“Take heart in the overwhelming message that you and your baby can survive and that you are not alone.” Get in touch and download McCall’s HG information pamphlet at beyondmorningsickness.com. All three are published by BookSurge through Amazon. Proceeds go to help HG sufferers.

  • Beyond Morning Sickness: Battling Hyperemesis Gravidarum (2006, paperback, $10.03, 423 pages; 2011, e-book, $7.01, 592 pages)

This is the go-to handbook by a survivor. Interim readers will disagree with gestational surrogacy as an alternative to pregnancy and IVF as a treatment for infertility. (Ethical alternatives include adoption, spiritual parenthood, and NaProTechnology.) Nevertheless, the section on abortion decision-making and consequences is outstanding and should be mandatory for any beginning pro-life worker. Twenty-two personal stories are mingled with information on prevention, treatment, advocacy, complications, and abortion aftermath, along with medical content edited by Dr. Jeffrey Wall. 

  • Mama Has Hyperemesis Gravidarum (But Only for a While) (2009, paperback, 30 pages)

A child whose mother is temporarily disabled by HG may feel rejected and abandoned. S/he may obsess over mom’s health, hate nurses, become aggressive, go hungry, mimic vomiting, and fear mom will die. This sensitively written story, beautifully illustrated by Anna-Maria Crum, is told through the eyes of a preschool bunny. Let the little reader know, though, that the second hospital visit doesn’t always end with a new sibling to cherish. 

  • The Chronicles of Nausea (forthcoming, previewed by The Interim, 220 pages) This is the Southern-accented diary of McCall’s fourth and most severe journey with HG; for instance, she vomited every eight minutes for an entire day. McCall, who had come to hate abortion, once again considered it. Instead she took heroic measures to manage her disease and protect her unborn child from an incompetent cervix sustained in her past abortion. How and why she endured will illuminate sufferers and supporters, particularly Christians. McCall had intended to write a biblical reflection about HG but hasn’t been able to complete that; she now has pancreatic neuroendocrine cancer, the type that killed Steve Jobs. Sadly, Chronicles may be McCall’s last book.

 Theresa Yoshioka is a former crisis pregnancy director and vice-president of a FertilityCare centre. Currently she writes and speaks with her husband, Alan; together, they blog at The Sheepcat.