“Mothers all over the world are literally being tortured. And I guess when you ask or complain about it, you’re met with, ‘Well if you can’t hack it then you shouldn’t have had kids.’ I mean calm down Betty.”
‘She decided at 5 a.m. that she wanted eggs. I was ready to snap. ‘Well if you can’t hack it then you shouldn’t have had kids.’: Mom suffering from sleep deprivation says ‘it’s okay for a mom to say she’s struggling’
‘Can you move out of the way?’ Everyone in the store stopped what they were doing, looked up. It was the first voice I’d heard in 20 minutes.’: Woman details ‘awkward’ shopping experience during pandemic, ‘This has changed us’
“Suddenly I could see people’s eyes. Almost all had masks on. No one was chitchatting or smiling. Was that a cough? I swear I just heard a cough? Yup. Glare. She should not be out in public right now? There were no couples, no one leisurely strolling around with a cup of Starbucks in hand. Not today.”
‘She came running into the house screaming. ‘What? What is it?’ ‘Outside.’ She pointed to the open front door. ‘Daddy. The bird.’ I picked her up, and she buried her head into me sobbing.’: Widow’s late husband tries to appease daughter
“‘Okay, let’s go look.’ She was hesitant, but tiptoed out to the porch. ‘What’s going on out here?,’ I asked, still confused. ‘There are babies! He killed the babies!’ The look on my face turned from confusion to horror. ‘What?’ I snapped my head towards my husband. ‘Okay, there are not any babies. There are eggs,’ he interjected.”
‘I couldn’t keep any food down. I had lost 25 pounds. Something serious was going on, I could feel it in my bones. And I was pregnant.’
“I remember saying to him that something must be brewing for us because our life had been too easy! The rest was a blur of grief and anger. I have a lifelong disease—one that will never be cured. One that was caused by IVF.”
‘I let out a loud cry and immediately the words ‘I’M GOING TO BE A MOM’ poured out. My husband was in the other room and screamed ‘WHAT!’ We sobbed for hours. We couldn’t believe it.’
“I will never forget the moment our doctor told us. I was terrified what his next response would be. What happened? I broke down in tears. I was a healthy 26 year old. I could not understand.”
‘At first they thought both stuck, then they thought it was a chemical pregnancy, and then they weren’t sure if it was viable. Then I found blood. I was 100% sure I was losing the twins.’
“At first he was speechless, and then asked me if it was real. Next thing I know he is in tears, then I’m in tears.”
‘I pull down Drew’s diaper to find a huge red spot where he has peed. So my first thoughts are ‘Oh my gosh.. okay, this is fresh new blood. Does he have a cut? Is he passing some sort of stone?’
“He had been complaining about his back hurting Does he have a UTI?” Then what to my wondering eyes should appear but a little ole Starburst jelly bean…”
‘To My 12 Remaining Embryos: I have been thinking about you a lot lately. You have been frozen now for over 3 years.’
“I grieve giving you to her. You won’t be mine anymore.”
‘It is unbelievable. We had one little miracle – then we had four more!’
“To think we thought we could never have children – and now we are outnumbered by five, is crazy. Even more miraculous still is that doctors advised us to terminate the pregnancy.”
‘We said ‘I love you’ at 13. He didn’t care I wore a wig. He found me broken and slowly put the pieces back together.’ Woman with Hodgkin’s lymphoma falls back in love with childhood crush, conceives after infertility predictions
“I remember chunks of hair falling onto my pillow. My body transformed. It took a while to look in the mirror and see my naked face with no eyebrows, yellow eyes. Sometimes I wondered if I’d ever feel better. Then afterwards, it all hits you like a train and you sit there and literally think to yourself, ‘What the heck did I just go through and how in the world did we do it?’ Life after cancer is not easy. One side effect of chemo? Infertility.”
