“I cried to the nurse on the hotline, ‘It sounds like he has fluid in his chest.’ I would sit nursing my son, crying endlessly in that rocking chair. Every breath my son took heightened my already over-the-top anxiety attack. I knew it wasn’t just anxiety. It was something more. This was the start of so many triggers.”
“I was secretly hoping for a girl, but the sonographer told us it was a boy. I looked at Austin, smiled, and said, ‘At least we make healthy boys.’ The sonographer’s reaction was a little startling. She said, ‘Well, wait…’ She couldn’t get a good view of his heart, but she didn’t know why.”
“I was allowed no monitors to check on my baby during labor. I didn’t have a clue whether or not he was still alive. I was left in the dark. At 23 weeks, I didn’t dare look as I pushed him out. He was put into a small plastic bag, intubated at my side. I told my family, ‘This is the end.’ We planned his final outfit, said goodbye. Just in the nick of time, he showed us he wasn’t going anywhere.”
“I was losing weight and missing school a few days a week. I was in bed all week but when Friday rolled around, I insisted on going to the St. Patrick’s Day Breakfast. I barely remember the morning. We went on stage and just as the piano started, everything went black.”
“She didn’t laugh as much. She didn’t recognize me, and she wasn’t able to hold a conversation. I couldn’t believe the timing. It felt like a sign from my grandfather. I knew what I had to do.“
“I knew something was wrong. A nurse came in and said Ellis had stopped breathing in the nursery twice. ‘She’s at high risk for significant developmental disabilities.’ He encouraged my husband and I to have a conversation about what to do if our baby didn’t wake up.”
”Right before I was wheeled into the OR we discovered he, too, was not only a Buckeye but also graduated from the same small high school I graduated from. It gave all of us much more reassurance I was exactly where I needed to be at the exact right time. Mini miracle inside a big miracle.”
“My daughter is starting kindergarten. She’ll be wearing a mask, staying 6 ft apart from others, and eating in her classroom. As we drew, I explained the new way school would be operating. This was now turning into something I never could have imagined.”
“Somehow, the conversation led to relationships. We were just having a typical, texting conversation. I’m not entirely sure where this intense, urgent feeling of freedom came from. We were just having a typical, texting conversation. I was acting SO ridiculous and I suddenly felt a moment of empowerment.”
“And then the unthinkable happened. Lots of crying, hitting, and aggression. But I was not ready to quit.”
