“The nurse wouldn’t let me hear their heartbeats. ‘It’s a waste of time. They will die.’ I couldn’t get up to pee or else Baby A would come out a little more. I felt so defeated. A new doctor walked in. ‘We’re going to another hospital and I’m coming with you!’ We were gone in seconds.”
“I made a promise to myself. If I was cleared from having the chance of developing a second cancer, I’d get a tattoo. I met a lady who asked me a question that changed my life and perspective forever. ‘Why are you the way that you are?’ she asked. From then on, we became connected by the heart. We were able to help heal each other.”
“Grief looks like walking around Hobby Lobby with a beautiful, happy baby boy and tears running down my cheeks. How do you even pick flowers for your daughter’s grave? Can anything I buy show how much I love and miss her? My rainbow baby is making the cashier laugh. I wonder what she thinks I’m buying the flowers for, and if she can feel the grief roll off of me.”
“At 40, when the kids are older and kind of self-sufficient (somewhat), you should be hitting autopilot. You feel like your crap is together and BAM…ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE. Well, at least it did for me.”
“We waited for his buggy. We had to walk through passport control with him biting, hitting, and screaming as he does when he’s upset. On the plane, he was upset and screaming. We had comments like, ‘Should have brought my headphones.’ He is, in fact, disabled and not just being naughty.”
“You are also a human, with needs.”
“‘I cannot understand you. Let’s speak English, no?’ she said, impatiently. ‘Uh, okay.’ I replied. ‘Umm…I would like some red lipstick, please.’ She took a moment to look me over and I couldn’t help but get the feeling I was somehow inadequate. ‘I think you’d be more com-for-ta-ble in this co-lor…’ she said as she grabbed a lipstick tube off the shelf.”
“We woke to my son crying and covered in vomit. The next day, his brother was the same and couldn’t keep anything down. We thought it was a stomach bug, but it kept happening. ‘Both your boys have leukemia.’ It felt like being stuck in some kind of messed up Groundhog Day where all your nightmares are real. I felt helpless.”
“I have all these mental images of women, dressed for success and sitting desks with their laptops open and their not-even-necessary glasses to the side. The lighting is bright and there is a perfectly groomed plant in the corner by a floor to ceiling window. I felt like an imposter for being successful.”
“I chose an amazing woman to be the mother of the child I birthed. And yet, I no longer knew how to approach her. Nine years after placing my daughter the adoption agency called me with news that would change the rest of my life. My birth daughter’s family had contacted them to see if I would be willing to meet.”
