What Hyperemesis Gravidarum Actually Feels Like (And What Came After)

Some birth stories are about the birth. This one is about everything that came before it.

Chelann Watt gave birth to her son at home in Yakima, Washington, in June 2024, after a pregnancy she spent almost entirely in bed. She has hyperemesis gravidarum– a condition most people have never heard of, and one that almost nobody with a diagnosis of it ends up having a homebirth with. She had one anyway.

Ten weeks of thinking she was fine

Chelann and her husband Sam had waited on purpose. They'd built a business together, traveled, spent three months living in Scotland where he's from. Then in July of 2023, Sam sat down on the couch and told her he was ready to become a dad.

She got her positive test in a hotel bathroom on the morning after her birthday, so faint she had to hold it up to the light.

The nausea started almost immediately. Then it kept going. She was walking around with a bag of saltines and a Tupperware she'd named Fred. She flew to Cancun for her parents' anniversary and spent most of the trip in a hotel room with the air conditioning on, smelling onions and fish tacos from the hallway. Her family held hands around her bed to include her in a family activity.

And the entire time, everyone around her had the same explanation: Chelann is really getting hit with first trimester.

Including Chelann.

The night it stopped being morning sickness

At the end of November, her family had a project in the mountains that involved a full film crew and a weekend of interviews. Chelann is a driven person and this had been on the calendar for a long time, so she went, in a snowstorm, having kept nothing down for four days.

She started throwing up blood. Sam walked into the bathroom the next morning and found her leaning into the mirror doing her makeup, and told her to get back in bed. Everyone agreed she needed IV fluids, but the mountain passes were closing and an ambulance wasn't going to make it in.

That night she made it to the bathroom and couldn't make it back. At four in the morning, Sam found her on the floor, barely responsive.

A snowplow got their car unstuck at six. Her dad followed them down the mountain because the roads were bad enough that there were cars in the ditches. They were seen within three minutes of arriving, and the ER doctor– a man she'd never met, who happened to know exactly what he was looking at– gave her the diagnosis and told her plainly that she could have died.

She was ten weeks pregnant.

The part she came on the show to say

Chelann is direct about why she agreed to this interview, and it isn't to tell her birth story.

It's because women go undiagnosed. Because in most systems, the diagnosis is what gets you the treatment. Because she got lucky that a random ER doctor recognized it, and a lot of women don't. And because, in her words, we suffer more than we have to– convinced we're strong, convinced we're being dramatic, when what's actually happening is not normal.

Normal morning sickness, she points out, responds to the things people suggest. Crackers help a little. Ginger helps a little. You can keep something down.

This is not something ginger can solve.

She also names something harder to hear: for some women the medication doesn't work, and dehydration is genuinely dangerous. She gives her own trigger warning before she goes there. It's a few minutes of the episode and it's the most important few minutes in it.

Preparing for a homebirth from a bed

By her own account, Chelann is a planner. She lives off a plan. And she couldn't execute a single one– couldn't shop, couldn't nest, couldn't take a walk without doing the math on the calories she'd have to replace.

There was also a thyroid prescription she'd been started on immediately at a very high dose, which a second doctor later found had swung her far in the other direction and was fueling anxiety she describes as unlike anything she'd experienced.

So she did what she could reach.

She hired the most experienced midwife in her area, after talking to the retired midwife who trained her. She met the backup OB in town ahead of time, so if she needed a hospital she'd walk into a room instead of an ER. She wrote a pre-labor checklist and handed it to Sam. She asked her sister-in-law Tay to come.

And for her baby shower, instead of gifts, she asked everyone to meal prep. They filled her freezer with about three and a half months of food.

A long birth with a short cord

At 39 weeks and 1 day, Chelann had her bloody show on a summer evening while Sam was up a tree with a saw, which is apparently his form of nesting.

Her water broke around 11:30 the next morning. Contractions were about a minute and twenty seconds long and five and a half minutes apart almost immediately. By three in the afternoon she was in the pool, and everyone in the room assumed there'd be a baby by four thirty.

There was not.

She pushed for roughly eight hours. Her son was posterior, his cord was very short, and he kept descending and going back up. At around seven thirty his heart rate stopped recovering the way her midwife wanted, and the oxygen mask came out. They worked through position after position until they found one he tolerated– Chelann on her side, right leg braced against Tay's collarbone, Sam squeezing her hips through every contraction.

