“‘Sir, can you take it to a hospital?’ He pulled his truck past me and tipped his hat. ‘Hail nawl, little lady. That thang is all on you.’ Pretty soon I was standing alone, next to my car, with a half-dead thing in a shoe box that was IN MY HANDS. I was hyperventilating. This was not okay.”
“We cried and prayed. We said yes right away. Then we got a call to see if we wanted to foster-to-adopt a 1-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl.”
“People really love to paint the dream it isn’t. It’s always a simple message that declares lifelong love. Marry the person who will see you fart and pick your nose, who won’t care if you’ve gained 50 pounds.”
“I said, ‘Something is wrong, I just know it.’ Her body would twitch, eyes blinking faster than you could ever imagine. Her lips making a loud smacking noise. It scared me to death. The questions started to flood my mind…how long did we have with her?”
“I haven’t lost a job or called the n-word because of the color of my skin. I haven’t had to work harder and prove myself as a person AND because of the color of my skin. I’ve known what it’s like to lose a job, be broke, and have zero in my bank account. But I still have white privilege.”
“I like pretty pictures too. This feels familiar to me. I know this because I’ve experienced both firsthand. I am not here to cast stones, nor empathize. I just want to talk, mother to mother.”
“‘Guys, guys, guys…GUYS! Just stop for one moment!!!! Please for the love of all that is holyyyy…’ By this point, my Fight and Flight responses are in overdrive. I’m honestly instinctually ready to flee the home or drop kick one of them (neither of which I can rationally do).”
“My dear son, I have a confession to make: I lied to you. I’m here to tell you today, I was wrong.”
“The doctor said, ‘These kind of babies do not make it full term and if the baby is born alive, they only live a few days…a week at most.’ Weeks later we were told, ‘We can’t find any markers.’ They couldn’t see any holes in her heart and all of her other signs had disappeared. She looked perfect. My husband and I were lost and confused.”
“I tried to call my husband. No matter how many times, I got no answer. In my heart I knew his phone going straight to voicemail, which meant he was in transit from the United States to the Middle East. Jay was ready to go fight and defend our country, while his wife was giving birth on the other side of the world, to a child who was born too early.”
