“It was the day of my first stomach ultrasound. The doctor was quiet. He ended with, ‘I’m getting you in with the doctor’s downstairs soon,’ and walked out. I thought they were going to tell me the gender. I was so naive. ‘Madi, we aren’t here to find out the gender. We’re here because your doctor thinks your baby is dying.’ I bawled. I was handed a sticky note with a phone number for an abortion clinic. It was a matter of time before my body started breaking down.”
“It was a Friday afternoon when I got the call. Athena and I were picking out Build-A-Bears. ‘How was this missed?!’ At the ER, the doctor asked, ‘How did this happen? Who took care of her?’ He was checking to see if we had purposely abused her. ‘We need to verify if DHR needs to be involved.’ It broke my heart all over again. They checked for more bruising. I was terrified of losing her.”
“‘Go Big or Go Home!’ his dad told him. Honey, this is supposed to be a fun thing,’ I told him as I brushed back his golden hair. ‘But Mommy, what if I lose?’ he cried. When we arrive at the top of the mountain, he panics. ‘I don’t want to do it, Mommy. I am scared.’ I hear the cries of the crowd, the unmistakable climax of shock, and then silence.”
“Right now, my daughter is friends with no one. She keeps to herself and sees little interest in gossip or small talk. And that has to do with a little part of her called autism. Include the child who keeps to themselves. The one that’s weird. The one that’s ‘rude.’ Extend an invite to those who are like you, but also those who differ.”
“When I was a teenager, I noticed balance issues that worsened over time and left me confused. I knew it was more than clumsiness. I wasn’t able to walk in a straight line, wear high heels, or dance without falling. I was told, ‘There is no treatment in sight.’ I isolated myself, ashamed of what was happening. I started to give up hope. It took FIVE years to get answers.”
“After delivering my first child at 15, I was left with a body I didn’t recognize – heavier, softer, and covered in stretch marks. I wallowed here. I was molested here. I hid underneath men’s clothes, 2 sizes too big. Anything to deflect sexual attention. I am more than my body, but this vessel is not less important because its existence has been perverted and misused since the beginning of time.”
“He said in a gentle voice, ‘Can we talk to you both in the conference room?’ I knew we were going to receive life-changing news. ‘What more could go wrong?’ I wanted to not be me. Most moms dream of that euphoric moment when their precious baby is delivered into their arms. I did too. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the dream. I got the nightmare. The daughter I had dreamed up was gone.”
“I was still a single mom of a boy with autism living in a 2-bedroom apartment. My son was all grown. In comes this short, little peanut with those blue wrap-around glasses, all wide-eyed and ready to go. ‘I want to take him home.’ I couldn’t even get the words out before I started bawling!”
“She looked terrible. Her usually pink skin was a greyish-blue. Her belly was huge and so stretched out, you could see every vein. She wasn’t moving on the operating table. With mascara-stained tears streaming down my cheek, I held on to her a little tighter.”
“The constant thought of, ‘I should just crash my car into a tree,’ kept playing in my mind. I was thinking of every way possible to leave Molly and go back to the way my life once was. I was scared to be left alone with Molly. I didn’t trust myself, and I was scared to admit it to anyone. Scared people would always think of me as ‘the crazy chick that wanted to hurt her baby.'”
