“It was time. The doctor showed us one baby, and then another, and then he got very silent. ‘Is it not only two babies?,’ he asked. The answer came: ‘No, we are looking at THREE babies here.’ Glenn pulled over. ‘Are you sure?,’ he asked me. Of course, none of us were sure.”
“All of a sudden, my first interview candidate walks in and asked for me. She heard me talking and started laughing. She said, ‘Yeah, you would NEVER SEE ME ON THE FLOOR doing that!”
“My bosses were ecstatic and couldn’t wait for my baby to arrive. They even gifted me a car seat. ‘Hey, by the way, I have a hands-free device I’ll need to bring to work. I’m choosing to breastfeed.’ My desk was in a private room away from patients. I wasn’t asking for permission. I was just giving a heads up. 10 minutes later, I got a message. ‘I have an issue with you pumping at work.’ I was heartbroken and confused.”
“He told me how he is an ‘ex-gay.’ After he placed the ‘electrodes’ on my body, he turned on the projector. He showed me ‘homoerotica’ images, and if I became ‘excited,’ it would send a shock throughout my entire body. He did it repeatedly until I passed out. He told me he ‘didn’t need permission from parents.'”
“What would our daughter have to do to be meaningful? Would she have to talk? Would she have to be able to solve math problems or perform in the school play? Graduating? Getting a job? Getting married? At what point would the doctor say, ‘Ok, you are meaningful now.”
“When I saw the credit card charges to a hotel in a town 1,000 miles from where he was supposed to be, that was when I felt the knife in my gut – but somehow I still thought, maybe it was a mistake. Did someone open a card under his name?”
“I knew I had to see this pregnancy through. The father was furious with me. I had always hoped he would eventually come around. I had not only lost my friend forever, but my baby had lost her father. I didn’t have much time to grieve.”
“I remember the pillow soaking with tears as he shushed me. I never meant to tell anyone. It was a secret I had decided to carry to the grave.”
“I was then notified by the police that my ex-husband’s girlfriend did indeed have a criminal history. My immediate thought was, ‘How come people who sexually abuse children have to register, but people who physically abuse children don’t? It made me sick to my stomach. I knew in that moment, I had to make a change in this world.”
“The pilot was there as I got out of my wheelchair to board my flight. He followed me and the flight attendant who volunteered to carry my bag. I fling myself into my seat. It was him. Honestly, I’m still shocked.”
