“I was left curled up on the couch in the fetal position. I remember grabbing my thighs and crying to my husband, ‘How am I so big already? How could I possibly get any bigger?’ My 3-year-old son asked, ‘Mama, what’s wrong with your belly?’”
-“‘Okay, let’s go look.’ She was hesitant, but tiptoed out to the porch. ‘What’s going on out here?,’ I asked, still confused. ‘There are babies! He killed the babies!’ The look on my face turned from confusion to horror. ‘What?’ I snapped my head towards my husband.”
-“I can remember looking over at my brother who was still asleep. I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. I was too scared so I laid there, not speaking, thinking about the innocence I would never get back. He hurt me in the worst way that night.”
-“When I got the autopsy report, it read: no evidence she had a child. That was hard. When people tell me she loved me, she just didn’t know how to show it, I think back. ’There was no evidence at the scene that suggested she had children.’”
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“I wanted to speak to my mom in case I didn’t make it out. It was already past midnight. She answered the phone tired and confused why I would possibly be calling. ‘Mom, there is a shooter here, we are on the floor, please stay on the phone with me.’”
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“When I moved, all the women looked like movie stars. Blonde with bountiful boobs, thin waists, and faces full of makeup. I went for a haircut and told the stylist I felt so out of place; I’d never be able to compete with these women. He stopped his snipping just long enough to say, ‘Sure you will. If you’re willing to pay enough.’”
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“I brushed it off and thought, ‘Oh there’s no way I’m pregnant.’ I went to Tennessee for a week for my birthday. I had my cousin buy me a bottle of Jager and I couldn’t even drink, it made me so sick. When I got home, I took another test. Sure, enough I was pregnant.”
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“He’s such a happy, calm baby. He’s never been sick, so you know there has to be an easy solution to whatever is causing his belly to appear big… A simple solution that may bring a few small moments of fear and discomfort, but after that, all will be fine.”
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“My husband posted a photo of me with my pregnant belly in front of the window during a downpour complete with lightning the night before her due date. The caption read, ‘Watching the storm, waiting on the storm.’ If only we had known what we were in for.”
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“In one second, I became the kid from the accident. The boy whose brother died. To the prosecutor, I was the delinquent child who murdered his brother. The guy who survived the wreck that killed his brother.”
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“I was about to address the entire class about differences; but then I stopped. I looked to the back of the room where my son fled to hide. He had buried his head in his arms because you cannot hide in plain sight. I touched his shoulder, knelt down and asked, ‘Do you want to leave?’ ‘Yes,’ he whispered.”
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“It was hard for me to look at him. He was my second child but I felt like I was a first-time mom and I was going to break him. Every irrational fear went through my mind. I finally realized I was madly in love with this little boy of mine, and was ready to go to the ends of the earth to get him the care he needed.”
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“You’re probably wondering where that girl went that you married, and under her matted bun hair, tired eyes and cheese-stained clothes, she’s there. You probably miss her, and I do too. That’s why I need you to understand what I’m about to say.”
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“Just a few weeks later, I woke up one morning feeling ‘different.’ I really can’t explain it, because it didn’t make any sense. But something in me, knew. I sat shaking with a pregnancy test in my hands. My body was barely functioning. But against all odds, two pink lines appeared.”
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