“How could this be happening? How could we possibly be expecting TWO more babies just 4 MONTHS after the birth of our son? But it was. It was a punch in a gut. The kind of news that took your breath away.”
‘She turned the screen towards us. ‘Here is baby number 1, here is baby number 2…’ ‘PLEASE STOP COUNTING!,’ is all I could manage to say. The room fell quiet.’
‘Then came the call. ‘Come to NYC and get your daughter. She’ll land in 3 days!’ We immediately jumped on the plane, but then a hiccup.’
“Just 2 days later we got a text in our agency group. ‘Who was the family that was interested in a deaf child?’ Well that was us, and now we are going to adopt 2 girls?! No, we couldn’t do that. So we had a HUGE decision to make.”
‘Fifteen days after this picture was taken, this sweet girl’s dad – her best friend, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She would only have him 18 more months.’
“What you see in this picture, and what I see in this picture, are two very different things. You might see a little girl in a hotel room, preparing for a gymnastics meet in Las Vegas, looking out on the world from her hotel room. But, I see something different.”
‘I’m impatient. And they’re insane. They’ve behaved their little hearts out for teachers and friends. They wanna cut loose, and so they do. There are tears every day.’
“In the still quiet of the night, I don’t watch Netflix or do dishes or take luxurious baths. Nah, I stare at the ceiling and replay all of my parenting mistakes, over and over again in my head. Guilt comes flooding in. Doubt.”
‘I heard my name. ‘Are you Suzanne?’ A woman approached me. I was confused, even scared I had done something wrong. ‘Yes?,’ I said nervously.’
“He cried for what felt like 24 straight hours. He felt like an idiot for believing. I didn’t have all the answers. I didn’t really have any.”
‘The best course of action will be to do a total hysterectomy,’ the doctor said, staring at me. ‘But I’m only 29!,’ I gasped in disbelief.’
“Well, unfortunately we have to do it now. I’d call your husband. If he starts now, he might get here just in time. Now hop in the shower and give yourself a good scrub with this soap.”
‘He’s the kid who never listens the first time. Or even the tenth. His heart breaks because he’s not always sure why what he’s doing is so wrong.’: Mom says her energetic son ‘needs you to hear him.’
“He is smart as a whip, yet school isn’t always his jam. He’d rather talk about why Sally is giving away 24 of her apples instead of solving the story problems in math. He can read your emotions on your face, and will always know who is lonely on the playground.”
‘Less than 10 seconds changed everything. I was unable to get up, despite how hard I tried. Shock settled in. I overheard the words of some hospital tech, ‘SHATTERED!’ What did that mean?’
“I am not a fan of public restrooms but knew I would be on the road. That ‘smart’ decision changed my life forever.”
‘None of them had seen a case like Dominic’s. The amount of birthmarks was shocking.’: Mom gives birth to son with rare skin condition
“I willed my legs awake from the spinal tap, like Uma Thurman in ‘Kill Bill,’ and then I physically dragged myself from my bed to a wheelchair to see him. I demanded a nurse take me to him. He was blue, his skin covered with deep purple spots. He wasn’t crying. The whole room was especially quiet. They had no clue what was going on with his skin.”
‘You’re 12 weeks along, but it looks like the baby hasn’t grown since the 8-week mark.’ I blurted out, ‘Oh, well that’s a bummer.’ I felt like monster.’
“It was hard for my husband to look at me. We had to call our family and tell them the news. They took it much harder than I did. All my mom wanted to do was hug me. It was very smothering.”
