Mmmmm. . . Ginger

So, for those of you familiar with being pregnant, you more than likely have experienced firsthand that delightful phenomenon called "morning sickness." However, much to your chagrin, you discovered that it is not restricted to mornings only--in fact, it can last all day and even all night if you are especially. . . lucky.

Well, two Sundays ago I started experiencing nausea, and it has been my daily companion now without fail basically all day. (Thankfully it usually lessens a little toward the evening!) It is not the same as just having a stomach virus or even food poisoning. With a stomach virus, when you are feeling especially sick, you can simply avoid eating for a while to give your stomach some time off. When you have food poisoning, it is generally very fast and furious--extremely intense nausea, and lots of, shall we say, voiding of the offending food that you'd eaten (and anything else along with it) until your system is emptied out both ends for long enough that you can recover. But you usually feel a LOT better--like amazingly so--when you're done throwing up, and you know that it will have an end fairly soon (unless of course you die from it).

With hCg-induced nausea (hCg is the pregnancy hormone, by the way), you may or may not feel better after throwing up. Throwing up is awful enough by itself, but it's always nice when doing so makes you feel better. But that doesn't necessarily happen with morning sickness. And you can't just NOT eat, however much you might want to skip the food, because you will generally feel a lot worse to have nothing in your stomach than you will to keep on having a little bit, which means that you have to be eating pretty much constantly so you only feel slightly queasy instead of really vomitrocious.

And that, of course, is a bit of a difficult thing, because even a little bit of nausea makes you want to NOT eat. So you end up eating a lot of super-bland foods all the time, which certainly gets old. And even the blandest stuff makes you think you might throw up some of the time anyway. Eating becomes a chore to do, and you have to try to not process smells or tastes or sights of anything you're eating just so you can eat it.

Of course, not every pregnancy is the same. I didn't have morning sickness quite so bad with Elsie. And morning sickness for one is not necessarily the same intensity as another's. I haven't had to throw up yet. Hopefully I won't have to. I have felt like I would a couple times, but I prayed a lot that I wouldn't, and so far so good. I eat better (higher quantity and more variety) in the evenings and at night since I feel better then. I'm not so sick that I have to be laid up in bed all the time. And I know that come week 12 or so, I shouldn't have to worry about morning sickness any more.

In the meantime, I have tried a couple things that help combat the nausea: Tums as needed for stomach gymnastics, and crystallized ginger for alleviation of pukiness.

If you have never tried crystallized ginger, you should. You can get it at specialty food stores and sometimes in regular grocery stores, but it is a little pricey. You can make some yourself, and the process is pretty simple. There are a bunch of variations in the recipes I found online, but most of them involve parboiling ginger root in simple syrup (sugar and water), letting it dry, and coating it in granulated sugar.

I made some last week, and it turned out rather nicely. I used a recipe I found on a blog by kimmykokonut, and it worked well enough. You should try her recipe out or find another of your own and make it. I will tell you if you've never cooked with fresh ginger (I hadn't), you should. It is very pleasantly aromatic and smells AMAZING. You do have to peel it, so choose a ginger root that would be easy to peel without too many tiny bulbs coming off the main branches. Make sure you slice it pretty thin on the diagonal. You'll want a good-quality pan to cook it in (e.g., stainless steel or something heavy-duty) since you are cooking sugar, and you'll also want to stir it frequently. You can use the syrup that is left over for making rock candy or just to put on pancakes or waffles if you like.

The ginger REALLY does help with nausea, and would be good for motion sickness or any time you're feeling a little icky. It is pretty sharp--so you don't want to put a lot in your mouth at a time--I only take tiny little mouse nibbles at a time (although Elsie will think nothing of biting off a big half of a piece and eating it). Even if you only make this because you like candy, you should at least try it.