“DON’T COME IN HERE!” I screamed at my husband through the closed bathroom door.

I stared in despair at the disasterous scene before me.

I don’t know why I had thought twenty three weeks was a good time to have a “babymoon”; maybe its because most women feel much better in their 2nd trimester, so this gestation period is usually an optimal time for couples to have a little get-away.

Besides, it was our 10 year anniversary so I was determined to celebrate it.

But if I had known how BIG and UNCOMFORTABLE I was going to be by 23 weeks I would NEVER have booked a get-away to a far-away island.

Plus, we had found this ridiculously cheap package-deal but once we arrived we realised why the price was so good…….you get what you pay for.

We made our way (I waddled – slowly and painfully) to a very dark, very damp room at the very end of a very long walkway where we were greeted by a small hard bed and two very flat pillows.

If there is any advice I can give a pregnant woman embarking on a “babymoon” it is to pay for comfort, for it is the ONE thing you will NOT want to skimp on when you’re pregnant: when you’re that uncomfortable you’d give anything (or pay anything) for a comfortable bed.

The reason we had been tempted by this package was that it included ferry transfers, daily buffet breakfast, kayaking, snorkeling, glass bottom boat tour and free entry to the turtle reserve at the other end of the island. This small island also had several hiking trails that led you to panoramic vistas overlooking the Australian Great Barrier Reef – sounds magical right?

The only problem was that I could barely walk from my room to the pool, much less hike to a vista (or even the turtle reserve).

The breakfast buffet had painfully average food, and there were no other options to eat on the island except at the two eateries provided by the resort.

At this point I wasn’t really able to eat dinners anymore, but in an attempt to have a “romantic” dinner date, we ventured to the same restaurant (where the breakfast buffet was held) and I ordered a $27 “Tropical Fruit Salad” from the desert menu.

When it arrived, my husband and I stared in shock; it was the leftover fruit from the breakfast buffet with some canned pineapple added to it. We were especially stunned because this was the lush, tropical part of Australia where most of the pineapples are grown!

The next day we braved the food again. I felt as though I had no space in my stomach, but I was starving, so I ordered a veggie burger from the other cafe and, over the span of an hour, ate the entire thing.

As soon as I finished eating I knew I had made a mistake.

I immediately felt ill.

I tried to ignore my feelings of nausea and discomfort for a while but they persisted. I told my husband that I needed to lie down, so we slowly made our way back to our bleak hotel room.

I laid down on the hard bed and put several pillows around me to prop me up: I had such a hard time finding a comfortable position.

After tossing and turning for about 20 minutes I finally realised my fate – the food was NOT going to stay down.

It started moving up my chest like a volcano.

I tried to get out of the bed as quickly as I could. I wanted to make it to the bathroom before I exploded, but the vomit was not going to wait; my body wanted it out.

My cheeks started filling up with regurgitated food as I entered the bathroom.

I wasn’t going to make it to the toilet (besides, I was so big now that whenever I threw up into the toilet it would go all over my feet because I couldn’t bend over far enough).

In a panic – to prevent it from going all over the floor – I started throwing up into the big bowl that was the sink.

Once the peristaltic activity of expulsion started I could not stop it. My body was determined to empty me of every last morsel of that burger (and breakfast).

I threw up and threw up and threw up and threw up. I didn’t even know that my stomach could hold that much food. The big bowl soon got full of chunky spew, but it appeared I was not yet finished.

In a panic, I made my way toward the toilet, but this involuntary hurling wouldn’t stop. The never-ending regurgitated stomach contents went across the floor as I tried to aim for the toilet.

When I reached the toilet I put my hands on my knees and tried to lean over as far as I could, but it just wasn’t far enough. Chunky remnants of breakfast and lunch landed on my bare feet, making me gag even more.

I felt possessed.

The retching wouldn’t stop.

This involuntary motion had taken over my body; it was fast and rhythmic and never-ending.

The more I threw up – the more I threw up.

The smell and the sights around me made me even more nauseas.

