“It was hard to keep it hidden anymore. The hope that these symptoms would go away was fading fast. I never told any of my friends or my school teachers because I felt too embarrassed.”
‘It must be stress’. The doctors made me feel I was making things up. This was all in my head, and I’m just wasting their time.’
‘There’s no way! She’s crazy. I’d know if my baby had a genetic syndrome.’: Woman discovers son’s heart condition after chance social media message
“The doctor squeezed his little heart between his fingers. He came back, but my baby didn’t look like my baby. He was blue, but pale at the same time. Machines beeped. Alarms sounded. I looked it up to see other children’s pictures. You know that feeling where you’re so shocked you could cry, but nothing comes out? That’s where I was. I wanted to scream.”
‘I was petrified, sobbing into Jon’s shoulder. He leaned over and held my hand. If he wanted to leave the relationship, I would understand.’
“Jon and I met on an online dating website and hit it off right away. When I flew to Louisiana to visit him for the first time, we both knew. This was it. As I delved into wedding details, I was plagued by lower back pain that wouldn’t go away.”
‘His little voice begged me to wake up. ‘Don’t die, mommy. Don’t die, mommy.’ His hug, his kiss and his tenderness, lying next to me for hours as I sobbed.’
“Another fight left me to sleep in the guest room. My middle child, my baby boy, crawled into bed with me as my head throbbed and I couldn’t’ stop the room from spinning. Again. My loudest rock bottom came like a whisper – It was his touch.”
‘We got THE CALL. ‘Would you be willing to accept a 3-month-old baby with serious medical needs?’ We couldn’t say yes fast enough.’: Couple adopt baby with Microcephaly
“She was 6 pounds and 9 ounces of screaming, vomiting, wheezing delight. We couldn’t say yes fast enough. No one has positive news for us. Our girl had endured more in those first 3 months than most do in a lifetime.”
‘Mothers don’t shower often. Especially new mothers. When we say this stuff, we are met with horror. But it is the truth.’
“I remember finally getting the energy to shower, a place where I’d feel so tired that I’d read the shower bottles and stare into space while the water hit my back. I was a zombie. My husband came in and said, ‘It’s time to feed him,’ and I cried.”
‘After losing twins, we thought we’d paid our dues. Our life’s suffering was now complete. We were wrong.’: Mom loses ‘rainbow baby’ with heart defects, knows she will meet him ‘in heaven’
“We were overjoyed at my pregnancy. New life was coming! But scans and tests told us it’d come with major heart defects, a missing chamber, faulty valves, and an aorta split into 2 pieces. Blindness. Deafness. A cleft lip and palate. Still, doctors were hopeful. Until they weren’t. ‘He’s a sick guy.’ I was told this in a ‘why the long face? didn’t you expect this?’ kinda way.”
‘We didn’t talk enough, did we?’ My Dad would never walk me down the aisle or meet my children. That’s a very odd thing to discuss with your father when you’re only 23.’
“Having no family, no money and no home after believing your life was completely normal and well adjusted for 23 years can warp your entire view of life. I spent a large amount of time after the incident questioning what was reality.”
‘Congrats, it’s a boy!’ Not even 48 hours later, the doctor pulled up a chair. ‘You have a large mass in your chest that is likely cancer.’: Woman shocked with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma diagnosis days after giving birth, ‘I had too much to fight for’
“I sat in a hospital bed nursing my newborn son when I received the most unexpected, gut-punching news. ‘You have to stop breastfeeding. Soon, you will become toxic to your son.’ I couldn’t formulate any words. I was stunned to silence. Here we were, newlyweds for just 4 months with 4 children together, and now a very sudden chance I may not be around to help raise our kids to adulthood. I had too much to fight for.”
Some Children Are Just Born Feral And Can’t Be Tamed
“We have a little bit to learn from these wild at heart, freedom-filled, life-relishing little humans.”