Emetophobe and Pregnancy: Fear of Vomiting Meets Morning Sickness

The morning that I found out I was pregnant should have been the happiest day of my life. I was two days late, and feeling a little "off." I had only been married for five months and was not planning on starting a family for a few more years. I went in the bathroom and took a pregnancy test to prove to myself I wasn't pregnant. I thought my nausea was a psychosomatic illness, not an actual pregnancy. I peed on the stick and it was positive.

I had always wanted children, heck I told my husband I wanted five children. I should be crying tears of joy right now, but my head was spinning, my heart went into overdrive, and I couldn't breathe. Why? I suffer from Emetophobia, the fear of vomit and vomiting. In my mind pregnancy equaled, well, morning sickness and we all know what morning sickness equals. I had heard horror stories from girlfriends of constant vomiting, not being able to keep anything down, and of not being able to control when and where it happened. I couldn't have that happen to me. I couldn't vomit, I simply couldn't.

When you have emetophobia you live in constant fear of getting sick, and in a lot of cases you do whatever you can to avoid anything that could possibly make you throw-up. A lot of emetophobes can not even watch someone on television getting sick. When you are pregnant, you can't help but be sick. Yes there are the cases of women flying through pregnancy without so much as a hiccup, but I was convinced that it was not going to be me.So when that pregnancy test came back positive, I thought I was going to die, quite literally. I thought that I would have a nine month long panic attack, and my body would just give out. I could not stop crying, and was barely able to stop hyperventilating. My husband rushed to my side to see what was wrong. He hugged me tightly and told me that it was good news, that we were going to be a family. I just looked at him and said, "but I an afraid I will throw up."