“They tried to run an IV through my swollen, bruised hands. I nearly passed out. I remember someone slapping my cheek a little. I was completely naked on the table, shaking uncontrollably. We heard the doctor say, ‘Baby.’ There was no crying, no sound at all. The first time we got to hold him was also the last.”
“They don’t tell you you’re going to cry. A lot. You dropped that pacifier on the floor? Might as well throw in the towel. According to your postpartum brain, your partner will NEVER do it right. Your ‘friends’ will drop you like it doesn’t even phase them. You’ll check your baby’s breathing every few minutes. Whether you breastfeed or formula feed, it hurts. Someone will always have something to say.”
“My entire future was dark. How was I going to keep living when my baby died? We were always waiting to find out if our baby would die and now we were waiting to find out if we’d have a baby that would live. That moment was when the world stood still. We were pregnant for the fourth time.”
“Sometimes motherhood can be a lot. Sometimes marriage can be a lot. Sometimes a career can be a lot. And sometimes? Sometimes it just feels like a lot all at once.”
“I will never forget our transfer day. She told me, ‘Today is so hard. This is the moment I have to accept the fact I will never carry my own baby.’ Those words hit me hard. 15 weeks in, I began having horrible headaches. I knew it wasn’t just pregnancy paranoia. I called the Intended Mom at 2 a.m. to get permission to remove her baby from my body. There was no heartbeat. Her journey ended with me. I knew I couldn’t give up.”
“One baby was much paler than the other and born 2 pounds lighter. ‘How could one be so different than the other?’ The science didn’t make sense. I had no idea of the world I would be thrown into. I started to feel like maybe something was wrong with my babies. They had two totally different souls.”
The tech suggested Kim call her husband — because their “fourth baby” turned out to be naturally conceived quintuplets! The odds of this happening are truly staggering; it’s a one-in-55-million miracle.
“I got excited at the idea of one more child. Then the doctor told me, ‘Time is of the essence for you. It seems the kidney isn’t here.’ Now you might be asking, what about the pee? We lost his heartbeat. They couldn’t get it back. My doctor looked me in the eye. ‘We need to get him out, NOW.'”
“She had backed her sister into a corner with both sides blocked. Before we changed our parenting, I would have yelled, spanked, and heaped on shame. Now, I had to do something else. ‘I won’t let you hurt your sister. I will help you get control of yourself.’”
“The deadly bacterial infection spread to my heart. The machine next to my bed started beeping wildly. I remember the fluorescent lights burning my eyes. The beeps kept getting louder, louder. My mother flew over, piling blankets over me. Though my mother was not calm this time, I breathed her in. That’s all I remember. No pain.”
