“Then we saw it up on the ultrasound screen – clear as day. THREE babies. She told us to consider reduction, a thought we couldn’t imagine. I couldn’t believe we had gone through so much to get to this point, and now a doctor was telling me to throw it all away.”
“I ran to my best friend down the street, collapsed in their driveway, and part of me never got up.”
“It was 2 a.m. I needed to pee. I got out of the bed and knew something wasn’t right. I sat down on the toilet and I felt it. It slipped right out. I didn’t want to look. I knew what had just happened. I had to look. I reached down and picked my baby up out of the water. I panicked.”
“I cry. I WEEP into my cold coffee. The mom guilt consumes me and I feel like I’m failing my kids. I was also unaware that hemorrhoids can last for months at a time. I’m scared.”
“I saw your knuckles turn white on that stroller handle bar. I saw you look down on your baby while it was starting to stir. ‘Please don’t cry,’ you whispered.”
“Our goal for that final month was to help him walk longer distances and get his strength up so that he could be at the birth. Even though he was sick and I knew that him dying was a possibility, I never thought it would actually happen.”
“I threw her on speaker and texted Ben 50 times in 2 minutes. ‘ANSWER YOUR PHONE! ADOPTION CALL!’ We nervously, softly knocked on the door. She got up, kissing him, and we all started to cry. I tried to stay strong as she sobbed in my arms. It was time for us to go. We had to push our son out of the room and down the hall, away from her. I lost it.”
“One morning, Ellie woke up in extreme pain. We rushed to the ER. The MRI would give us news that would completely devastate our family. It never gets easier to watch her in pain when all you want to do, in your job as a mom, is take their pain away.”
“On a rushed morning, I threw her a tank top and asked her to get dressed. She quietly asked me for a different shirt. Oblivious and in a hurry, I said, ‘Why? You love that one. Just put it on, we gotta go.’ Tears formed in her eyes.”
“Imagine if we just spent time appreciating all that we can do, the amazing life-creating vessels that we are, instead of trying to scrub, wrap and hide all that we have done.”
