Pregnancy Sickness & Hyperemesis
You are now connected to a strong line of women who have shared this otherworldly experience.
I am one of them.
And I’m here to offer the support and care that otherwise doesn’t really exist.
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PS and HG can be isolating, confusing, terrifying and relentless. Quality of life takes a dive - sometimes for a few weeks, sometimes much longer. It happens so fast, it can feel impossible to keep up.
You’re not prepared (how could you have been?) You’re just trying to function. Trying to be discrete and maintain a well facade to protect the news you’re holding.
The impacts can be severe and wide reaching. They can be temporarily debilitating. Their shadow can last long after babe arrives.
It can be rough or it can be pure symptomatic hell.
Its tendrils can extend into your relationships, ability to work, ability to care for yourself and others and your ability to connect.
This can be a time of vulnerability, uncertainty and change. Early and intentional support matters.
Frustratingly, if you have PS or HG, you have found yourself in a care and support void. Right when you need people to step in and step up to support you.
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If 100 pregnant women stand in a room together:
70-90 will experience pregnancy sickness / ‘morning sickness’
3-4 will experience hyperemesis gravidarum
The difference is a matter of severity, persistence, debilitation and a deterioration that begins to creep into every facet of the body.
There's a blurry line around who gets diagnosed with what.
From the perspective of support, the question of ‘which label applies to me?’ is entirely the wrong question. The central question is far more simple and internally led - Do I Need Support?
Labels cannot dictate this. Only you know what you are holding, and what you need to reach for.
It’s a dangerous game to allow other peoples opinion or a diagnostic label to dictate the level of support you call in. Because if people don’t believe you, or they don’t give you a particular diagnosis, you second guess and minimise your experience. You believe you are not deserving.
If you need support, reach for it.
You know what you are walking better than anyone else. If you think you need support, you do. You deserve the support you require to move through this. Regardless of any diagnostic label you may or may not receive.
More about The Layers of Complexity in Pregnancy Sickness and Hyperemesis Gravidarum
I offer to walk with you as your pregnancy sickness & hyperemesis doula, acupuncturist, educator and lived experience peer support all rolled into one.
In Home, In Clinic & Online Support
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Conducted via Zoom. Care and support where you can stay in your pjs, comfy at home. Acupuncture/herbs won’t be possible, but all the other layers of support are ready for you
Includes:
4 x 1hr Sessions (Online) spaced weekly or fortnightly depending on need
Post Session Summary I’ll email a summary following our session together so you won't have to take notes. This may include: what to prioritise, tools and skills, things to delve into - book titles, podcasts, research articles, meditations, resources, referrals
Written Resources about aspects of support we cover so you can reflect and share with your support people
Cost $600 paid prior to our first session
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More information about Online Support
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Sessions are 90 mins and conducted in your home. Between Mornington and Richmond and surrounds. Email location Q's
Includes:
4 x 1.5hr Sessions (In Home) spaced weekly / fortnightly depending on need
Written Resources about aspects of support we cover so you can revisit and share with your support people
Communication Support text or voice memo communication between sessions so you’ll continue to feel heard and held. A place to reach out for encouragement, basic troubleshooting and reminders on rough days. I’ll do my best to get back to you same day.
Cost: $1400 (4 sessions + support between sessions)
Payment: $350 paid prior to each session. Or all upfront. Herbs extra
More about In Home Support
If you’d like support exploring what’s best for you, book a complimentary 20 minute Intro Call.
I weave together layers of multifaceted care, education, awareness and support. I’m coming to you as both a peer with lived experience and as a practitioner with rich clinical experience.
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There’s an unspoken knowing that exists between people who have suffered in this way. There is no need to mask, smile over, or pretend. You’re sitting with someone who has walked the path you're bent over.
I have lived experience not only of the moment you’re standing in, but also the ramifications and ripple effect that will extend forward through time. All the way it spills over your day, your life, pregnancy and whole perinatal period (including postpartum).
Support delivered by someone with a lived experience hits different.
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I’ve provided acupuncture treatment, holistic care and support for pregnancy sickness and hyperemesis in hospital emergency departments, private clinics and in peoples homes.
I have deeply listened to and held space for so many women navigating this experience. This repetition of space holding and care in difficult times allows me to find the common threads, and informs my approach entirely.
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I weave in the support and holding aspects of being a doula. Doulas offer a sense of nurturing often described as ‘mothering the mother’
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This means I’ve learned to understand, name and speak to the social and cultural dimensions of Motherhood. This might not seem immediately relevant, but this lens over PS and HG is groundbreaking.
There are very real ways that the expectations of what it means to be pregnant and to be a ‘good mother’ find their way into the layers of suffering involved in pregnancy sickness.
We receive strong messaging to present our experience of pregnancy through a single, neat-and-tidy lens of gratitude. Which acts to quieten, minimise and internalise the reality of our suffering.
Embedded messaging to sacrifice ourselves for motherhood is also painfully relevant here.
This is so important, and speaking to it it doesn't involve complex, heady theories. I can make it so easy to understand and so relevant to where you stand.
The impact of this will help you slide expectations off your shoulders, settle stress, and allow yourself to own your experience fully.
I offer care and support that are tailored to your particular story so you’ll feel nurtured, resourced, educated and supported. Clear around priorities and able to plan for further along the path. So you’re seen, heard and held along every step of the way.
