rate for a few months. Yes, it may take me a little longer to accomplish my goals. But I’m growing a human. Right now, I’m doing more important work within my womb than outside of it.

Pregnancy & Peeing: Why Kegels Didn't Work for Me, But Here's What Did

To be a fully grown woman, mature and sophisticated, and to pee myself in line at the grocery store is such an embarrassment that I never told anyone, not any store employees, not even my husband. I couldn't keep my urinary incontinence a secret at home, however. My husband asking, “Did you pee yourself?” any time I sneezed became a running joke. I'll never forget the evening I had to tell a restaurant waitress that I had both vomited and peed on their bathroom floor, because once liquid started spewing from the front, I could no longer control liquid from the bottom. I was a mess, just like many other women in pregnancy.

I have no medical training, so I tend to believe the medical advice I read by doctors and professionals. Every single general pregnancy book and many pregnancy articles I came across suggested Kegel exercises to strengthen the pelvic floor. Simply contract the muscles down there as if holding in pee, then hold, then release. Simple, right? I started doing them more and more as my wetting problem worsened. Each time I had to change my panties mid-day, I took it as a failure on my part to practice Kegels.

In my early third trimester, I admitted to my midwife that my pee problem was affecting my sex life (I won't go into detail). She referred me to a specialist, a physical therapist that specializes in women's pelvic floor health. There are just over 200 such doctors in the entire United States, and as luck would have it, one of them worked just 30 minutes away.

It didn't take long for my new doctor to diagnose me with hypertonic pelvic floor, a condition she sees frequently. I was always contracting, forgetting or not knowing how to release. Kegel exercises made my situation worse! Each time I practiced Kegels, I forced my muscle to contract more and more. Full release never came. All of the advice advising Kegels for incontinence was one-size-fits-all that probably helped a majority of ladies out there. But for me, this advice did damage that we needed to undo.

I began seeing my physical therapist weekly. I needed to learn to unclench my pelvic floor muscle and control it before I could learn to strengthen it. Each appointment, she would stick a finger in me to evaluate where I was. With the help of various breathing techniques during pregnancy and strengthening exercises postpartum, I learned not only how to control my pelvic floor, but I was surprised to learn that the muscle has such a large range of motion!

I fully believe that seeing a pelvic floor specialist for the last two months of my pregnancy is what led to pushing out my baby being the easiest part of my labor by far! Labor was long and horrific, but pushing was one-two-three-out! My daughter was pushed out so quickly that the doctor and nurses weren't even ready to catch her.

Added bonus: sex isn't painful anymore! I had resigned myself to believing that penetration would always hurt for me, that it was just part of how my body operated. Intercourse hurt so badly that I could not lose my virginity the first time I tried, nor the second time, nor the third time. I just thought it would always be that way. But toward the end of my pregnancy, I was amazed to discover that sex didn't hurt! With a breathing technique called a “big belly blow” and other exercises, I learned to relax my vagina and allow what I wanted in.

Since around 7 weeks postpartum, I've been seeing my physical therapist and her assistants every-other-week. Today's appointment may be my second-to-last because I've almost regained full control. My “guard” reflex is gone, my scar tissue isn't tender to the touch, and I can control my bladder when I sneeze or bend over to pick something up. Sexual penetration is still painless. From my point of view, it's a miraculous turn-around from where I was six months ago.

If you or another woman you know is having difficulty with urinary incontinence pre- or post-birth and Kegel exercises don't seem to help, talk to a specialist. You never know when you'll be the exception to the common advice.