“The silence was deafening. I felt the weight of her as they placed her in my arms. She was a little over 4 pounds. She was beautiful. We held her and had pictures taken with her. Then a couple of days later, we left the hospital with a box instead of our daughter.”
“She couldn’t even sit up without falling over. Our eleven-year-old daughter had become a six-month-old all over again. To this day, almost five years later, we still don’t know the cause.”
“‘What a gorgeous baby! He must be a dream come true?’ Please don’t forget to say, ‘Mom, he’s great, but how are YOU?'”
“I apprehensively showed him the test, thinking surely he’d turn around and run the other way. Instead, he hugged me as my mascara ran down my face, telling me, ‘Everything will be okay.’ I knew he was going to change my life.”
“‘Love her like you would a normal child.’ Would people really think Charlotte wasn’t a ‘normal’ child or we wouldn’t love the crap out of her? And what is ‘normal’ anyway?”
“My husband took my hands and said, ‘Rachel, I think we need to wait. I feel like a child is going to be put into our lives when we aren’t expecting it.’ Two days later, the sweetest baby boy was wheeled into the room. As soon as I saw him, my heart knew….I would do anything for him.”
“I was always the good student, then the good employee, but I became the good drinker.”
“I thought they were just two immature high school kids who got knocked up. The moment he reacted to the words, ‘I think you’re my birth father,’ I knew I was wrong.”
“I was promised my boyfriend would be there for me. Because of my circumstances, my party life had stopped. Meanwhile, his kept going. My relationship with my child’s father was slowly crumbling.”
“You live each moment and emotion to its fullest. When you’re happy, you radiate joy. And when you’re sad, you’re not afraid to cry and let out your emotions.”
