Okay so it’s only 2.64km but it means so much.

Many people mention that they never knew that I was pregnant with both Buddy and Molly until I had them. So I thought I’d take the time to explain why; my pregnancies have been pretty miserable.

During both pregnancies I’ve suffered from something called Hyperemesis, it causes you to vomit throughout most of your pregnancy. For me it meant from week 5 with Buddy and week 3 with Molly all the way through till the minute they were born. Of course I’m grateful that I’ve been lucky enough to have children but sadly pregnancy for me isn’t the joyful experience that many claim to have and therefore I’ve never wanted to share it with anyone.

Having Hyperemesis has meant that exercise had to take a complete back step, the more tired I got the more ill I got. With Molly I also had Buddy to look after as well as work and on top of the multiple vomiting daily, nausea and fainting I had my gorgeous little boy to keep up with and any of you that have met him will know how super active he is. Despite being on strong medication four times a day it rarely gave me any respite and meant that not just physically but mentally it took its toll. The constant nausea and not keeping down meals is just miserable, you just can’t explain it until you’ve been there. If you ever find yourself on an HG forum you will see just how badly it takes it toll on people, their marriages and their pregnancies. Sadly many can’t cope and husbands leave or they end their pregnancies which is just heart breaking as you hear just how people struggle with the decisions they have to make.

Not being able to do any exercise (mainly not be able to swim) also made me pretty down and the four times I swam, throughout my whole pregnancy, I spent it wretching under the water and then spending the rest of the day in bed pretty ill. I also saw friends disappear and it then becomes a very lonely place to be.

My career, mental health and physical health took nose dives. I used to receive daily comments from people (which when you suffer from HG don’t help), things such as; ‘At least you won’t have to loose any baby weight’, ‘I vomited a few times when I was pregnant’, ‘you’ve only got x amount of months to go’, ‘you don’t look pregnant’, ‘you’re not allowed to take medication, it will harm your baby’, ‘have you had a scan, your baby must be really ill’, ‘it’s only vomiting you must feel fine apart from that’, to name just a few! The friends that use to call or text stopped doing so on the whole and not being able to keep food down meant I never went out for meals. On the whole people just don’t understand it and sadly keep their distance. The few friends that stuck by me I owe a huge amount of debt to…thank you!

6 weeks after Molly was born the Dr signed me off to be able to slowly start exercising again, and I was looking forward to heading to Hampton Pool, the next day the Prime Minister announced that all leisure centres and therefore swimming pools were to be closed. After so long without a swim it means it will have to wait another few months possibly. However, tonight I went for my first run in about a year, it was slow, not far and as you can see by my face not pretty but it is a big step to being me again, to having that small amount of time to myself and more importantly to getting my mental health and physical well being back on track. Wish me luck, I look forward to seeing some of you in the pool sometime with a smile on my face!