“I was given an examination and told I was only 3 centimeters dilated. At this stage I was already starting to feel sweaty and sick at the thought of this pain for days. I couldn’t even fathom it. I thought she had to be joking.”
‘You’re in early labor. You’d be crawling on the ground reaching for drugs otherwise.’: Mom encourages women to ‘find their voice’ during childbirth after ‘begging’ husband not to let hospital send her home
‘She’s beautiful, but something’s wrong with her heart.’ HOW? I was only 23! I clapped my hands over my face and WEPT.’: Mom births baby with Truncus Arteriosu, says motherhood is all about ‘rolling with the punches’
“My husband drove me down to the waterfront, my idea of motherhood now a pile of dust and rubble. Was I really made for this? We’d both been crying for several hours. He opened the envelope. ‘It’s a girl!’ his voice cracked. When they wheeled her away, we gave our final kisses. No matter how long she was with us, Shirley was a gift.”
‘I have to go the bathroom,’ my husband says, handing me the diaperless baby with poop on his hands. He rushes off.’: Mom quickly realizes she does NOT want another child after initially thinking she does thanks to friend’s precious newborn
“I met my friend’s new baby! I smelled the newborn goodness. I watched her little mouth open while she yawns and holds my thumb. Then, I felt a familiar sensation… my ovaries start to go off like firecrackers, like my little uterus has pressed the red button and is screaming MAYDAY! MAYDAY! We need a fetus!! I message my husband saying, ‘One more?'”
‘Sweet boy, Mommy and Daddy love you so much.’ His silent 3-pound body was wrapped in a blanket.’: Parents of child loss know they will see son ‘in heaven,’ celebrate living twin’s life while grieving their loss
“We cried, touching him gently. The room was filled with silence. ‘What color would you like Noah’s casket?’ ‘What outfit will he be buried in?’ I struggled to answer. I couldn’t stop thinking, ‘I’m not supposed to be making these decisions. Parents aren’t supposed to bury their children.’ We celebrate his twin brother Liam as we grieve Noah. But death is not the end. We will see Noah in heaven some day.”
‘You know this isn’t a bad boob job, right?’ In my bikini top, women erupted in laughter at my cancer scars.’: Woman beats breast cancer, new symptoms dismissed as ‘overreacting’ turn out to be colon cancer
“I felt so embarrassed. I wanted to tell them how torn I was making the decision to remove my breasts in my 20s. How I couldn’t stand sitting in the waiting room with crying women in gowns. How I couldn’t even had sex with my husband because I was so afraid he’d think I was disgusting. As we were leaving, my father-in-law told them they should mind their own business. Not one of them said anything.”
‘Are you kidding me, mom?! Help me!’ It’s an explosion of epic proportions. Do we salvage this outfit? Heck. NO!’: Mom hilariously recounts every mother’s worst nightmare, the diaper blowout
“It’s so goopy. It’s E V E R Y W H E R E! In crevasses you didn’t know existed. It’s up the back, and down the legs. More creeps onto your hand with every wipe. You’re gagging. You pick baby up and hold him Lion King style, praying that none splatters onto the floor as you shuffle towards the sink. ‘This isn’t that bad… this isn’t… that… bad…’ You’re trying not to be dramatic. But you’re totally being dramatic.”
‘My daughter arrived on 9/11. I woke up to see the first tower falling. I thought my family was watching an action movie.’: Mother gives birth on September 11th, ‘I was not emotionally OK’
“My OBGYN came in to check on me while not knowing where her own husband was at Ground Zero. I was in a hospital where they were calling in extra nurses and doctors for the casualties that should be arriving, but never came. Everyone knows where they were on 9/11, but I lived that day in a strange reality.”
‘Why did you cut her?! She didn’t give you permission to do that.’ My blood boiled. He just stared, his face blank.’: Doctor performs episiotomy on mother without her permission during childbirth because he had ‘somewhere to be at 7 p.m.’
“Snnniiipppp. My doctor used scissors to cut me open ‘down there’ to make it easier to push the baby out. ‘What did you do?!’ I asked the male, 50-year-old doctor, with fear in my voice. Even the nurses paused. Just 30 minutes before, my doctor told me, ‘I have somewhere to be at 7 o’ clock, so you better be able to push this baby out soon.’ My husband’s rage was rising. I squeezed his hand. ‘We can’t do this now.’”
‘She looks like she’s been submerged under water.’ We never left the hospital. Her 321 days of life were there.’: Couple welcomes miracle baby ‘hand-picked’ by his ‘perfect sister in heaven’ after she died of congenital heart disease
“My heart was telling me she was beyond tired. She can only handle so much. Selfishly I wanted to keep her, regardless if that meant sitting in a hospital or not. But the pain my baby endured was enough to rip my heart out. After a long, hard fight, she left us to go to heaven, a place we all want to be. She was only 10.5 months old. We will indeed see Berkeley again one day, and oh my goodness, what a perfect day that will be.”
‘My newborn son got Herpes from a kiss, and nearly died.’: Mom’s 4-week-old son contracts HSV-1, urges us to refrain from ‘kissing newborns’
“I noticed Noah’s little eye was puffy, agitated, and watering a lot. I was told it was nothing out of the ordinary and it would ‘clear up.’ He didn’t have a fever and was eating and sleeping as normal, so we were sent home. Days later, he had blisters around his eye. Something was wrong. After some tests, they caught it. My boy tested positive for Herpes.”
