“I woke up at 1 a.m. on our wedding anniversary, and felt like I needed to go to the bathroom. This wasn’t unusual. I had been pregnant for over a month. But something didn’t feel right.”
‘The doctor starts clicking away on the ultrasound machine, trying to get a better look. ‘Well, you are pregnant.’ He said it looked ‘good.’ Then, he went silent.’
‘I asked a friend to hold my drink while I went to the restroom and she set the drink down. We always stuck together but my friend went home with a guy, breaking our agreed upon friend code.’
“Finally, after a long ten year battle, and a few amazing people, I urged the police department to re-open my case.”
‘I reached into his bassinet. He felt chilly. As I moved to sit up, I noticed it again. ‘Does Judah look blue?’ I lost it. All of it.’
“I had to wait in line for a girl filling out new patient forms… for TWINS!!! Are you kidding me? I huffed, I shifted feet, I inwardly debated and then finally: ‘Um, this is an emergency, my baby isn’t breathing.’”
‘We all started to notice I was sleeping, a lot. I didn’t feel ‘normal.’ I started college, started dating, and felt like things were starting to fall into place. Oh boy was I wrong.’
“I answer the age-old question of ‘When are you going to have babies?’ with a smile on my face and a reply of, ‘Oh no babies, I have dogs.’ I see the answer disappoints them, but the truth is so much more depressing.”
‘I saw bruises on my 2-year-old’s face. I knew something more sinister had happened. My baby had bruises that stretched from his upper back all the way down to his ankles.’
“Justin handed me his phone. The first thing that popped up in the recent search tab was, ‘How to track girlfriend’s phone.’ The blood from my face drained.”
‘He was my best friend. The last thing he said to me was: ‘I’m ok mom, I love you too.’ That was at 10:20 on Saturday night.’
“He always answered my calls. But on Sunday morning, he didn’t. And I just knew. My son gave a gut wrenching scream that didn’t sound like it could come from a 6-year-old.”
‘We found out we were pregnant at 17. We were scared. Soon after, we were having a second. I am so grateful for my ex. I never thought I would say those words. But here I am. So grateful for my ex.’
“We had the ‘million dollar’ family. A boy, a girl, and two high school sweethearts who got married and made it through teen pregnancy. But then, we started to lose the ‘spark.'”
‘He started talking to me, his lips were moving but I couldn’t hear any words. Slowly, everything began to get darker until I emerged into complete darkness.’
“‘It makes sense now.’ I asked him what he was talking about. ‘My sister,’ he said. ‘It makes sense why she’s gone. Now we know. We finally have an answer.”
‘A close friend was utterly devastated she was going to have a C-section. I was not the right person to have that conversation with.’
“I was 105 pounds when I found out I was pregnant with triplets. My body stretched and stretched. To be honest, my only thought was, ‘You get to have a baby!’”
‘Everyone was telling me something was WRONG with my baby and I had to FIX him. So, I OBSESSED about it. Oh, holy night, guys. ENOUGH.’
“I sound harsh, but can we stop? I was that mom, too. With the busy fingers. Googling all the things that could possibly be wrong with my child.”
‘The phone rang with a call that turned my life upside down. It BROKE ME. I thought I had moved on, turns out I was wrong.’
“I naively thought, ‘not us!’ Here we are in the middle of a story I could never have imagined. They were my perfect storm.”
‘I let out a loud cry and immediately the words ‘I’M GOING TO BE A MOM’ poured out. My husband was in the other room and screamed ‘WHAT!’ We sobbed for hours. We couldn’t believe it.’
“I will never forget the moment our doctor told us. I was terrified what his next response would be. What happened? I broke down in tears. I was a healthy 26 year old. I could not understand.”
‘You can touch him if you want,’ the doctor said after our son was delivered. Our son. A child that just 3 weeks prior, we did not know existed.’
“While dating and getting to know each other, I had to share something huge with him. It was certainly too early to talk about children, but I knew if our relationship was going to progress, he needed to know.”
