“Allen lay on the dusty barn floor face up. He was foaming out the mouth. ‘Brittany, be careful there is a gun.’ All I could do was cry out loud, ‘No! I am pregnant, he can’t be gone!’ I moved back in with my parents. My world was literally turned upside down.”
“We anxiously awaited the phone call. One day led to two days, then three. It was like someone punched me in my stomach 10 times. Our birth mother had disappeared.”
“I went to poop really quick. To my surprise, I sat down on the toilet and felt a head descending. ‘The baby is coming!!!’ I stood up while my baby’s head was being born into my hands.”
“Within minutes, I was holding him in my arms. It was as if my arms had always been missing something. Him. Grief hit hard when he was reunified with mom.”
“After parting ways, I sobbed as I walked back to my room. The morning after we met, I awoke to a voicemail. ‘I changed my flight. I want to see you again.’ Our love carried us while thousands of miles, bodies of water, and continents apart. When you know, you know.”
“Sitting in traffic, my phone began to ring. My husband said very frankly, ‘Yes…Of course…When do you need us to come?’ He whispered, ‘Another sibling was born yesterday. They want him to join our family.’ He didn’t even have a name. I immediately began to cry and shook my head yes.”
“We were long-distance, unmarried, and unprepared. A gaping sinkhole opened up and swallowed the ‘normal’ out of this socially well-adjusted, academically inclined, and on-task college kid. There I was, confused and afraid…with life inside of me.”
“The redness was spreading down his neck. When he woke at 6 a.m. I screamed to my husband, ‘Get in the car!’ His eye was so swollen the white part was bulging out from between his eyelid and his iris was obscured. He felt hot to the touch. A temperature check revealed a raging fever.”
“I wasn’t sure how to answer. ‘When I was your age, my dad was in jail. I want to show you how to do the things my father never taught me.’ He thought about what I’d said, and then he asked a question I didn’t expect: ‘Will you show me how to use the caulk gun?'”
“I get strange looks at the grocery store. I don’t fit the stereotype of the absent or minimally involved black father. I am not a weekend dad. I’m here for my kids, always. When questioned about the whereabouts of my children’s mother, I politely say, ‘I am both their mother and their father.’ It’s a big job—but my heart is equipped for this.”
