I woke up an hour earlier than E and Landon that Sunday morning.  I felt different, quiet, calm, so unlike myself.

We had been trying to get pregnant with our second child for over a year at that time without success.  I was torn on going another round with fertility drugs.  I was tired.  I was pissed.  At my stupid body.  At every single pregnant lady I knew, which seemed to be everyone at the time.  At God.  Everything.

But at literally the last second, on the last day that I could’ve started another round, something made me change my mind.  I started the cycle all over again.  Pills to force my traitorous female body to do what it should do on its own.  Pills to take on certain days to make myself have a period.  Pills to take on certain days to make myself ovulate.  Detailed basal temperature readings to chart my ovulation and the perfect time to conceive.  Doesn’t sound very romantic, does it?

It wasn’t.

But I did it.  We did it.

I woke up early that spring Sunday morning with a serenity I hadn’t had in a long time and I decided to take the home pregnancy test, even if it technically was early.  I’d tracked my basal temps more carefully than anything I’d ever done in my whole life.  I obsessed all hours of the night over the changes and what they meant.  I did everything exactly right that time.  How could I not be pregnant?

I didn’t tell E what I was doing.  I’m not even sure if he knew I had the test.

I saw the two beautiful lines on that stick I’d just peed on and I just wanted time alone with that precious gift.  I was the only one on earth who knew he/she existed and I just wanted to keep it that way for as long as I could.

For the next hour, I watched the video countdown on VH1 and just breathed and existed and thanked God.

Then a video came on from this new band Coldplay and I cried throughout the entire thing because it summed up my feelings perfectly about this little gift that was still only mine.

I’ve only very recently told Gracie about the significance of this song to me.  She is truly becoming quite the music nut, just like her Mom.  I had noticed that she liked the song and had pinned some of the words on her Pinterest account, which I thought was amazing, that she liked this song so much but didn’t know my story about why I like it so much.   So one day the song was playing, we were alone, and I told her the story I just told you.

It’s one of my most favorite Gracie memories so far, telling her about hearing the song “Yellow” that morning, knowing that every single word of that song was already true, that I would literally bleed myself dry for the gift I’d been given not even an hour before.  I’ll always remember how her 13 year old blue eyes, exactly like my own, melted and got a bit watery when I told her that, and the way her hair smelled as she snuggled up to me.

We’ve heard this song a couple times since then, out and about, and we give each other a smile and a little hug.  We told E the story a few weeks ago when the song came on at the restaurant we were eating at and he wanted to know why we were acting all blubbery.

Gracie turned 14 today (well, yesterday, technically).  She was born two months early and we almost lost her.  Her Doctor said she wouldn’t make it through the weekend.  We wouldn’t even get to take our baby girl home.  But we did.  We almost lost her again due to pneumonia when she was 5 years old.  She’s still here.

God and I don’t talk a lot anymore and that’s my fault.  But I still know that Gracie is a gift from God above and that He continues to cover her in His Grace despite my failings.

Since she was two months early, and I honestly thought she was another boy, her birth kind of snuck up on us.  I was taken by helicopter to Dallas so a high risk pregnancy Doctor could deliver her.  They were wheeling me into surgery to take her by c-section and we still didn’t have a name.  I looked up at E just as we were entering the double doors to the ER and said, “By the Grace of God, we made it.”  And we had our baby girl’s name.

Gracie now wants to be called Grace.  I knew someday she would.  I’m not disappointed that she’s abandoning the Gracie in my Gracie Girl because she is Grace in every definition of the word.  It’s like God ripped every good piece of DNA out of both me and E and put it all in her.  I’m so thankful He did.

I don’t allow my kids to read my blog but I may let Gracie read this one.

Look at the stars, look how they shine for you and everything you do.  For you, I’d bleed myself dry.  For you, I’d bleed myself dry. 

I love you so very much, Gracie Girl.  Happy 14th Birthday.

Mom