‘After losing twins, we thought we’d paid our dues. Our life’s suffering was now complete. We were wrong.’: Mom loses ‘rainbow baby’ with heart defects, knows she will meet him ‘in heaven’

“We were overjoyed at my pregnancy. New life was coming! But scans and tests told us it’d come with major heart defects, a missing chamber, faulty valves, and an aorta split into 2 pieces. Blindness. Deafness. A cleft lip and palate. Still, doctors were hopeful. Until they weren’t. ‘He’s a sick guy.’ I was told this in a ‘why the long face? didn’t you expect this?’ kinda way.”

‘Congrats, it’s a boy!’ Not even 48 hours later, the doctor pulled up a chair. ‘You have a large mass in your chest that is likely cancer.’: Woman shocked with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma diagnosis days after giving birth, ‘I had too much to fight for’

“I sat in a hospital bed nursing my newborn son when I received the most unexpected, gut-punching news. ‘You have to stop breastfeeding. Soon, you will become toxic to your son.’ I couldn’t formulate any words. I was stunned to silence. Here we were, newlyweds for just 4 months with 4 children together, and now a very sudden chance I may not be around to help raise our kids to adulthood. I had too much to fight for.”

‘Hours began to pass, and still no Andy. I called him. It went to voicemail. Then I saw it. The paddleboard, empty.’: Pregnant widow still has no answers after husband drowned, ‘He will never fade from my heart’

“I was pregnant with our third child, and my hormones had gotten the best of me. I grabbed my phone and called 9-1-1. I started screaming his name, ‘ANDY, ANDY, ANDY,’ as I frantically looked on the shoreline that was covered in trees. I hear the sirens roaring, coming in my direction. My neighbor heard me repeating, ‘I don’t want to live without him, I want to die,’ as I knelt in the grass.”

‘I didn’t realize how much I would miss my dad’s handwriting. Mourning handwriting? But I did. I still do.’: Daughter gets tattoo of dad’s handwriting before he passes of pancreatic cancer

“I watched him sketch out that second attempt and smile at it. He looked up and said, ‘How’s this one? I think this one is better, don’t you think?’ Maybe he was imagining it actually being tattooed on me and how that would feel, after he was gone.”

‘I was 15 years old and had been caught.’: Woman overcomes eating disorder and surprise pregnancy

“I know how you’re doing it,’ she whispered, then laughed and walked away. I locked myself in the bathroom while my he pounded on the door, begging me to let him in. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t believe what I was staring at. My heart pounded, and my mind raced. Was this real? Was it a faulty test? My baby was so tiny, but he or she was there, in my belly.”

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