Pregnancy and Overload

I used to think my body failed pregnancy.

That it rejected it.
That I was weak.
That something in me was fundamentally wrong.

The diagnosis came later. The understanding came later still.

What I know now is this: my body did not fail. It was overwhelmed.

Pregnancy turned my nervous system up to full volume. Everything was louder. Brighter. Heavier. Smells arrived before I could brace for them. Internal sensations became constant, intrusive, unavoidable. There was no quiet inside my body anymore.

I wasn’t just nauseous.

I was saturated.

The sickness followed a pattern I didn’t understand at the time. Mornings were survivable. Evenings were hell.

By six o’clock, I would be violently ill.

Not anxious.
Not distressed.
Ill.

I used to wonder why. Doctors charted symptoms, adjusted medication, monitored fluids. No one asked what my nervous system had taken in by the end of the day.

By evening, my body had processed: hours of light,
hours of sound,
hours of movement,
hours of internal sensation,
hours of being upright,
hours of functioning through discomfort.

There was no space left.

So my body discharged the overload the only way it could.

Through vomiting.

People think of hyperemesis gravidarum as hormonal. And it is. But hormones don’t exist in isolation. They move through a nervous system, and mine was already working harder than most.

Pregnancy didn’t create the problem. It removed my buffers.
Food stopped being regulating.
Smell became unavoidable.
Rest was disrupted.
My body no longer felt like a place I could step out of.

There was no pause button.

The most telling part came later, when I was hospitalised.

In hospital, the sickness stopped.

Not gradually.
Not partially.
It stopped.

For days at a time.

The medication helped,  but more than that, the environment did.

The lights were dim and consistent.
The routine was predictable.
Decisions were removed.
Movement was limited.
Expectation was gone.

My nervous system was finally contained.

That’s what made the difference.

Outside the hospital, I was expected to cope. Inside it, I was allowed to rest.

The contrast was stark.

It wasn’t that my body suddenly behaved.
It was that it was no longer being pushed past its limits.

I understand now why the sickness came in waves. Why evenings were unbearable. Why pregnancy felt like something I had to endure rather than inhabit.

My body wasn’t rejecting pregnancy.

It was protecting itself.

Escalating until it was impossible to ignore.

This matters because the story we tell about women’s bodies shapes the care they receive.

When pregnancy suffering is framed as weakness, people are told to push through. When it’s framed as resilience, the danger is admired instead of addressed.

What I needed was not praise.

I needed containment.

Looking back, I don’t feel shame anymore.

I feel clarity.

Pregnancy demanded more sensory, neurological, and physical capacity than I had;  and my body responded honestly.

Violently, yes.
But honestly.

And now, finally, I understand why.
                                                          —Frost ❄️

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