Transfer was genuinely on the table. Then his heart rate steadied.

The crowning alone took over an hour. When his head was out he began to take his first breath, and her midwife's voice changed and told her to get on all fours right now. He was born at 11:52 that night: seven pounds nine ounces, twenty inches.

Her placenta, when it came, was spent. Her midwife thought that was likely why he'd come when he did.

The banana

Chelann had a second degree tear, and the numbing didn't take. She calls the repair the test of a lifetime. She held Sam's hand and asked him to tell her about the family they were creating.

But when the placenta came out, the nausea stopped. Not eased. Stopped.

She asked for a banana. It was the first food she had enjoyed in over nine months.

Postpartum was its own long road– recurring mastitis for months, and a body that didn't feel like hers again for well over a year. Her son never dropped his birth weight. He's two now, healthy, and by her account extremely chubby.

She and Sam are talking about a second baby. She's honest that it's one of the most emotionally complicated decisions she's ever sat with, and she says the thing that made all of it bearable in the end:

Meaning in life lies on the edge of contrast.

Listen to the full conversation: [APPLE LINK] · [SPOTIFY LINK] · [YOUTUBE LINK]

Frequently Asked Questions

What is hyperemesis gravidarum, and how is it different from morning sickness?

Hyperemesis gravidarum is severe nausea and vomiting in pregnancy that prevents normal eating and drinking, and it affects roughly 1–3% of pregnancies. The practical difference from typical morning sickness is that remedies like crackers, ginger, and small frequent meals don't resolve it, weight loss is significant, and IV fluids are often required. It is one of the leading causes of hospitalization in early pregnancy.

Chelann went about ten weeks before anyone named it. In her case that meant a bag of saltines, a lot of well-meaning suggestions, and eventually an ER visit where a doctor told her she could have died. If you can't keep fluids down, you are losing weight, or you have been vomiting for days, that belongs with your provider today, not next appointment.

Can you have a homebirth if you have hyperemesis gravidarum?

Some women do, though it is uncommon, and it is entirely a decision for you and your care provider. HG is primarily a first- and second-trimester condition, and for many women it resolves once the placenta is delivered. What matters for a planned homebirth is your nutritional status, hydration, and how your provider assesses risk at term.

Chelann's midwife carried her to term at home, with a named backup OB in place and a plan for walking straight into a room rather than an ER. If you have HG and want a homebirth, that pre-arranged backup plan is worth as much as the plan A.

Does hyperemesis gravidarum come back in the next pregnancy?

Recurrence is common. Research has found HG recurs in roughly 80% of women, which is why so many mothers describe the decision about a second baby as genuinely agonizing rather than straightforward. That figure is a population average, not a prediction about you.

There is also active research here. Multiple studies since 2018 have identified the gene GDF15 as the largest known genetic risk factor for HG, and as of late 2025, observational studies out of Denmark and North America suggest that metformin taken for several months before conception may lower the risk. No randomized trial has confirmed this yet and it is not a standard recommendation, but it is the first preventive avenue the field has had. If you've had HG, it's worth asking your provider what's current.

What actually helps hyperemesis gravidarum?

There is no cure, and treatment is aimed at keeping you hydrated and nourished enough to stay safe. That usually means IV fluids, prescription anti-nausea medication, and close monitoring of weight and hydration. Getting a formal diagnosis matters, because in most systems the diagnosis is what opens the door to prescriptions.

Chelann's honest framing is that with HG you are often not choosing between a good option and a bad one. She wanted to stay alive and she wanted her baby to. Every one of these decisions belongs with a provider who has treated HG before, and it is reasonable to find a different one if yours is calling it morning sickness.

Why do some babies take so long to push out at home?

A long pushing stage usually comes down to position and mechanics, not effort. A posterior baby (facing your front, sometimes called sunny side up) has to rotate through a tighter path, and a short umbilical cord can physically limit how far a baby can descend before being pulled back.

Chelann had both. Her son descended and retreated for hours before he was born. What made that manageable at home was a midwife who monitored his heart rate continuously, moved her through positions until they found one he tolerated, and had a transfer threshold she was ready to act on.

This article shares one mother's personal experience and is offered as encouragement and education, not medical advice. Hyperemesis gravidarum is a serious medical condition. If you are struggling to keep fluids down or losing weight in pregnancy, please contact your care provider. Always bring questions about your own pregnancy, birth, and postpartum to a trusted provider.