Sometimes pregnancy isn’t all lollipops and roses. Imagine having to live nearly every day knowing you’re going to be violently sick . . . that another vomiting episode is just moments away. It happens. Experts tell us five out of a thousand women experience this during pregnancy. Few understand it. Even fewer know it exists.
It’s called hyperemesis gravidarum, the medical name for a sort of super morning sickness that ravages women without warning. And it can last up to twenty weeks—roughly five months— during the pregnancy.
When hyperemesis hits, it usually leaves the expectant mother a victim of malnutrition, weight loss and dehydration. Former hyperemesis patient and author Ashli Foshee McCall says it is “debilitating.” In her book Beyond Morning Sickness, McCall says “a hyperemetic mother can vomit between four and twenty times a day for months.” She puts her experience into perspective: “These weren’t just any [vomiting] episodes. Each one lasted about fifteen minutes.”
McCall sent me a copy of her book after learning I was investigating a case that hinges on the side effects of hyperemesis—a controversial Florida adoption and kidnapping case.
Allison Quets, a single mother from Orlando, is facing two counts of international kidnapping charges after driving her twins, Holly and Tyler, into Canada last December. That event is the latest chapter in an adoption battle that, like others, had gone virtually unnoticed and unreported in the local media.
Like McCall, Quets had endured the strains of hyperemesis, even after she gave birth to Holly and Tyler, she found it difficult to gain weight, let alone sleep. But the ordeal and the impact of her pregnancy and her fight to win her children back didn’t seem to resonate with reporters covering the kidnapping story.
Dr. Phil McGraw and the WKMG Problem Solvers changed that.
Allison Quets’s story was the cornerstone of an hour-long Dr. Phil show that explored her adoption fight and the hyperemesis phenomenon.
The interview was conducted via satellite. She was dressed in an orange prison jump suit and ankle shackles. The exclusive home video and photographs obtained by WKMG and Seminole magazine revealed a woman whose weight had dropped dramatically to 110 pounds.
Quets wanted it made clear she loved her children and wanted them back—a tough assignment for this unwell mother in her late forties. Under Florida law, adoption documents cannot be revoked if the children are less than six months old. Quets says she changed her mind within minutes after signing. She says she had been pushed and prodded until she finally gave in.
Dr. Phil crafted his questions and position carefully, suggesting there are “moral, medical and legal issues that make this case complex.” As for the alleged pressure she endured in an adoption attorney’s Jacksonville office, Dr. Phil was visibly angry, and questioned whether she should have been held accountable for signing those documents.
In a surprising move he called for Quets’s release. “I don’t believe Allison should be in a jail cell, in a prison jump suit,” he said. “It does not make sense.”
At this writing, Allison Quets remains at a minimum-security jail in Franklin County, North Carolina. She has sold her Orlando home to cover her legal expenses. And she has recruited veteran New York attorney Kathleen Mullin. Mullin contends Quets is innocent, and is convinced the tone of this case will change once the jury grasps the suffering associated with hyperemesis. “We want the earliest trial date possible,” Mullin says. “If a reasonable jury understands hyperemesis, Allison will be fully exonerated.” S
Mike Holfeld is a reporter for WKMG Local 6 News, and a regular contributor to Seminole magazine.
DINING
