While some people call pregnancy a beautiful thing, it can also be quite a scary and uncomfortable experience. For a small person to grow inside of you, a body needs to make a lot of hormonal and other kinds of changes that result in certain symptoms, like morning sickness.
That's exactly what today's OP suffers from. Unfortunately, her puking usually comes with a lot of sound due to her stomach spasms. If that weren't bad enough, almost anytime she throws up, her neighbors call EMT or police saying they are worried about her, when she knows that they are actually annoyed by the sound.
More info: Reddit
While pregnancy can be a beautiful thing, it is also a tiring and complicated experience that comes with various symptoms
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Like this woman, who, during her 11th week of pregnancy, has morning sickness that comes with loud noises due to stomach spasms
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One time, her downstairs neighbors called the police to "check on her" after hearing her puking
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When she tried to explain to them that it was just morning sickness, they revealed that they were actually just annoyed by the noise
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After that, this happened a few more times—both an EMT and the police showed up when she was puking, due to calls from the same neighbors
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This made the woman paranoid about puking at her own home, since she didn't want any "help" to show up again
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And it's not like she could stop her vomiting—it's a direct symptom of her pregnancy
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So, she asked people online what she should do—how to deal with these neighbors
The OP is 11 weeks pregnant and has terrible morning sickness, something that around 70–80% of pregnant people get. Interestingly, despite its name, the sickness can happen at any time of the day. What is also interesting, is that the exact reason behind this symptom isn’t known, but some say it might be due to the hormonal changes that happen during pregnancy.
So, the original poster has to throw up from time to time. And when she does it, it’s pretty loud, which isn’t that uncommon. As this Reddit commenter explained, vomiting is a pretty violent action for the body, since it requires a lot of muscle contraction to push everything the opposite way than is intended.
At the same time, today's post author explained that she does it loudly because her stomach spasms and she has to make a sound between the gags. So, it sounds pretty brutal.
Apparently, this sound affects not only her husband, but her downstairs neighbors. The OP figured this out one morning when, after puking, she went to work and received a call from her husband saying the police had come to check on her, after the neighbors called them about the sound.
He explained that it was violent-sounding morning sickness, and the woman went to her neighbors to explain the same thing. She thought they had called the cops because they were worried about her, but in reality, it was because “it was very annoying,” which shocked her. Still, she expected them never to do it again.
Yet, they did—and more than once. The next time they called an EMT with the “worry” that she was dying, then police again. Well, their calls, in a way, could be viewed as emergency call abuse.
These types of calls are dangerous because they might hold up a line that a person who is actually in the emergency cannot get through to. As an example, in the Netherlands, it is a criminal offense, which can result in a fine or even a prison sentence.
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If the offense was done by a child, their parents would receive a warning letter and, if it isn’t answered, the kid might be brought into the office of juvenile crime prevention and be judged under juvenile criminal law.
Granted, prank calls are usually the first to be categorized like this, while the ones the OP’s neighbors did likely wouldn’t, because the emergency was answered, even though there was none. As someone in the original post’s comments pointed out, after some time their number might be flagged and then it wouldn’t be answered quickly, which can be dangerous if an actual emergency happens.
Plus, their constant calls caused the author to be afraid to puke in her own home. Who would want an EMT or police officer showing up at their door for no reason, right? But what could she do? After all, holding down the vomit wasn’t really an option, or silent puking—at least for her.
Redditors had a few suggestions. Some said she could play music while she’s throwing up, but she said the neighbors would probably still call the police because of it, so that’s not really a solution.
Another suggestion was to contact the complex manager and maybe even talk to the lawyer. She isn’t making these sounds for fun, it’s a medical condition, so there might be some protections from such entitled neighbors.
Of course, waiting it out until her morning sickness passes—which usually happens around the 16th or 20th week of pregnancy—is also an option, yet the likelihood of EMT or police showing up again is quite high. Additionally, the OP herself said that before the baby comes, they’re going to move out, so there’s at least THE fact that they won’t have to put up with those people for much longer.
Still, it’s irritating when people misunderstand what a pregnant woman goes through. We can’t help but wonder—what do they hope to achieve by calling an emergency number every time she pukes? Well, sometimes there’s no reasonable explanation for people's actions.
They gave her plenty of suggestions—from playing music to calling lawyers to simply "powering...through" it
