“‘I am upset I won’t be able to walk my daughter down the aisle like I’d always hoped.’ They asked, ‘Why can’t you just be a butch lesbian?’ My great grandmother’s response when I walked in was, ‘Oh isn’t he handsome!’ All she wanted was to make sure I was happy. I can’t tell you how much that meant to me.”
“Oh, you lost all your baby weight and started exercising 2 weeks after giving birth? Great, but I just gave birth and my vagina in still swollen and bleeding. You have 3 kids and wake up at 4 a.m. to exercise? Impressive, but sometimes depression means I’m just trying to get through the day without giving up on life.”
“On our way home from the ER, I stopped to get my children lunch. The attendant asked me the usual questions. I have a child of each gender. Boys get Hot Wheels, girls get Barbies. My bruised-eye boy likes Barbies and playing with them doesn’t make him less of a man.”
“James called to tell me he would be a while longer, it was already getting dark. He said, ‘I love you kitty, I’ll be home late.’ I can see myself standing in the kitchen on the phone with him, I can feel the emotion like it’s happening now. When the phone rang around 11 p.m., I knew he was dead. It was happening all over again.”
“I was terrified, ashamed. I cared too much about walking around with a large stomach and no ring on my finger. My boyfriend and I had only been dating a little over a year. I’d been indoctrinated with the belief that what was happening to me was a sin that would tarnish me for the rest of my life.”
“Clearly, I was not mentally prepared to grocery shop this morning. Something wasn’t right. The drive was short and quiet. I quickly got out of my car with everything I needed. Really, it was an Aldi shopping success…. until I reached the bagging counter. That’s when it struck me, why I was so off. For the first time in 9 years, I was missing my partner.”
“A crazy pregnancy monster entered my body and took over my brain. I felt suffocated. I didn’t like the changes that come with having a significant other around all the time. I missed my peace and quiet. I certainly didn’t like all the new ‘friends’ I was supposed to now have. I was having an out of body experience. Saying I didn’t love him, and I couldn’t do this anymore.”
“I sat in the waiting room hoping a pair of glasses would be my silver bullet fix. Unfortunately, what I was met with is something I’m embarrassed to retell. Aiden wiped away tears. ‘You mean my brain isn’t broken?,’ he asked. ‘No buddy. Far from it.'”
“I had been placed in a small, windowless hospital room that was 80 degrees. I was rotating between sweating because I was warm to shivering from having cold sweats. The medicines from labor were messing with me. I tried to keep it together but whenever a nurse left my room, I burst out crying. There was so much paperwork to fill out. I was alone.”
“‘I will not be leaving her side,’ I responded in the clearest daddy-bear tone I had. Dad’s on guard. It was the look in the new doctor’s eyes that told me, I needed to go. I kissed my perfect baby girl goodbye. I’m the bug being drawn into the glowing light of the bug-zapper. Like a true ‘lamb-to-the-slaughter’ walk.”
