“One night, while I was holding my fragile Heron, he turned completely grey. All I can remember is sounds exploding from seemingly everywhere and a sea of NICU staff rushed into the room. All we could do was stand back and watch.”
‘Why was I the last to notice my baby was in distress?’ I needed constant reassurance everything was going to be okay.’: New mom thanks nurses during short but grueling NICU stay
‘The excitement of a normal poop, the pain seeing your child poked 1,000 times, the strength to continue walking inside.’: Hospital mom describes emotional journey during NICU Awareness Month
“The late night calls of a parent, the early morning calls of an emergency, pressing a button on an incubator before you can touch your child, the longing to rock your baby to sleep just one time.”
‘It was a war just to keep my newborn ALIVE.’: Medical mom praises daughter born with Severe Combined Immunodeficiency, dwarfism
“Have you ever had a medical professional look you in the eye and tell you it’s a MIRACLE your child is alive, and then say they have no medical reasoning as to how they ARE alive? Children born with no immune system unknowingly die from the common cold… Bella survived septic shock and 4 bowel surgeries.”
‘Just one.’ Then she moved the wand to the left and said, ‘I lied.’: New mom to preemie twins ‘grateful’ to hospital staff for saving her children
“I’ll never know what it’s like to immediately have your baby put on your chest. They were wrapped in what looked like sandwich bags and enclosed in an incubator. We nearly lost them.”
‘I faced the choice of buying food or affording diapers. It’s a lonely place to be.’: New mom thanks local baby bank for donating supplies
“My situation was a living nightmare. We wanted to give her the basic things every baby should have, like a soft toy. We simply couldn’t afford it.”
‘Ten fingers, ten toes?’ The tech was eerily quiet. ‘No.’: New mom celebrates beautiful unknowns of baby born with limb differences
“‘Oh my God. He’s out. He’s here.’ They put my gooey little man on my chest. ‘Is everything okay?’ My heart sunk. ‘There’s something different about the baby’s foot, too.’ The doctor unwrapped a fin, and then a flipper.”
‘We saw the beautiful face of a precious 2-year-old. It was as if our souls knew, deep down, she was ours. We said YES.’: Couple shares international adoption story, ‘It’s surreal’
“We were presented with an opportunity. For some reason, we felt hesitation in our gut. ‘Why wouldn’t we do this?’ Exactly one year later, God birthed a new dream.”
‘I screamed, ‘PULL OVER!’ My expectations did NOT match reality.’: New mom hilariously recounts birth of daughter on highway, ‘I’m prepared to catch another baby’
“I felt a sudden drop in my belly, my water finally broke, and I knew I wasn’t going to make it. In a knee-length fluffy pink bathrobe and white underwear, I put on a huge, long, overnight pad. I waddled down the stairs, as best I could, to the car. ‘We’ll never make it.'”
‘My husband sat me down. ‘I hate seeing you in constant pain. You’re good enough if you don’t breastfeed.’: New mom embarks on motherhood journey, ‘She’s our fresh start’
“The pain was excruciating. I cried every time I fed her. I felt like I couldn’t provide for my child. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”
‘Our journey to become parents was heartbreaking. I seemed to find every pregnant woman on the planet. I had to save my sanity.’: Mom shares healing through meditation, ‘Find what brings you JOY’
“I threw myself into working, scouring the internet for infertility stories, scrolling Instagram mindlessly. I knew I needed help to bring myself out of the fog. But what I actually learned was to let go.”
