*I am not a doctor.  Obviously.  But I am someone who has seen the other side of this beast, and just had to share, on the off chance it accidently cures someone else.

While I alluded to my struggle with HG in this post, I never followed up, or mentioned it again.  I meant to, I really did, especially to share how bad it got, then how suddenly it turned around.

So where to start...
HG is a horrid condition.  It generally gets worse with each pregnancy.  That was so true for me.

Pregnancy with Joy?  Perfect.  Textbook.  No sickness.  It was a dream.

Pregnancy with Halley?  Normal first trimester nausea, trailing a bit into the second trimester.  But I was working full time, and it didn't lay me out.

Pregnancy with Lucy?  Brutal.  So bad.  Ended up in the hospital due to deydration and inabilty to keep anything down.  Met Zofran the wonder drug.  Wanted to kiss the manufacturer of it on the mouth.

Pregnancy with Janey?  Zofran was now available in a generic form and I took full advantage and started taking it very early on.  The HG was very much managable and under control.

Pregnancy with Shane?  DISASTER.  The most difficult by far.  Zofran stopped working completely for me around week eleven.  Nothing worked.  I was laid out on the couch nearest to the bathroom all day and night.  Every day and night.  I worried that I was traumatizing my kids.  I worried that I would never get that time back that I was missing from their lives.  I worried that it would never get better.  I worried that I would not survive the duration of the pregnancy.

The house, my emotions, my body, my strength, my life, was a mess.

I cried constantly.  My kids tried to comfort me.  My husband took over everything on top of the billion things he already does for us.

Days dragged on.  I came close to a full emotional and physical breakdown.

Then at a routine OB visit, my doctor measured our baby, as he always did.  He was always measuring a bit big, which was different that my pregnancies with the girls.  They always measured small.  For a while it did not raise any concerns.

But at this visit, Shane was measuring three weeks bigger than his gestational age.  My doctor went from not concerned to quite concerned.  Although I passed my gestational diabetes screening well within normal limits, it was like my body was reacting as if I had gestational diabetes.

I was put on a strict no sugar, or white flour diet.

Just like that in one visit, the only few things that I was even able to eat were suddenly off limits.
Goodbye morning bagel.
Goodbye lunchtime pizza.
Goodbye dinnertime pasta.
Goodbye late night bowl of chocolate malted crunch ice cream.

You see, those were my comfort, my crutch.  Easy down, easy up, if you know what I mean.
Plus, I was a vegetarian for ten years and I pretty much do not love meat.  In fact I really hate meat when I am pregnant.

I cried my eyeballs out like I had never cried before.  Then I cried more.
But ever the rule follower, I obeyed.
It was awful.
So awful.

For me this picture is so hard to see.  It was taken at a very special mother-daughter tea party at school with Lucy.  If you look closely, you can see the blown out blood vessels on my face from throwing up.  Or the very red and teary eyes that I am trying to smile through.

This was the very first day of no sugar or white flour.  Also the very first day in months that I was able to pull myself together and get out of the house.

But this picture marks a turning point.
That night I got a glimmer of what normal life felt like.
I kept my dinner down.
I was a bit more present with my family.

Each day after that got better.
I slowly rejoined the human race.

I hated it, don't get me wrong.  I complained.  I pouted.  I dreamt of bagels and ice cream.
I occasionaly cheated.  But within twenty minutes, that bagel or bowl of ice cream made it's prescence violently known.

What did my meals look like?
Thankfully it was summer, so fresh fruit was affordable, and I ate it by the bushel.  Add in smoothies, eggs, almonds, good cheese, chicken soft tacos with corn tortillas, repeat, repeat, repeat.  Over and over again.  Not my favorite, but worth it.

The crazy thing is, my doctor had no explanation as to why the HG suddenly disappeared.
I might be the only one in the world that had diet and HG intertwined.  Or I may not be.  What it did, was regulate Shane's growth, and return my children their mother.

I just wish that I had stumbled upon the accidental cure three babies ago.

If you are in the midst of HG, perhaps consider trying this awful, wonderful, maybe cure.
It can't get worse...

This difficult season will end.  Somehow you will survive.  You will meet and hold your sweet baby.  Then have a lifetime of bagels and ice cream to look forward to.

Good thing we speak Star Wars, because there is going to be some blue joining this house of pink and sparkles.

I am halfway through my ninth pregnancy.
Ninth.  I hate having to write that number.  I hate even more having to list each and every one to a new doctor, and watching him have to turn the paper over to make room for my tragic saga.

Sadly with that number, I am much more acquainted with loss than I am with happy outcomes.  The only good thing that comes with my hideous maternal history, is now I get to see a perinatologist as my full time OB, and I get to see him ALL THE TIME.  Because he understands my crazy.  His goal is to keep me off the precipice of panic that I teeter along for the entirety of nine months.

What is pregnancy like after multiple losses?  For me it is a grueling and torturous marathon of physical and mental health.  I have the lovely honor of being a card carrying member of the hyperemesis gravidarum club.  Us HG mama's have the lucky privilege of losing our guts on a daily basis, often up until the day that the baby is born.  We also, if given a chance would most likely kiss the maker of Zofran on the mouth.  Passionately.

In any given moment, you can find me in one of two places: either violently and dramatically losing my cookies, or tearfully and dramatically wondering if this little baby is still alive.  You have no idea how much fun I am to be around.  Or how much my family suffers and sacrifices during this season.

I had the gift of one blissful, easy, textbook pregnancy.  In which I was never sick, read all the books, had lovely and wonderful baby showers, and prepared the nursery. My biggest worry was whether or not I could have blue cheese with my favorite salad, or how many milligrams of caffeine I could safely consume.  How I wish I could go back to those days and enjoy every single one of them again.  In a strange way, that pregnancy was a gift.  A beautiful gift.  Because when it all came crashing down, I had those 39 1/2 happy weeks to remember.  The only 39 1/2 weeks that I had here on earth with our sweet Joy.  They were some of the best weeks of my life.  Oh, to be naive again...

I look through pregnancy with a dark and shattered lens now.  One that I wish I never knew.  I am much older, much sicker and much more fearful than I was nine years ago.  But somehow, I carry on.  Through the crazy.  Through the trials.  Through the uncertainty.  Because each time my heart has shattered, God has lovingly put it back together.  Each time He puts it back together it is stronger and has the capacity to love more fully, deeply and authentically.
These three little girls are worth the fight that they had getting here.  They are worth the tears.  The panic.  The struggle.  The fear.  The prayers.

This baby will be worth it too.  So very worth it.  If only I could find a way to hibernate until the end of July.

What you won't see or hear from me:
Much pregnancy talk.  People want you to be happy.  To skip through fields of flowers in a flowing dress.  I am in survival mode.  Survival mode is very scary.  Ugly even. So I keep the scary to myself.
Baby bump pics and updates.  Again, this is a journey that I struggle to get through.  Celebrating and documenting it? I just don't have it in me.
Nursery and layette prep.  I had a decorated and stocked nursery once.  It was dreamy and sweet and beautiful.  Coming home to it empty, was just too, too painful.  Now, I don't so much as buy a pack of diapers until after we bring the little one home.  Healthy?  Doubtful.  But it is my irrational way of protecting and controlling what little I can.

If I could ask for your prayers, for peace, for strength, for endurance, for grace that fills in the cracks where I am falling short, but most of all for faith that will see me through the next twenty weeks.

They would mean more to me than you could ever possibly know.