“‘I want to build us a van to live in. We can show our kid the world.’ I wish I remembered exactly what he said—I was rage-deaf by that point—but it was something like that. That was the moment I knew we weren’t going to raise this baby.”
‘I’m sitting on my bed, in my teenage bedroom, at my mother’s house. It’s 3 days after I found out I got knocked up by the first guy I ever met from Tinder.’
‘She said they become ‘the pet of the school.’ The life I imagined crashed before me and fell to pieces. I heard the words, ‘She has characteristics of Down syndrome.’
“But then, I saw my daughter with her big marble colored eyes and blonde hair. Finally, I embraced it.”
‘Stop pushing!,’ my doctor said. ‘No time to wait. His heart rate keeps dropping with every push, I cannot let this keep happening.’
“The epidural I was given hours ago never worked, I was feeling every intense pain throughout my labor. I clung to his words.”
‘What is wrong? Is something wrong?’ He didn’t answer me. ‘Chad, seriously, tell me what’s wrong.’ He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and leaned in.’
“He shot back with a look on his face I had never seen before. Fear, maybe. Shock. Panic. Oh God, what was it? The blood left his face. He was pale. Almost confused.”
‘You can touch him if you want,’ the doctor said after our son was delivered. Our son. A child that just 3 weeks prior, we did not know existed.’
“While dating and getting to know each other, I had to share something huge with him. It was certainly too early to talk about children, but I knew if our relationship was going to progress, he needed to know.”
‘Normal people had 9 months to prepare for a baby. We were given 2 hours. We received an unexpected phone call. All of a sudden, we went from 0 to 2 babies!’
“I laid there while she took hundreds of pictures. She said, ‘Let’s see if I can get THEM to smile.’ I replayed her words in my head over and over again. I ran to text my husband that we were having TWINS! She said, ‘Not twins… triplets!’”
‘He looked other worldly, like a magical being. I thought, ‘WOW! Am I the chosen one?’ Everyone was going nuts about his ‘blond’ hair. He was the star of the ward.’
“My OBGYN looked at my husband. ‘WOW, check out the hair!! Does anyone in your family have blond hair??’ Deep in pushing, I yelled back at him, ‘Can we have this conversation later?’”
‘When I learned I was having twins, I cried. ‘But I already have a baby!’ were the first words out of my mouth as the ultrasound tech told me there was not ONE, but TWO embryos in there.’
“I felt at my breaking point. ‘JUST SLEEP FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!’ Slamming doors and screaming, I was having a temper tantrum of my own.”
‘From the bathroom all he heard was, ‘BABE?!’ Just 2 weeks after meeting the birth mom, we found out we were pregnant. I was actually mad. ‘God why NOW?’
“I had a missed call. My husband then got a call. We looked at each other… ‘Answer it!’ ‘Louis, are you with Audrey?’ ‘Yes, she can hear you.’ The words she spoke stopped time for me. Everything she said next was hard to process. I was shocked.”
‘YOU ARE BETTER THAN THIS.’ I decided enough was enough. Now, I was really scared. Here I am, 19 years old, with a kid – a special needs kid at that – and totally alone.’
“I go to check on Jason before bed. I find him – twitching and unresponsive. I run downstairs, yelling at my dad to call 911. Little did we know, he wouldn’t make it back for his last week of school.”
