“‘Go home and enjoy the time you have left,’ our doctor told us. Brad could not reckon the idea of leaving me as a single mom. But, I could not reckon the idea of not having a piece of him here with me on earth. We decided to take a giant leap of faith.”
‘I felt pregnant, but the odds were slim. Brad had been declared sterile. No one had ever survived a recurrence from this disease.’: Woman gets pregnant with ‘miracle baby’ despite husband’s terminal cancer diagnosis
‘My miscarriage crushed me. I screamed and cried in the nursery closet, clenching my son’s wubby so hard my palms bled. I was inconsolable.’
“Now you’re left exhausted, thinking what the hell did we just do? Am I an imposter because I failed? I flipped my mindset. It felt good to dive into something again, which started with ripping up all the carpet in the upstairs of our house. There was no sense in avoiding a room meant for a nursery when I could change it into a usable space.”
‘Your husband will never father a child. Don’t bother with artificial insemination because he will eventually resent bringing up another man’s child and probably leave you.’
“How we got home in one piece that day is still a mystery. How we drove through the tears, I don’t know.”
‘No one teaches you how to love a child you didn’t plan to have.’
“When the same people who told you that you ruined your life are smiling ear to ear at your baby shower a few months later, it’s hard.”
My secret grief: Over 35, single, and childless
“The loss I’m not allowed to mourn.”
