Surprise!
🤩
‘It’s a secret I’ve been holding closely to my heart. Six years after being pregnant with our triplets, and then losing two of them, I am pregnant.’
“The tears have poured down my face, my heart racing as I finally share our news. Being pregnant after child loss is one of the most difficult things I have gone through in my life. To be honest, I was too scared.”
‘He is our wild child. Our rowdy, free spirited, change the world child who I contemplated co-sleeping with well into Jr. High. What would you think of him?’
“First I want to tell you, I didn’t always love you the way I do now.”
‘I read his text message for what felt like hours. ‘I want a divorce.’ We were finalizing the adoption of our foster son, and our little family of 4 was supposed to live happily ever after.’
“She looked over at me and said, ‘You haven’t said much, your marriage must be perfect.’ I chuckled and quickly replied, ‘No, far from it.’ We received the call that would forever change our lives. ‘Hi Ashley, we have a woman who birthed a baby girl yesterday. She has chosen you and your husband’s profile.'”
‘Good job Mommy. You came just in time.’ I asked her why. She replied, ‘I didn’t want Addison to feel bad that I have two daddies, and she only has one.’
“‘Why would she feel bad?,’ I asked. It was in that moment, I knew I would never have to worry about Emma missing a piece of her heart. It never left her. Unlike her younger siblings, she has two daddies that love her. Her daddy here at home, and her daddy in heaven.”
‘My mommy and daddy sleeped in different beds last night!’ That’s how my 3-year-old chose to greet our babysitter as she walked in the door.’
“’This is how rumors get started,’ I told myself. All of a sudden it becomes, ‘I always knew there was something off about him…’ ‘I knew their marriage was too good to be true…’”
‘I almost didn’t go in. I knew no one. All the women had head-coverings and I didn’t. I parked my car and prayed it was the right thing to do.’
“Tentatively, and with a teary catch in my throat, I asked ‘May I leave this sign?’ ‘Are you a Muslim?’ I said … ‘No, ma’am, Christian.’ To which she said — ‘We are all the same.’ I went in a stranger with a sign, and came out with a friend; hopefully for life.”
‘We walked up to the counter, the lady asked for the mother’s name. We gave both names and she made a face. Then she asked, ‘Okay so which of you is the mother? There can only be one.’
“Katie was told she would only be a surrogate for me and would never have a connection to a baby that wasn’t actually hers. I was criticized for not wanting to carry my own egg and that I would have a hard time bonding with a baby I didn’t actually carry or deliver.”
‘After 15 years, the phone rang on a Friday morning. It was the case worker saying she had not one, but TWO babies. 6-week-old twins. ‘Would you take two babies instead of one?’
“An even bigger surprise was in store, a few years after we were put up for adoption, our birth parents, who were not together at the time of our birth, had reunited and later married.”
‘How could this be? My ultrasound nurse told me the baby DID NOT have Down syndrome. The nurse looked at me and asked, ‘Are you going to keep her?’
“I wanted to do the whole thing by myself. No doctor, no ultrasound, no hospital, no midwife. So I did. My close friends and family were definitely not fans. My husband went along with it knowing when I make up my mind to do something, that’s it. It’s done.”
‘I found out my marriage was a lie. He was unfaithful. I had been lied to for months. I spewed venomous hate towards him. I was numb. Then, I found out I was having a miscarriage.’
“We got married! I was so happy, I truly thought we were going to be okay. I had two amazing daughters, a rocking career, a husband who wasn’t perfect, but he tried. Then my world fell apart.”
