“When I’m on the edge of being sucked back in, I remember the bad times. Being in pain every time I ate. Not experiencing bowel movements for over a month. Eating so much it hurt to walk. I was scared to look in the mirror, to feel my body in the shower.”
“We didn’t hear a cry, and all we saw was a room full of doctors. I knew something was wrong. My heart sank. ‘What happened to my baby?’ Her diagnosis was secondary. We just wanted our baby to survive.”
“I had to start chemo right away and didn’t have time to freeze my eggs. I was told, ‘Pregnancy might be difficult.’ I lost my long hair, my identity, and the life I had just grasped.”
“For 6 years, I was told, ‘All you need to do to get pregnant is to lose weight.’ I was getting nowhere. We were hopeful, with a little extra help, we’d become parents, no matter what the journey may look like.”
“‘It’s okay to grieve the child you thought you’d have.’ A HUGE weight was lifted off my shoulders.”
“I struggled to move my legs and had a persistent cough. ‘It’s her spine.’ I adapted in different ways to find my path.”
“Doctors told me, ‘It’s all in your head.’ I started to lose hope. I couldn’t even take a shower or wash my hair without help. I couldn’t swallow without difficulty and occasional choking. It started to sink in. My life will always be different than others.”
“I went manic and blacked out. I can still feel my dad holding me as tight as possible. I was tucked away in the back of trauma triage, a thick bandage wrapped around my wounds. I finally surrendered and the healing started.”
“People ask, ‘Why do you want a child who’s so sick?’ I don’t see their feeding tubes or medicines. I see THEM, and I love THEM. We went from being a boring couple to having 4 kids. We would learn ANYTHING for them.”
“I was training hard and eating healthy, but still gaining weight. My instructor told my mom I was ‘fat.’ Something in my body was wrong. A few months later, I’d be in the ICU fighting for my life.”
