“I screamed my husband’s name. ‘His stomach is warm!,’ I said out loud. I fell over my baby’s body. Air escaped his throat in a tiny wheeze that sounds like a coo. ‘He made a noise!’ Their faces fell. ‘It’s from the CPR.’ ‘It happens.’ They were trying not to fall apart.”
“I had done everything right. The last 4 years were wiped away without reason. My mind kept replaying every situation over and over again. Not only was I going to school, working, and dealing with my parents’ divorce, but I was now about to be a single mom. I prayed for a sign I’d be okay.”
“A few more days went by and we figured we had finished that conversation until she asked the heaviest question of all, ‘Who is my birth mother?’ We looked at each other and quickly changed the subject.”
“I have one child who has brought home a handful of awards year after year, and another who faithfully collects his lone participation certificate. His best will never look like scholar of the year. But success looks different on every child.”
“Our wedding day was intimate. But behind the façade were underlying issues that left a bad taste in my mouth. I was put on the back burner. I was failing him because he was expecting me to prepare a home-cooked meal every day while also juggling maintaining a home and breastfeeding our son.”
“My heart sank. I could tell by her voice I had to get home. I still hear the words as she fought back breaking down. ‘We have to go. We have to get there!’ I remember having thought, ‘He seems better. He seems more like himself.’ My dad was back. Boy, was I wrong.”
“When the doctors delivered him, I didn’t cry with joy, I didn’t ask to see him. I guess I must have dozed off for a second, and he rolled off my chest and hit the side rail. Most moms would have freaked out. My thought was, ‘Oh well.'”
“I started having severe chest pains. My soon to be ex-husband was determined to make my life a living nightmare. He stopped getting the girls from school, was coming and going from the house at all hours of the night. He treated our home like a roadside motel.”
“I bled abundantly, but both babies continued to grow. My husband and I would leave appointments joking ‘dammit Baby B!,’ partially to prepare her for a lifetime of playful comparison, and partially to protect ourselves if something ever happened. We went into our 20-week scan assuming things were perfectly fine. They weren’t.”
“You can either repeat the cycle or run from it. I sprinted. Because of a man who hurt me, I have the life I do now. I’ve seen this man cry at his children’s births. My kids are lucky to have a man who always shows up.”
