“We received a call from our agency. ‘She will need an adoptive home if the placement falls through.’ We had agreed we would not take another infant. NO WAY would we put ourselves in a situation to experience infant loss… AGAIN. We were in awe of this little bundle that God was entrusting us with, for however much time he had planned.”
“His head was shaped differently, his ears were low set and he had an extra thumb on his hand. ‘Did anybody see this?,’ I asked. My midwife nodded.”
“Your child is power vomiting all over you and you’re trying to catch it like a baseball. And God forbid any of that makes you tired, GOD FORBID! Because Sensible Susan will start giving you her ‘be grateful’ advice.”
“I thought to myself, ‘How long has he had this? Was it something I did?’ I had so many questions. To this day, most of my questions still haven’t been answered.”
“School bullies loved to remind me of how worthless I was. I became the punchline to every joke. The word ‘fat’ was used as a weapon. I quickly learned I needed to find a man to validate me. That if I got married and made babies, then I could justify my existence. I was so tunnel-visioned I ignored red flags.”
“I asked her what was wrong. She told me she didn’t know how to tell me, but I should probably get home as soon as I could. My boyfriend had called her to let her know he was throwing out all my stuff and kicking me out. ‘Why?!,’ I asked her crying. My boyfriend yelled at me, saying I needed to get my (explicit) out of there now.”
“There is a term in nursing ‘Wimpy white boy,’ that refers to little white boy babies. They have a tendency not to do well in situations such as this. At 2 a.m. I had woken up and my oldest twin was facing me. I felt peace in that moment, and I knew right then I would have a baby that day.”
“We got the call when he 10 months old. At the time, my husband and I were fostering a baby girl suffering from shaken baby syndrome. We had already adopted 3 children, all who have special needs. I waited for my husband to get home and met him at the door.”
“Cops showed up at my mom’s house looking for me. She and I would hide behind the couch. She was my biggest enabler. Then, she had enough. With all of her jewelry, she said, ‘Is there anything you can sell so you can stop?’ There wasn’t anything real left. I had already sold it all.”
“I slowly approached him. When he looked at me, I shattered the ice. ‘Is your name Christian?’ ‘Yeah.’”
