“At 6 years old, his brother died of child abuse. He was separated from his sisters, adopted without him. People could not see the child he was going to become. They only saw the broken child. ‘Is he available for adoption?’ I was ready to be his mama.”
“No one said anything but there was some whispering and I was asked to start coming by every 2 hours. ‘Just to make sure,’ they said. There is nothing you can do except to trust the doctors but I couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong and nobody wanted to tell me.”
“Today, my mother-in-law delivered this pan to our doorstep with a hot meal tucked inside, before getting back into her car to drive home and finally eat her own dinner. If only Hollywood knew.”
“I had just woken up. ‘Hello, are you the owner of a 2019 Mazda CX-5? Your vehicle was involved in an accident.’ He veered off the road and hit a concrete block that held up an interstate sign. They didn’t know who he was. Those words didn’t feel real.”
“She came with in utero exposure. I didn’t expect 3-hour tantrums in the middle of the mall. The shenanigans, the messes, the crying… there was never a dull moment.”
“I found a mysterious name on my birth certificate. ‘Is this REAL? Like, am I actually doing this?’ I nervously sent him a message. My whole life was a lie.”
“Every month was a roller coaster. ‘I recommend cutting back on work.’ My jaw dropped. Any possibility of becoming a mother left the building.”
“I wrote our honest list: ‘We are NOT baby people. I am so over that phase.’ One stormy night, a baby was dropped off. I’m 1000 percent sure God was laughing.”
“I know what you’re thinking. She’s four. You’re thirty-four. Why would you even have to control yourself. I put my four-year-old in timeout on the patio, and she’s been chanting for over five minutes.”
“A workplace where, likely, but hopefully not, work and clients will have to come first, and family, well, if you have and are ‘into’ those, must come second.”