‘I would think, ‘I have time for me later. It’s their time now.’ The doctor confirmed I wasn’t dying ‘at that moment’ and sent me home. I laid across the receptionist’s desk sobbing, begging them to help me.’
“Looking back, I saw it coming but thought I could power through it. Well, even the strong need a break, and because I wasn’t taking one, my body did the work for me. It was a slow-moving storm that turned into a hurricane, and I went down. Hard.”
‘I received the terrifying phone call nobody ever wants to receive, ‘Are you in a safe place to talk?’ I hung up the phone, losing my breath. ‘Stay with me. Stay right here with me.’
“He looked at me with seriousness and said, ‘Ash, go get it checked out. What will it hurt?’ I kept thinking it’d get better. I immediately became hot, having heart palpitations and tears started rolling down over my temple into my ears.”
‘I found out I was pregnant. My ex-boyfriend refused to believe the baby was his. We tried to come to a resolution, but within a month, he was found dead in his bed.’
“I had my first serious boyfriend. He was older. That is the night my destiny changed. I became very ill the next week. I had a severe fever, so physically exhausted I couldn’t even get out of bed.”
‘For over three years we tried to get to you. Appointment after appointment, shot after shot, tear after tear.’
“Right now I’m looking forward to the sleepless nights, the running late to school or practices, the bedtime struggles followed up by sweet prayers, and the constant laundry pile up.”
‘Then he said it, ‘So what should we do now? Adopt a kid or something?’ My chin dropped to the floor. Our family had JUST gotten our heads back above water.’
“One morning, my cell phone rang. With caution in her voice, she began to tell me about an 18-month-old little boy, whose mom had unexpectedly passed away, after he was born 10 weeks too early”
‘My eyes darted back and forth as I tried to make sense of where I was. As the fog lifted inside my head, I vaguely remembered bits and pieces of the day before, events that changed my life.’
“While I lay on the operating table, my husband sat in the waiting room, wondering if he would lose all three children and his wife in one day. As he overheard the doctors, one word stood out.”
‘I stood there, firm in my stance, hands on my hips, and let them cry rivers all around me – to the point I became an island. Just a big ole, mean mom island.’
“I sure won’t apologize for it. I had to stop caring whether they were having a good time. I made sure my children knew, once and for all, I am more than a friend.”
‘I can’t! I can’t!’, it hurt so much in my chest at that moment I couldn’t say anything else. We were relieved our little girl’s suffering was about to end, just not the way we had hoped.’
“We were told she would be okay. We were told she was strong. We were led to believe she wouldn’t need to be hospitalized. After being intubated, her father was showering, and I heard what sounded like crackling.”
‘I asked my husband if he had it. He said, ‘Yes.’ One nurse even said, ‘I think he has what mommy has!’ He had white chunks of skin around his fingers and toes, and was bright red.’
“I looked at the ultrasound picture with his hand balled up in a fist. In that moment, I knew. I felt guilty that my choice to potentially pass this on could cause one of my children to have a less than perfect life.”
‘He came back into the house with a loaded gun. He demanded I open my mouth. He smirked and said ‘I won’t regret this.’
“I asked my husband for a divorce. I found out he was still having an affair, and I was done. He shoved me onto the couch, and started choking me. I gave in. I opened my mouth and he shoved the barrel as far into my mouth as he could. I said goodbye to my kids.”
‘I kept bleeding, I had pain. They assured me it would ‘be over soon.’ I just didn’t feel right. I went to another OBGYN, and I got in THAT DAY. It sounded so morbid.’
“I called my husband sobbing, feeling like there was an elephant sitting on my chest. Not only did dissolving a pregnancy, a baby with a heartbeat, feel so morally wrong, I felt like a complete failure. After all, it was absolutely my tubes that were the problem.”
‘My healthy, 39-year-old husband said he felt ‘off.’ When I got to the hospital, 2 nurses came out, crying. ‘Is he DEAD?,’ I screamed. The words she uttered took my breath away.’
“My mom showed up and was hysterical. I thought to myself, ‘pull yourself together, I need you to be strong and support me.’ She immediately pulled me out into the hall. ‘Your sister died last night.’ What.”