“I told my friend all about Emmanuel’s amazing qualities and pulled out my phone to show a photo of him. To my dismay she said, ‘Is he poor? Does he live in a mud hut?’ I was completely taken aback. It never crossed my mind others would not be as accepting as I was. Not long after, I left and never returned.”
“I discovered a sea of love in my heart that had no beginning and no end. I wouldn’t change a single thing on the road that brought you to me.”
“I felt like I was holding my breath for the remaining 27 weeks. Was I going to be able to love him as much as I love Lucas? I thought the Down syndrome label would consume this little being, that he would be more Down syndrome’s son than mine.”
“One day, you will see just how deep beneath the surface their beauty goes. One day, it will all be worth it.”
“We were told her mama needed space. She had very little support and I just wanted to wrap my arms around her. I told the nurse, ‘Please let her know we love her.'”
“I thought she was asking for me. She wasn’t.”
“Why does every part of this ‘journey’ have to be a struggle? He marched to the front of the line, set his sperm filled cup right on the counter, and told them it was time sensitive and he couldn’t wait.”
“We planned to save foster care until we ‘had our lives together.’ We weren’t even listed in the system. ‘We can’t take him in, we have a four-month-old!’ I would choose him, over and over again.”
“After months of being teased about my accent, my clothes, my hair, my body, I had no wherewithal to speak up when the N-word came out of the mouth of someone I considered a friend. I froze. I spent the rest of the year working hard to drop my accent. I got quiet. I learned not to raise my hand, because the teacher would make it a point to humiliate me anyway.”
“We were sent to a high-risk OB every 2 weeks to see if her little heart had stopped beating. I was overcome with grief and despair. This was something that only happened to other people.”
