#10. There Are a Lot of Strange Remedies for Morning Sickness

Graphic stories weren't the only lore our friends and family had to share with us. We also heard dozens and dozens of increasingly-bizarre, and often totally unrealistic, folk remedies for morning sickness. Every mom we knew had a whispered secret to share, the solution for living through pregnancy nausea:

• Munch on soda crackers all day because they'll settle your stomach
• Get plenty of exercise
• Dose up on vitamin B6
• Wear motion sickness bands to calm queasiness 
• Eat only cold food because it doesn't smell as strong
• Gobble ginger in any form--candied, pickled, carbonated...
• Hold to a B.R.A.T. diet--bananas, rice, applesauce, and tea
• Chew on lemons all day
• Dine on cabbage
• Keep a boiled egg by your bedside to eat when you wake up in the morning

Most of these suggestions came before I started to feel sick in earnest, so I ignored them at the time. Even if I didn't internalize the cures, I should have grasped that any condition these women had clearly tried so hard to get rid of was not going to be easy to survive.

Eventually, my desperation drove me to try every single one of these strange remedies... with mixed results. Stay tuned.