Eventually the chunks changed to stomach acid, and I stood dry-heaving over the toilet bowl for what felt like an eternity. My eyes were blood shot, and involuntary tears were streaming down my face – not from sadness but as a response to the ocular pressure from the heaving. I blinked wearily in relief when the vomiting FINALLY came to end.

I cringed in utter disgust as I looked around me – there was vomit EVERYWHERE.

The big round sink was full to the brim.

There was vomit on the counter/benchtop.

There was vomit on the floor, on the walls, on the mirror, on the toilet, in the toilet and on my legs and feet.

The smell was overwhelming.

I stood there exhausted and overwhelmed.

Now what?

“Are you ok?” my husband’s voice came through the door.

“DON’T COME IN HERE!” I screamed.

Dear God, what was I going to do?

Asking my husband to clean it up would inevitably end up with more vomit upchucked in the bathroom, and I could never ever ever ask the cleaners to deal with this.

So I did what I had to do…….

I started scooping.

Yes.

With a clenched jaw and a look of soul-crushing disgust on my face, I stuck my hand deep down into the warm, chunky vomit that now clogged the large black polished bowl/sink and started scooping.

The dry heaving began again.

I made disturbing gagging sounds from my involuntarily-pumping esophagus as I scooped, scooped, scooped; slowly emptying the large sink of its unwelcome contents into the nearby toilet.

This was not to be the last time that I would throw up into a sink, but as fluids became my primary intake for the rest of my pregnancy these subsequent liquid vomits were easily washed down the drain.

After what felt like an eternity, the sink was finally cleared and it was time to tackle the walls and the floors. I used a towel to sloppily gather the scattered chunks and shook them into the toilet.

The remaining splatters I left for my husband to clean. With a shirt tied around his face, he bravely entered the war-zone and cleaned up the bathroom to the best of his ability. All that was left for the cleaners was a large pile of vomit-laden towels.

We were both so traumatized by the “incident” that we decided to skip lunches and dinners altogether for the rest of our stay and, instead, just lived off potato chips and virgin pina coladas from the pool bar.

This was not turning out to be the 10 year anniversary I had hoped for, but still, I would rather this suffering than the horrendous torture of IVF.

Water remained my consolation for the next few days. I would enter the pool, or the ocean, with a sense of intense anticipation of the relief it offered as my now-buoyant belly would rise off my pelvis giving me temporary relief from the pain and the pressure.

On our last day at the resort I realized we had never used our kayaking voucher.

My husband was worried about my comfort and was hesitant to take me out on the water in the hard little kayak, but I was determined to make the most of our last day there.

I clumsily crawled into the double kayak. My legs pushed my belly up into my diaphragm, causing me to gasp in little breaths, and my back began to immediately spasm, but I gritted my teeth and we paddled out into the azure water.

A few feet from the shore a turtle surfaced right next to our kayak.

I was shocked to see him so close and expected him to panic and immediately pop straight back under the water, as most turtles do, but instead he swam right next to us.

Off in the distance I could see the turtle reserve, at the other end of the island, that I had not been able to walk to. This friendly little guy must have been one of the turtles recently released back out in to the ocean for he appeared comfortably accustomed to humans.

We stopped paddling and allowed ourselves to lazily float along the waves.

The turtle floated next to us for what felt like an eternity, popping his head up out the water in such proximity that I wanted to reach out and touch him. I was enthralled by his suave movements, his smooth patterned shell and his adorable curiosity.

I completely forgot about my pain and discomfort, fully absorbed by the turtle as he swam around us, munching away on stray pieces of seaweed.

Eventually he tired of us and with a single smooth swoosh of his flippers he was gone.

I felt ecstatic as we made our way back to shore.

After everything we had been through in the last 6 years, I NEVER imagined that I would be celebrating my 10 year anniversary floating next to a curious and playful turtle – the symbol of fertility – on the crystal clear waters of the Australian barrier reef with 2 healthy, happy babies in my belly.