I Provide 6 Layers of Support:
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This involves:
Compassionate, active, non-judgemental listening
Space to feel seen, heard and believed in your experience
Space to feel less alone
Space to be honest about what you’re feeling and allow your story to be voiced
Space to ask questions
Willingness to have hard conversations
The emotional components: naming things you may feel - frustration and pain, shame and guilt, confusion and overwhelm, fear and vulnerability, shock and grief, exhaustion and emptiness, hopelessness and isolation
Grieving the pregnancy you thought you’d have. Gently unpacking the invisible societal expectations of pregnancy in order to let them go
The discomfort of peoples reaction to your experience - asking you to cover over or minimise, dismissing you, trying to motivate you to ‘perform’ that you are better
Witnessing the significance of what you’re traversing
Compassion, reverence and gentle reframing of all you’re carrying. Allowing you can be lighter with your expectations of self
Reminding you: You will experience joy again. Better days will come.
Much can also be said without words during this time. You don’t need to say much if you feel too unwell to speak
Being listened to is not a ‘nice to have’. It is fundamentally important. Feeling heard is a protective factor for PTSD. PTSD can be a real consequence of severe pregnancy sickness. We want to mitigate that by supporting you in real time.
I am not a psychologist, or mental health counsellor. I can refer you to incredible professionals as needed.
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Conversations and resources about:
Providing a realistic understanding of pregnancy sickness and/or HG so you have greater context of the moment you’re standing in
Building awareness of your symptom patterns
Identifying and working with triggers
Working with nausea, rather than resisting it or trying to ‘push through’
Important things when symptoms spike
Lifestyle modifications to ease symptoms and support you
Setting up your space: building a sensory safe environment
Attempting food and drink - work arounds that help (if i’m in your home this may involve preparing something simple)
Caring for yourself when things are hard
Using tools like meditation and music to calm your nervous system
Fostering inner compassion for when your inner voice gets nasty
Unpacking unhelpful (internalised, patriarchal) narratives around what it looks like to do pregnancy ‘the right way’
Postpartum rebuilding
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Effectively planning for the days, weeks and months ahead.
Together we will focus on:
Assessing the mental loads you’re carrying
Prioritisation and de-prioritisation: what's really needed in this acute phase
Prioritising, seeking and scaffolding adequate care and support now to minimise long-term physical and psychological impacts.
Offloading tasks: what to outsource to others, what to let go of entirely
Resetting expectations: humanising your capacity and ability from a place of compassion and grace
Long-term planning: positioning you in the strongest place to navigate the close of pregnancy, birth, postpartum and the early years of mothering.
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Assisting you to reach for and scaffold adequate medical support.
Understanding symptoms: helping you understand the intensity of your symptoms and their impacts
Finding your voice: not downplaying and silencing hard things
Encouraging help seeking towards medical support
Creating a path for your sense autonomy and informed decision making - protective factors for PTSD.
Connecting you with medical care providers that will believe your experience, are well-versed in up-to-date pregnancy sickness management
Sharing evidenced-based resources and other relevant materials: organisations, hotlines, podcasts, groups
I will never suggest any specific medical course of action. This is beyond my scope of practice. I will refer you into incredible, competent medical care providers who can help you identify the right medical management pathway for your situation.
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As a qualified Chinese Medicine Practitioner, if we are In Home or In Clinic I can support you with Acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Medicine.
Individualised care is aimed at supporting the whole picture. I practice a style of care that adapts and responds to your needs.
We’ll address primary symptoms as well as their flow on effects on your sleep, digestion, emotions, anxiety and stress. We can work to counter side effects from any medication where possible.
Individualised advice based on symptom pattern. We’ll consider stress reduction and skills and tools to navigate days between sessions.
I can actively collaborate with your care team where appropriate.
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Getting you, your partner and those around you on the same page.
We’ll cover:
Navigating communication around pregnancy nausea in personal relationships
How to ask for help, what to ask for (these skills will come in handy once babe arrives)
Education for partners and loved ones about your symptoms / condition, providing them with knowledge, skills and tools to actively support you
Scaffolding broader social support - letting friends know what’s happening and how they can support
I’m Amy O’Brien
I experienced pregnancy sickness in my first pregnancy and hyperemesis gravidarum in my second pregnancy. There was so much I didn’t know. So much I didn’t receive adequate support around.
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I thought the pregnancy sickness with my first was as severe as it could get. I worried about becoming pregnant again because of the rough time I had first time round.
In my second pregnancy, I met hyperemesis gravidarum (HG). The severity of symptoms floored me entirely - escalating and escalating with no end to the escalation. Pretty soon symptoms broke free from any measurable scale.
Even as an Acupuncturist with clinical experience treating pregnancy sickness, I was entirely unprepared for what unfolded. The impossibility of trying to advocate for myself while also being so incredibly unwell.
I had no idea that physical symptoms could so intensity capture and drag your mental and emotional health. I had no idea about the long-term ripple effects, or what feels like the unspoken hyperemesis to PTSD pipeline.
I had no idea of the physical, mental and emotional recovery that would be required. How much processing I’d have to do... wading through, untying and softening memories and triggers for a long time after my gorgeous babe was born.
I am here to rewrite the story of pregnancy sickness and hyperemesis gravidarum support.
To shed light on it all. To stand alongside you in strength. To offer what I’ve learned and cultivated from both my lived and professional clinical experiences.
I’ll hold space, educate and help you prioritise and plan so your experience is as cocooned and supported as possible. So you emerge from this experience feeling held and ready for what comes next. Because after pregnancy, is the huge transition to motherhood. And that’s a chapter we really want to have you feeling ready, resourced and strong for.
Important Note: I am not a GP, Psychologist or counsellor.
I cannot provide medical care or comprehensive psychological support. I will always be clear around my scope of practice and refer to appropriate services for whole person care.