“He was 4 the first time kids told him he couldn’t play with them on the playground because he was black. I wasn’t prepared for any of it.”
‘Mom! You’re white and I’m brown. That means MLK made it so you could adopt me!’ He grabbed his little brother’s hand. ‘Look! Martin’s dream came true.’: Mom with bi-racial family claims ‘different is beautiful in everyone’
‘This was our secret. How do you tell people something this big, but also tell them in the same breath it’s not a thing anymore, and also that you have no answers or explanations? So, we didn’t.’
“He instructed me to go home, and come back in a week to find out. There are no words to describe what it is like to drive around, go to the grocery store, go to work, etc. and wonder if today will be the day.”
‘We talked about meeting all year. In a perfect world, they could have both been saved, but that isn’t our story.’: Parents donate daughter’s heart after infant loss, meet recipient family
“It was different with them — almost as if he’s known them for ages. We would give anything to have our baby back.”
‘He said, ‘If I die. Nathan is the only person allowed to raise my daughter.’ What I didn’t know was how serious he took that statement.’
“I left the courtroom that day and did not see him for 9 months. He never showed up at the court ordered pick up. He never called. He had disappeared.”
‘When I say my daughter died, people will often respond: ‘I’m sorry I didn’t know.’ Their response makes me smile.’
“I didn’t know there were so many excuses for avoiding a person just because their baby died. I didn’t know how hard it would be to watch them leave in a nurse’s arms, knowing they would never come back.”
‘Momma, your baby died?’ Cue my heart sinking into the earth. Bury me now. How do I explain this to my son? How. It was supposed to be quick, in and out in 10 minutes.’
“He grabbed me. He held me up as my body threatened to give out on me. I sobbed. Loudly. Unabashedly. In the middle of the parking lot. I climbed into the car, and after driving for a time, a little voice piped up.”
‘She turned the screen towards us. ‘Here is baby number 1, here is baby number 2…’ ‘PLEASE STOP COUNTING!,’ is all I could manage to say. The room fell quiet.’
“How could this be happening? How could we possibly be expecting TWO more babies just 4 MONTHS after the birth of our son? But it was. It was a punch in a gut. The kind of news that took your breath away.”
‘Then came the call. ‘Come to NYC and get your daughter. She’ll land in 3 days!’ We immediately jumped on the plane, but then a hiccup.’
“Just 2 days later we got a text in our agency group. ‘Who was the family that was interested in a deaf child?’ Well that was us, and now we are going to adopt 2 girls?! No, we couldn’t do that. So we had a HUGE decision to make.”
‘Fifteen days after this picture was taken, this sweet girl’s dad – her best friend, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She would only have him 18 more months.’
“What you see in this picture, and what I see in this picture, are two very different things. You might see a little girl in a hotel room, preparing for a gymnastics meet in Las Vegas, looking out on the world from her hotel room. But, I see something different.”
‘I’m impatient. And they’re insane. They’ve behaved their little hearts out for teachers and friends. They wanna cut loose, and so they do. There are tears every day.’
“In the still quiet of the night, I don’t watch Netflix or do dishes or take luxurious baths. Nah, I stare at the ceiling and replay all of my parenting mistakes, over and over again in my head. Guilt comes flooding in. Doubt.”