“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.”
‘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.’
‘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.”
‘I arrived weighing only 3-pounds, with my organs outside my body. It was a complete shock to my parents. ‘Everything is fine,’ my guardian angel told my mother to keep her calm.’
“I was bullied for looking different. I would get called ‘inside out girl,’ a ‘freak’ and ‘alien.’ It got nastier, telling me everyone would be happier if I was dead, and that I should kill myself.”
‘It was twins! In the back of my head though, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, and our happy world to come tumbling down. It did, but not until later.’
“They were out of all other options. Phoenix was bleeding into his lungs, and they couldn’t figure out a way to stop it. The nurse was calling other hospitals to figure out an accurate dose of medical cocaine to administer. What?? This can’t be happening!”
‘Why the hell would you take a photo of me at that angle?,’ I said after I saw this photo in my husband’s phone. I became so self-conscious.’
“I once had a girl tell me that my dress would look better if I had some Spanx on – I had a cesarean 3 three months prior to that. I loved the way I looked in that dress.”
‘DISGUSTING. I don’t know what husband would ever want to come home to that.’ That’s how someone recently responded to my postpartum body.’
“First of all, shame on her. If anything is disgusting, it is those words. YES, my body has changed quite dramatically since my pre-baby days, as you can see.”
