“The thing is, I also got pregnant many years before at age 24. It was the first time I’d had unprotected sex, and I had split up with the father. Having a termination was my only option. This has hugely troubled me the past 3 years, but I’m not ashamed to talk about it.”
‘I got with my boyfriend in July. By November, I was pregnant. We had been ‘irresponsible.’ We dealt with it. I convinced myself I’d killed my baby. I couldn’t look at my daughter without crying.’
‘She was born with her umbilical chord around her neck, her face blue from lack of oxygen. She came into the world feet first. She always goes about things her own way, birth was no exception.’
“I had no idea what was happening, but I knew my mom was behind a cold, closed door that I wasn’t allowed to go through. I wish I could’ve held her hand – she needed it.”
‘Nothing prepared me for my wife’s cesarean. Nothing. Reaching from a gaping hole in my beautiful wife’s stomach was the head of a bloody, powder white, child-like creature.’
“I recall Mel lying naked in front of a handful of doctors after they finished. Blood dripped from the sides of her hips; her stomach like a deflated balloon. But nothing shocked me as much as the next day.”
‘He may leave the hospital with a baby, but not his wife. He needed to prepare himself.’: Woman survives traumatic birth after HELLP Syndrome diagnosis
“I was a happy, healthy 32-year-old when I became pregnant for the first time. I’d never even heard of HELLP Syndrome. Something terrible was happening and I told my husband to find help immediately My husband was told I may not survive. I felt like I was dying, and indeed, I was.”
‘The story of a girl, a baby and her first ever C-section’: Mom’s HILARIOUSLY CANDID, all-too-real birthing experience
“I get into the operating room and it’s got more people than an over-30’s nightclub. Everyone is introducing themselves and what they do, but I only paid attention to the person with the drugs, her name was Emma. (I think.)”
‘I was raped by my pastor and got pregnant. I looked at him like my father.’: Mother-daughter duo is determined to ‘inspire’ and ‘be grateful’ despite cerebral palsy, strokes, Crohn’s disease
“When I saw her, I realized she wasn’t his, she was mine. I knew I had to protect her, so my ex-husband stepped up to be her dad. We both knew my pastor would destroy her. I was also terrified of what he would do to me if I told anyone. She was born 2 months early with cerebral palsy. She was so pretty and helpless, and my body destroyed her. I knew I would do anything I could to give her the best head start possible.”
‘LOOK! PRINCESS!’ After visiting daughter in NICU, emotional mom thanks real-life prom princess in diner for helping family ‘forget all the troubles of the day’
“Thank you for restoring my faith in strangers… thank you for making my kids happy. And thank you to your prince charming for loaning you to us.”
‘This too is beautiful. This too is a miracle.’ Birth photographer empowers C-section moms to realize their births are not ‘diminished, reduced’
“I hope these photos are shared and embraced for all of us mothers who didn’t get the ‘ideal’ birth, who thought that our bodies were broken, who didn’t get to see our child take his or her first breath.”
‘His skin is as fragile as the wings of a butterfly’: Mom’s heartbreaking account of son’s rare skin condition
“He gives us a reason to love and believe in hope.”
Clear drapes allow couples having C-section births to witness the beauty of baby ‘being lifted out of my belly’
“She was able to watch the moment he took his first breath, able to not only hear him cry, but watch his lip quiver with the sound.”
