“I decided I would talk to my OBGYN when I went for my next check up. Little did I know, I wouldn’t be able to make it until then.”
‘Is it normal to hate your baby?’ I was desperately begging for God to kill her. What’s wrong with me? I was terrified of what I would do to her.’
‘I showed my daughter a birth video to prepare for the arrival of her little brother. ‘Mommy, can we watch another one?’ She now requests birth videos almost daily.’
“Most children develop an obsession at some point. They have a favorite animal or sport. My daughter Kaeleigh explores twin births, outdoor births, water births, and midwives on YouTube.”
‘You can’t do it, don’t touch him!,’ she’d scream at me. He was alive. I wanted to meet him. I blacked out after. I died and woke up in the ICU.’
“It was not over yet. This time it was different. This time CPS came to visit me. She told me I was mentally unstable, and there was an open investigation. My whole world flipped upside down. I begged to not let this happen.”
‘I love you, and I’m home.’ He wrapped me in a warm embrace. We had a fairy tale image of what our life would be. The next year was a whirlwind of emotions.’
“We lived off ramen noodles and ham sandwiches. We slept in forty-five minute increments. ‘I miss us,’ he said. The spark of our honeymoon years quickly faded, and life together felt more like survival.”
‘He introduced me to his parents as ‘the woman he wants to marry.’ Our marriage shocked them. When I held our baby girl in my arms, skin to skin, everything was perfect. Until it wasn’t.’
“He wanted to bid on me but didn’t have enough money at the time. He couldn’t go home with regret. He walked over to me.”
‘Oh my gosh, there’s a HEARTBEAT! A baby! I knew they were wrong! I’m a MOM! After I caught my breath, I asked the doctor, ‘Is that a heartbeat?’ He was puzzled, but didn’t look happy.’
“I couldn’t even take a breath. The embryologist said, ‘I can’t believe I’m saying this, because I have never seen this happen!’ I still couldn’t breathe. What was he about to say? At this point I’m jumping up and down screaming. I had to ask.”
‘Chemo would make my breast milk toxic to my son. Cancer had already robbed me of the pure joy of a new baby. I was not about to sit back and let it take away breastfeeding my son.’
“Here we were newlyweds of just 4 months, with 4 children together, one of whom was just a week old. The only option I had was to find a family member or friend who would be willing to latch Malcolm to their breast once a week so he would remember how to do it if and when the time came for me to try.”
‘I laid awake at night, my stomach in knots, terrified it was the boy embryo that took. I couldn’t even picture raising a boy. It brought me to tears. Full blown survivor’s guilt.’
“Gender disappointment after overcoming infertility? I felt awful. I felt selfish. I was mad at the fact there was a perfect little boy growing inside me. How could I be so greedy? So privileged? Women are yearning for a healthy baby, and I’m crying over…well, sex organs.”
‘The day before we were to be induced we were hit head on by a fatigued driver. I completely forgot I was pregnant, or that I was even married. It was a nightmare.’
“We were a mile down the road when we were hit head on. We were in my hometown for my little sister’s high school graduation, preparing our soon-to-be home before our sweet baby girl’s due date. I was only 21, this was something I never imagined.”
‘That’s when I heard the thud. The sound of a two-hundred-plus pound body hitting the nightstand next to our bed. A healthy, thirty-one-year old, former athlete doesn’t just drop.’
“No one saw the storm coming, nor should we have. I was still in that newborn, post-delivery haze: night feedings, peri-pads, staples sore in my stomach. I had a rough go since my son’s birth. Then, that Saturday morning, the tsunami hit.”
