Meditations on Vomiting

All my life, I have hated vomiting and would do anything to avoid that terrible, vulnerable moment. It was better to suffer hours of nausea, resisting the barf, than to face the inevitable and succumb. Since pregnancy, though, I have been forced to confront my fear of the vomit and to realize some of its aesthetic qualities. From experience thus far, I have identified two distinct kinds of pregnancy barf: a) the long, slow, suffering nausea that results in the final succumbing, and b) the instantaneous projectile barf. The first kind of barf is more like the type people experience under ordinary circumstances, I think, and so the second is of more interest to me. In this other kind of barfing, there is almost no warning. You are not feeling nauseated beforehand—you feel fine, in fact. Then, something triggers your gag reflex (in my case, it has often been my attempt to take my prenatal vitamin), and suddenly—with no struggle and no warning whatsoever—you vomit. There is no time to get to the bathroom, so you have to hope you have a bag nearby that can serve as a barfbag. For a long time I kept several bags next to my place on the couch at all times.

Unlike with normal barfing, another quality of the pregnancy barf as I have experienced it is that you don’t feel better afterward. Directly after, you feel better, but it only lasts about fifteen minutes, and then the queasiness returns, worse than before. It is the most awful, hollow, cloying feeling in the pit of your stomach. Not fun, people. NOT FUN. There may be other kinds of pregnancy or non-pregnancy barfs that I have not identified, of course, and I'd welcome hearing about them.

Please direct protests about the grossness of this post to Albert:
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