I think I’ve figured it out!  Here’s what happened this week.

Tuesday was my roughest day thus far.  I was unable to keep any food down all day, getting sick morning, noon, and evening, and I felt pretty discouraged my the time I went to bed that night.  I stayed home from work on Wednesday to recuperate and decided to go to St. Williams for Mass at noon.  Very providentially, I saw my friend, Barb, at Mass.  She’s the mother of 5 grown children, grandmother of 5+, and super-organic, like I am.  After Mass, she invited me to her home for lunch and, upon hearing about my pregnancy-nauseau, gave me the book.

The book.  Sheer brilliance.  Utter revelation.  Managing Morning Sickness, by Marilyn M. Shannnon, to be precise. On 25 short pages, the author lays out the reason (according to her research) that many expecting women suffer from sickness and offers her thesis in preventing it.  It’s very simple.

Here goes:

1.  Morning sickness is essentially a result of pregnancy-induced hypoglycemia.  (Insulin levels are elevated during pregnancy, resulting in lower blood sugar–ie, glucose; the brain, which houses the body’s vomiting center, feeds on glucose, such that, when glucose levels drop, the vomiting center is triggered.)

2.  Thus, the solution to nauseau is to maintain steady blood sugar levels.

3.  How?  Eat the “hypoglycemic” diet–every two hours, eat a combination of a complex carbohydrate (whole grain bread, nuts, vegetables, etc) and a protein (eggs, beans, meat) and a fat (butter, etc).

I’ve been following this eating plan since Wednesday, and it’s removed the nauseau.  The problem is that I’m a wimp and don’t always want to eat every two hours; yesterday was Saturday, and I just wanted to relax and not feel so regimented.  And, I got nauseaus.  Devin, you told me so.

In addition, I haven’t been able to make myself snack during the night, as M. Shannon suggests, so I usually experience some nauseau in the morning until I can stabilize my blood sugar levels.  My wonderful husband is awfully good to me, though; he brings me a snack while I’m still in bed, such that I eat immediately upon waking.  That way I can eat while reclining–I know it sounds hilarious but, if blood sugar levels are low, it helps to lay down, so that the heart doesn’t have to work as hard to pump blood to the brain.  (I tend to have naturally low blood pressure, which means that my brain gets less blood and less glucose, so when I start to feel nauseous, I lay down and eat a snack and the glucose rushes more easily to my brain.  It’s kind of nice to recline while I eat.  I just might revive the old custom.)
I hope this helps, ladies!  YKC!