“My daughter Maya is 2.5 years old. She has all these little toys she plays with under strict supervision. Somehow, she managed to smuggle one up to bed. I quickly yell to my partner. He’s there in seconds, telling me to call an ambulance. So, I’m screaming words that don’t even make sense down the phone to 911. ‘This must be a dream, this can’t be happening.’ Right at that moment, I thought she was dead.”
“’Can you leave? We are having girl chat.’ I left and sat alone in the field. Teachers would laugh when I’d tell them I was being bullied. I cried and prayed to God, ‘Please let me wake up and be a girl.’ This is me. I am a woman.”
“‘Have you been notified of that boy’s roommate at the group home?,’ he asked. ‘We have not,’ I replied. ‘Would you be willing to meet him?’ 3 months later, he was moving in with us hours before his first day of high school. We found out I was pregnant by surprise. ‘This is crazy. We can’t do this, right?’ We were going to have 2 babies and a teenager with PTSD. Less than a year ago, we had no kids.”
“When I’m in public, I’m constantly apologizing for our family. I whisper, ‘Shh, baby. No shouting please.’ But yesterday, a grandmother-type woman stopped me in my tracks.”
“I’m in Starbucks. I manage a smile and lie. ‘Soon.’ I rush out the door, no coffee in hand, and cry in my jeep. ‘When are you having kids?’ ‘Have kids already!’ ‘I’m ready to be a grandma. The clock is ticking!’ they say. But when I stillbirth? No questions, words. Just silence. My husband battles silent resent. ‘No baby, no marriage.’ These weren’t the vows I signed up for.”
“I can’t ever prepare myself for the times my son will find her picture and ask who she is. It’s someone he should know. Once I catch my breath, I tell him the same story I tell him every time.”
“On the last trimester of my pregnancy, I talked with the Dean. ‘I don’t have any support system near me, my husband works full time and takes night courses. I’m supposed to graduate next year. I don’t want to fall behind.’ She looked me in the eyes and said, ‘Tell me who your professors are next semester. I will talk with them personally.’”
“If Rachel did not survive this battle, I had to be there for her children—Sophia and Henry—who meant the world to her. I had no choice but to be healthy. While my sister could not control her cancer diagnosis, I could control the food I was putting in my body every day.”
“I walked in the door of their beautiful, suburban dream house. I looked up to see a woman whose body would’ve made Heidi Klum look like a hobo. She was so thin. She looked tired, as you would expect, but there wasn’t an ounce of baby weight left on her barely a few months postpartum. I instantly judged myself.”
“It’s in striving to understand and love those who see the world differently, and believe different things than we do. It’s in inviting those who are standing alone into our conversation, even if it makes you feel sweaty and awkward. It’s in standing up for what is good and noble and true.”
