LJ Herman is a former editor at Love What Matters and lives in Colorado. LJ is a concert, ticket and technology enthusiast. He has seen the Dave Mathews Band over one hundred times and counting.
‘It was the middle of the night when I got this call. I sat in the basement, frozen and in shock. Please tell me this is just some virus that will go away next week.’
“We also noticed he had a bruise on his back from one of his Nerf gun battles that wasn’t going away. Nothing crazy, nothing that made us extremely worried at the time.”
‘She was always the star student. When the flapping started, we assumed even her excitement was advanced. Everyone thought I was nuts.’: Autistic daughter changes mom’s perspective on autism
“At Easter dinner when Campbell piped up, ‘We’re about to enjoy a beautiful feast with our friends and family,’ I was met with many an eye roll—this girl was fine. But only I knew that line was taken right from a book we had read months ago. You see, Campbell was a tricky one.”
‘I remember the doctor asking, ‘Where’s your husband? He’s not going to be here to pick you up after you faint when I tell you, you’re having twins?!’ ’Wait, WHAT?!’: Mom has triplets after IVF
“Then we saw it up on the ultrasound screen – clear as day. THREE babies. She told us to consider reduction, a thought we couldn’t imagine. I couldn’t believe we had gone through so much to get to this point, and now a doctor was telling me to throw it all away.”
‘I dropped my baby into the water and flushed. My baby was gone. It was too late.’: Woman overcomes miscarriages to have beautiful rainbow baby
“It was 2 a.m. I needed to pee. I got out of the bed and knew something wasn’t right. I sat down on the toilet and I felt it. It slipped right out. I didn’t want to look. I knew what had just happened. I had to look. I reached down and picked my baby up out of the water. I panicked.”
‘I saw you hand over your note with sadness in your eyes. You looked at the pharmacist with fear as she read your details. You replied with the most defeated ‘no’ I’d ever heard.’
“I saw your knuckles turn white on that stroller handle bar. I saw you look down on your baby while it was starting to stir. ‘Please don’t cry,’ you whispered.”
‘Jenn, you can do this!’ He was admitted to the hospital just 3 months before my due date.’: Husband supports wife through twin pregnancy despite cancer battle
“Our goal for that final month was to help him walk longer distances and get his strength up so that he could be at the birth. Even though he was sick and I knew that him dying was a possibility, I never thought it would actually happen.”
‘For the first 3 months everything seemed fine. At 4 months old, we noticed her soft spot looked different and started bulging from her head. Then, our lives changed forever.’
“One morning, Ellie woke up in extreme pain. We rushed to the ER. The MRI would give us news that would completely devastate our family. It never gets easier to watch her in pain when all you want to do, in your job as a mom, is take their pain away.”
To The Man Who Made Fun Of My Weight, I’m Only Sorry I Couldn’t Take Up More Space
“I think we have all said something unkind at one time or another, and this is just a reminder that we do not know the battles people are fighting and that we just need to be a little kinder to each other.”
Society Needs To Stop Judging Postpartum Bodies So Harshly
“Imagine if we just spent time appreciating all that we can do, the amazing life-creating vessels that we are, instead of trying to scrub, wrap and hide all that we have done.”
‘Will you adopt my baby?’ I received a message from someone from my past. Of all the people in the world, they chose us.’: After battling Leukemia, 3 miscarriages, couple adopt 2 miracle babies
“At 19-years-old, I had fallen in love with my childhood boyfriend who was dying. He overcame a 10% chance of survival and he swears it’s because I loved him through it. Cancer stripped us of our ability to have kids without medical assistance. After we lost our third baby through IVF, we knew what God was calling us to.”