“‘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.”
“It wasn’t a generic, thanks-for-all-that-you-do kind of thing. This one stopped me in my tracks.”
“The size of her head was measuring 39 weeks while the rest of her body wasn’t. The doctor slid a paper with information on it. ‘We need to induce you.’ I didn’t sleep the night before. At 5 a.m. we made the 45-minute drive to the hospital to find out I was already in active labor, and I was positive for Strep. There wasn’t a dry eye in the delivery room.”
“One by one, I will lose all ability to speak and move. I will lose mobility at an age that is way too young. It will take away from the joy I share with Alex, which is already limited and unfair. In the worst part of my life when I was physically sick and could barely walk, I was given the greatest gift of my life.”
“He wasn’t babbling as much. He kept spinning in circles the majority of the day. I knew in my heart he was different.”
“He was dying. He knew he was. The cancer was slowly eating at every part of his body, yet when he arrived on scene that day, it was not the first thing on his mind. He put it all aside to comfort a woman he did not know.”
“‘Hello?’ I answered the phone, recognizing the phone number of my OB office. I can’t tell you how the rest of the conversation went because I was absolutely in shock. I heard the words ‘incompatible with life.’ I was encouraged to terminate the pregnancy and was told if born, she would look scary and would be a burden on our family.”
