“After 2 years of troubling behavior with my mom, and doctors assuring us there was nothing wrong, we finally had concrete answers. Dad’s voice caught in his throat and tears welled in his eyes. He said the word we most feared.”
‘There’s good news and there’s bad news,’ my dad told me. ‘The good news is they found out what’s wrong with Mom.’ I didn’t know how much longer I could hang on.’
‘The judge looked at my husband and I. ‘Thank you for taking in a child in need.’ Without missing a beat, my husband replied, ‘We needed her more.’ Truer words have never been spoken.’
“After 5 months of loving her like our own, we got a phone call that crushed us. ‘The bio-mom is signing over her rights to her friend, and the judge ruled for us to move her. She will be there in an hour to pick her up.’”
‘Don’t worry, when he’s here you can wrap him in a blanket and nobody will ever know he’s different.’ That’s all it took for the tears to start. This was all too much.’
“‘The only thing I worry about is his size,’ I said, smiling. I was terrified of having to push out anything bigger than 8 pounds. How ironic now, come to think of it. They asked me what I already knew about his condition. Nothing, I realized I knew absolutely nothing.”
‘I remember how dark and frigid the inside was. It was completely empty. Not one piece of furniture. Nothing. I wandered into a room off to the side. I walked towards it, and instantly got chills.’
“When he got off the phone he said, ‘What do you think? Should we do this?’ I asked if he had seen what was on the wall and he said no. I showed him the picture. When he looked back at me, he had big tears streaming down his cheeks.”
‘I told him his grandfather was dying. ‘He doesn’t look good, and may not recognize you.’ He said, ‘that’s fine Mom, I’ll just sit with him then.’ I looked over, and saw this.’
“An hour later, my brother called me. ‘Meghan I just found dad in the bathroom, he isn’t responsive.’ ‘Facetime me, let me try and talk to him!’ ‘No Meghan, I’m telling you, there’s something wrong.’ The image of my dad is something I’ll never forget.”
‘We knew it was time to go. We wheeled Sophie down to a cooling room. We could see past her imperfections, her peeling skin and her bluish tint. To us, she was our baby and she was perfect.’
“She had so much brown, curly hair. She had her daddy’s nose and her mamma’s lips. Her perfect little lips. I wanted to kiss those lips every day.”
‘I gave my 10 year old a math test. He spent nearly an hour and used 4 sheets of scratch paper. He worked each problem with intense concentration.’
“And then, with a deep breath, he handed it to me to be graded. I quickly worked my way through the test and calculated his score. Immediately his eyes filled with tears.”
‘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.”
‘I heard them bring up me and say, ‘Wow another pregnancy! Geez I hope you guys can afford it.’ He looked over at me while I had tears in my eyes.’
“Then they said, ‘Gosh it must be boring being at home all day, what does she do all day? I guess she’s not going back to work? Must be nice.’ And they giggled to each other with their stupid faces.”
‘To the man in 2D. I don’t know you, but I imagine you saw us. I was pushing a stroller, had a diaper bag on my arm and was also lugging an oxygen machine for my daughter.’
“Not able to hold back tears, I cried my way up the aisle.”
