A picture of our two girls writing in their journals.

It didn’t take long. I mean, yes there were months of waiting and no one knew what we were doing or preparing for but in the scheme of things it all came together quickly. But this time, my third Hyperemesis Gravidarum pregnancy was going to be different.

I just knew it.

And it was, better and worse.

I was determined to exert enormous mental energy towards being positive and not letting the illness take over.

The truth is, when you’re lying in a hospital bed and the nausea is worse than the most horrendous food poisoning, making even every breath miserable and you want to scream and cry. And every bit of you hurts, even your very muscles and on top of it it’s only 9 am, you have insomnia and can’t even sleep to forget it AND you’ve already thrown up 22 times (from one of my journal entries I know the actual number) just since 6:45 and now there’s blood and bloody noses, which of course triggers more nausea…

well, you want to die.

I wanted to die. Not really, but I could not possibly imagine waking up another day.

With our second pregnancy there came a time when I thought, I haven’t eaten even half a piece of toast in 6 months, I haven’t drank anything other than through tubes in my body and I cannot do this one more day. Please, please let me either not wake up tomorrow and give Cade someone to love those girls like I would, or at least give me something to hold onto.

That night as I laid there praying I suddenly felt the most beautiful, warm peace I’ve ever felt. And here’s the part I’ve only told a few family members…

I felt her.

My grandmother who had passed away from a horrible battle with cancer when I was 2. I can’t tell you how I knew it. I don’t know other than it felt as though someone came and sat right next to me, right on the bed and instantly her name came to my mind. And I decided right then and there that if I wasn’t going to be alone that I could keep going.

Keep living.

And I did.

So this third time I had decided, I’m going to find my moment of peace every dang day even if it kills me. Literally.