06/13/2026
💜 ROBERT'S STORY: SIXTEEN YEARS LATER, I'M STILL HERE.
Hyperemesis Gravidarum didn't just happen to me.
It happened to my husband too.
For every mother fighting HG, there is often someone standing beside her feeling helpless, terrified, exhausted, and watching the person they love suffer.
This is part of Robert's story.
When I met Starr, she became my world.
I already had a seven-year-old daughter from another relationship. I wasn't planning on getting married, and I was okay with that.
Then I met her.
She changed me in ways I had never felt before.
Not long after, she started vomiting nonstop.
We were in the ER five and six times a week. Every time it was the same thing.
"It's food poisoning."
"She's not pregnant."
They would pump her full of medications and send her home.
But deep down, I knew she was pregnant.
I watched her.
I learned every smell that made her sick.
I learned the look on her face before she vomited.
I learned that sleep was the only escape she had from the hell she was living in.
I watched her crush pills, hold them in her mouth, and fight to keep them down for as long as she could.
And all I could think was:
This woman is going to be my wife.
And I can't fix this.
I can't do anything to make it better.
HG was hell for both of us.
Doctors accused her of having an eating disorder.
They said she didn't want to gain weight.
They treated her like she was crazy.
At one point, they even accused me of abusing her and wouldn't let me stay in the room with her.
One memory still haunts me.
She was in Labor & Delivery, sick as always, vomiting and exhausted.
At one point she said, "I just wish my baby was born already."
A doctor looked at her and said:
"You're the most selfish bitch of a so-called mother I've ever met."
I heard it from the chair outside the room.
I stood up.
"What the f**k did you just say to her?"
The next thing I knew, security was tackling me.
They slammed me against a wall while that doctor kept telling Starr she was a horrible mother and should give her baby up for adoption. That she needed a psych evaluation.
I lost it.
I remember hearing Starr crying, vomiting, and screaming:
"Leave him alone!"
They dragged me out of the room.
I could hear security calling for backup on their radios because they couldn't hold me down.
I'll never forget that day.
I thought once the baby was born, things would get better.
We would take sleepless nights and feedings every two hours over HG any day.
Everyone promised us the same thing:
"Once the baby is here, she'll be normal again."
That never happened.
Then our daughter started crying constantly.
She screamed.
She arched her back.
She vomited bottle after bottle.
She barely slept.
Sometimes she stayed awake for thirty hours straight.
It felt like we were trapped in some twisted version of reality.
I just wanted my wife to be well again.
I just wanted my daughter to sleep.
I just wanted my daughter to be able to eat without pain.
She went through sleep study after sleep study.
Finally, when she was eight months old, we were told she had a circadian rhythm sleep disorder.
Then came another diagnosis.
And another.
And another.
No matter what happened, I couldn't fix any of it.
Sixteen years later, my wife is still sick.
She still has a central line.
She still has a feeding tube.
She still fights every single day.
And sixteen years later, I'm still doing the only thing I've ever been able to do.
I'm still here.
People often talk about what HG does to mothers.
They don't talk enough about what it does to husbands, partners, caregivers, and families.
Watching someone you love suffer while being unable to fix it is its own kind of heartbreak.
Are some days still hard?
Absolutely.
We've been through more in sixteen years than most people could imagine.
But through every hospital stay, every diagnosis, every setback, and every battle...
I'm still here.
⁉️ If you are a spouse, partner, caregiver, parent, or loved one of someone with HG, what was the hardest part for you?
⁉️ If your an HG mom what was the hardest part on you watching your caretaker help you when you were to sick to help yourself ?
— Robert Strong
HG Dad • Husband of Starr Andrews Strong
