During her early pregnancy, Jen had been having some mild morning sickness. Although this was an inconvenience, every expectant mother goes through this. For Jen, the morning sickness came on with a vengeance in November.

It is a condition known as Hyperemesis and it can be life threatening. For Jen it showed up as round-the-clock nausea and it lasted until the very end of her pregnancy.

Our Doctor prescribed Zofran, which was a miracle drug. It is usually prescribed for Cancer patients to counter the effects of nausea associated with Chemotherapy.

Because we were not using it the way it was normally prescribed, we found we had to do battle with our insurance company. They were unwilling to pay for more than nine pills at a time and only once every thirty days.

Nine pills lasted three days in our house and for a short time we had to pay $25 a pill while we struggled with the insurance company to authorize payment.

The good news was that Zofran helped Jen. Although she continued to have nausea for the entire pregnancy, she experienced very little vomiting after she started taking her miracle drug.

At one point in mid-November during our battle with the insurance company, Jen became so sick and dehydrated that we had to go to the emergency room. We had no more Zofran and the insurance company wasn’t authorizing any more. Our doctor had not started the pre-authorization for a continual supply.

We spent several hours in the hospital that night with Jen on an IV getting fluids back into her. During our stay, the doctor urged us to terminate the pregnancy. Of course, we disagreed.

Jen went on full disability leave from work dating back to November 8th. The hyperemesis was so bad that she was unable to work.

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