Extremes

It's a strange position I'm in at the moment. Although part of me is repeating the mantra I'll be fine, I'll be fine, don't worry, another part is aware that this may be my last week of comfort for a long time.

I'm five weeks pregnant. The sickness kicked in at six weeks last time.

Next week. Next week, it could all start happening.

But how odd, to be sitting around and waiting maybe for extreme debilitation. Particularly when it was a conscious choice. Easily the most severe illness I have ever experienced, and here I am deliberately setting out to (maybe) go through it all again.

And let's face it, it's hard to feel sympathy for someone who has not only purposely walked into such a situation, but who is facing an outcome so happy... how could it possibly be a bad thing?

Normally when you're so ill that you can't walk for weeks on end, you expect death as a likely result, and nothing else. Debilitation is terrifying because of what it might lead to, as much as how it feels. And normally it is accompanied by the fear that it might not stop. But hyperemesis always stops. By abortion or by birth, it always stops.

I thought about abortion last time, when I was so ill I wanted to die. When it had been going for weeks and simply wouldn't end. But I couldn't do that. What a waste, apart from anything else. I'd only end up doing it all again.

It's all academic, anyway. I won't get ill. I won't. I refuse.