“’What if no one accepts our babies?’ Mark looked me right in the eye and said, ‘WE will accept our babies! We will love them just like we would any other baby, and Lyndi will love them both just as much. This is our little family. They will be perfect!’”
“My time in this role of ‘stepmom’ has healed my heart in ways therapy never could.”
“I wanted my baby so badly. I wanted his ten little toes. I wanted to see those blue eyes and the thick black hair he had to have. But then I thought of him watching me waste away as I watched my own father waste away, knowing I had chosen the same fate for him.”
“My husband comes home. I vaguely remember saying I had interesting news. He says to me, ‘What news?’ I go, ‘I’M PREGNANT.’ Husband looks at me, hugs me, and says, ‘OK! We are having a kid!’ I then say, ‘BUT it’s identical twins.’ Husband says, ‘Oh sh*t.'”
“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My eyes prickled with tears hearing the suffering in his voice as he cried. The very next day at the hospital, I was asked, ‘Would you like to be his legal guardian?'”
“I don’t remember what the train of thought was before that, or what exact situation led to that epiphany, but I remember smiling because deep down I already knew. Life genuinely started to make more sense.”
“Her foster mom handed Areum to me, and all I could do was thank her, telling her we would meet again one day. Then, holding our daughter, I watched the doors of the elevator slowly close, with tears in my eyes.”
“I hated the idea someone could walk into my children’s lives and automatically gain their love. They’d run up to her, give her kisses, and tell her they loved her. Honestly, my heart broke every time. I had no idea what boundaries should be in place or what steps were best for the children. There was no handbook for co-parenting, and I was desperately grasping at straws.”
“I cried the moment I saw my little baby inside of a plastic box.”
“I held out the framed photograph for her. Tears overwhelmed her. I instinctively reached out, ‘I’m rooting for you.’”
