“My grandmother bled to death. My grandpa was heartbroken. It was a shock for all of us. A freak accident. There was no time to say goodbye or make sure she knew we loved her. When I called my grandpa to let him know I was eloping, his voice immediately perked up. ‘You need THE RING. She always wanted you to have it.’ I never expected it. I never even knew I wanted it. I felt an immense sense of peace wash over.”
“Right now, my daughter is friends with no one. She keeps to herself and sees little interest in gossip or small talk. And that has to do with a little part of her called autism. Include the child who keeps to themselves. The one that’s weird. The one that’s ‘rude.’ Extend an invite to those who are like you, but also those who differ.”
“After delivering my first child at 15, I was left with a body I didn’t recognize – heavier, softer, and covered in stretch marks. I wallowed here. I was molested here. I hid underneath men’s clothes, 2 sizes too big. Anything to deflect sexual attention. I am more than my body, but this vessel is not less important because its existence has been perverted and misused since the beginning of time.”
“He said in a gentle voice, ‘Can we talk to you both in the conference room?’ I knew we were going to receive life-changing news. ‘What more could go wrong?’ I wanted to not be me. Most moms dream of that euphoric moment when their precious baby is delivered into their arms. I did too. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the dream. I got the nightmare. The daughter I had dreamed up was gone.”
“I was still a single mom of a boy with autism living in a 2-bedroom apartment. My son was all grown. In comes this short, little peanut with those blue wrap-around glasses, all wide-eyed and ready to go. ‘I want to take him home.’ I couldn’t even get the words out before I started bawling!”
“She looked terrible. Her usually pink skin was a greyish-blue. Her belly was huge and so stretched out, you could see every vein. She wasn’t moving on the operating table. With mascara-stained tears streaming down my cheek, I held on to her a little tighter.”
“The constant thought of, ‘I should just crash my car into a tree,’ kept playing in my mind. I was thinking of every way possible to leave Molly and go back to the way my life once was. I was scared to be left alone with Molly. I didn’t trust myself, and I was scared to admit it to anyone. Scared people would always think of me as ‘the crazy chick that wanted to hurt her baby.'”
While Grandpa meets his first grandchild and finally learns her gender, his daughter-in-law is about to reveal a much more shocking secret about the pregnancy.
“My parents did not overprotect me. They did not swoop in to solve all my problems for me. They did not try to shield me from real life. But they made life easier. They still do.”
“She was 7. As you can imagine, when I came home pregnant at 14, I was terrified. It was my choice to either silence her or lean in. I leaned.”
