Hyperemesis Gravidarum
As she sat on the bathroom floor, just next to the toilet, she wondered what on earth she had gotten herself in to. Six months ago she and her husband had left the ED for a new start. After all, who could possibly work in the same place as their ex-husband and the ex-lover from a war zone? They'd moved in to a studio apartment in Reading, he'd gotten a job working on an acute admissions unit in a nearby hospital and she'd acquired a job in the same hospital, on a different ward as a registrar and a mentor of junior doctors.
Just a couple of months after their wedding, she had fallen pregnant and though there were some nerves at first, her reassuring husband had made her so much calmer about how they had so much time to prepare for the arrival. During a weekly food shop the day after a small stick had confirmed the pregnancy, he selected a small, soft white teddy bear just to make things seem a bit more real: they were settled down and they had their first baby on the way.
Yet the excitement had lasted a mere week when she felt the first pangs of nausea in her stomach. At first, they hadn't disrupted things too much; she just delayed breakfast by a couple of hours to give her stomach time to settle down. But by 7 weeks pregnant, she was bedridden with terrible sickness and unable to keep more than a dry slice of toast down. Vomiting a dozen times a day, she couldn't work and had been forced to tell her boss what was going on and why she needed time off.
Six weeks later, the problem was just as bad. Through her obstetrician and GP, she'd used so many different anti-emetics, she'd tried every form of ginger and acupressure but nothing helped her one bit. There were was just one man keeping her going; a man that had just sat down on the bathroom floor next to his poorly, exhausted wife and put his arm around her shoulders.
"I know you don't want to, but if you're sick one more time in the next hour or so then I'm going to take you to hospital and get you hooked up to a drip." He said ever so softly as she rested her head in the crook of his neck. "It's the best option for you and him." He added.
"You need to stop calling it 'him'." She forced a smile. "Or you're going to be really disappointed if it's a girl."
"No I won't, I just don't feel comfortable calling our baby 'it'." He grinned but his face fell as his wife groaned before she changed position so that she was on her knees and she hung her head over the toilet bowl. "I know I can't possibly understand how you feel at the moment but no matter how much you tell me that you're coping, I know that you need help. Medical help." He said sternly whilst he wrapped a hand around her long, thick ponytail so that he could keep it from sliding over her shoulder. "Alright, it's okay. Ssshhh." He soothed as she threw herself forward, gripped her hands either side of the toilet and proceeded to empty what was left in her digestive system – nothing but acidic bile that they both knew would be damaging her oesophagus. "I'm so sorry." He aired aloud. "I'd do anything to be go through this myself right now, not you." He admitted as he rubbed his hand in small circles on her back.
"You've got nothing to be sorry for." She murmured. "I on the other hand…"
"What? What could you have possibly done wrong?" He protested.
"I should be trying harder to eat and drink more. It doesn't matter how I feel what's important is–"
"Both of you. Both of you are equally important and you've done your best. Unfortunately, you know that it isn't always enough so I'm going to pack an overnight bag for you and I and then we're going to the hospital to get you some help okay?"
"Can you pack my iPod and my neck cushion please?"
"Yeah, sure." He smiled as he rose to his feet. Getting her to agree to be admitted to the hospital had been nigh-on impossible but it seemed she was finally so worn down that she didn't have a choice anymore. She needed to put the health of their baby ahead of the comfort of her own bed because she knew she was dehydrated and at high risk of malnutrition. "Hey look on the bright side, you can stay in bed even when you're going to be sick because you get sick bowls." He joked as he disappeared from the bathroom.
"Yippee." She muttered sarcastically before she spat into the toilet to get the taste of bile out of mouth and then flushed the toilet. She had just hoisted herself to her feet so that she could splash her face with cold water from the sink when Tom leant in the doorway with a holdall over his shoulder.
"I might have packed this a couple of days ago." He admitted feebly.
"I'm not going to bite your head off." She assured him. "I just kept on hoping that I was going to get at least a bit better but nothing seems to be changing." She sighed. "It looks like I'm going to have this for the rest of the pregnancy."
"You're only 13 weeks gone, there's still plenty of time for your stomach to settle down and besides, a lot of cases of Hyperemesis Gravidarum end around 14 weeks so you never know you might only have a week of this left." He stated. "Right, come on then. Oh and my new white leather car seats and puke don't mix so if you could manage it, a little bit of notice would be great so I can pull over if you're going to be sick."
"Just for that I'm going to puke down your shirt next time." She huffed before she padded out and the couple made their way to hospital.
Okay, so this is my first attempt at a story without using the names of the characters directly – please let me know what you think of it and you can be honest; if it's terrible just tell me, I'd rather know than not know!
Additionally, I was thinking of writing a long Sam+Tom fic soon but since there aren't any stories about them I'm wondering if anyone will actually read it… leave a review if you'd like a Tam fic and I'll see what the response is before I start planning something :-)