Love What Matters

‘My OB guilt tripped me into getting the genetic tests done. I was 19. I developed a strange feeling.’: Woman predicts daughter’s Down syndrome diagnosis

“They plopped her on my tummy, facing her daddy. I cried the happiest tears. But, my husband looked at me with the most concerned look on his face. He knew.”

‘He’s really smart.’ I nodded in my awkward parent small talk sort of way. ‘No, I mean REALLY smart,’ she insisted, staring at me with urgency, or something I couldn’t identify.’: Dad recounts son’s autism diagnosis

“Something about his behavior didn’t feel right, but it was hard to explain. Soon, every time we received a well-intended compliment about his intelligence, it felt like a knife was being twisted further into my stomach.”

‘I was frozen in a restaurant with rain dripping off me, staring at my dead mom. ‘It’s okay,’ I told them, but was it?’

“What do I do, I wondered? I inhaled deeply, trying to see if she still smelled of flowers and herbs de Provence and soap like I remembered. I was contemplating reaching out to touch the back of her down coat, when she suddenly turned around and we were face to face.”

‘I was screaming at the top of my lungs, ‘Bryan, wake up! I need you. Don’t leave me.’ It was hidden in something. He had been clean. That is it.’

“My parents started calling every recent number, desperately searching for their child. When someone finally answered, they laughed and taunted my dad when he said he was looking for his son. They LAUGHED.”

‘Being 40 is too old for babies. My time is running out. I have lost count of the amount of times I have had this dream. It is so vivid and so real. I want to be a mother and in my dream I am.’

“In a previous life, with a previous partner, in a different country and a different decade, I was pregnant. I was pregnant for 10 weeks. But it was 10 weeks of feeling pregnant, of feeling hopeful, feeling excited, but also feeling cautious. And I was right to be cautious. I was given a due date, which we never got to.”

‘I heard ‘save me,’ and then the doorbell rang. I was scared it was someone at the door in trouble. I looked out the window. It was dark, but I could see a shadow.’: Mom recalls hilarious story due to sleep deprivation

“I told him, ‘You need to get up. Someone is at the door and they’re yelling ‘save me.’ His eyes widened and he looked at me like, ‘What?’ I said, ‘Someone is trying to break in!!’”

‘Miranda had not answered her phone or texts in 24 hours. Her door was unlocked, her TV was blaring, and I felt this horrible spirit in her apartment.’: Mom loses ‘baby girl’ killed by fentanyl overdose

“She died alone is what we are supposed to think. She did this to herself. We are not to blame. After 3 months we finally have a reason for her death.”

‘We noticed Milena was randomly limping, would have a sore tummy, and always wanted to be picked up and carried around. She started to scream at night.’

“He said ‘There are a couple of reasons why your child may not be able to walk. How could all of the doctors have missed this? Why her? What did I do wrong?”

‘That’s when I heard the thud. The sound of a 200-plus pound body hitting the nightstand next to our bed. A healthy, 31-year old, former athlete doesn’t just drop.’: Woman surprised by husband’s heart condition

“No one saw the storm coming, nor should we have. I was still in that newborn, post-delivery haze: night feedings, peri-pads, staples sore in my stomach. I had a rough go since my son’s birth. Then, that Saturday morning, the tsunami hit.”

‘I wondered what they meant by ‘whatever brain tissue was left.’ They were having me sign consent forms to keep her alive. He said ‘We need you to understand her life will not be normal.’

“The neonatologist and nurses still didn’t have any idea what was going on or why she was in the condition she was in. The neonatologist said, ‘we aren’t really sure what’s going on, but the baby is very, very sick.”

‘She had less than 25 words in her vocabulary when you met. You said to give her a chance. When others doubted her potential, you advocated.’

“She had round cheeks and two tiny, wispy pigtails that you tell me you remember like it was yesterday.”

‘It’s identical twins, the embryo split.’ WHAT! Hearing I may never carry a child at the age of 22 was heartbreaking and a complete shock’

“We went in for our first ultrasound around 6 weeks and that’s when we heard the news from the doctor ‘there is no heartbeat”

‘I came home and took off the removable seals from our lids… and THIS is what I found!’

“My husband actually battled infection in his body this fall, and we couldn’t figure out what was going on. Now I wonder if it too was attributed to our cups!”

‘Every week, they wanted me to abort. I was asked several times at every appointment. Did they get a prize for ‘selling’ me on an abortion? It sure seemed like it.’

“At 16 weeks, we were scheduled for our anatomy scan to find out if it was a boy or girl. On that day, not only did we find out that we were going to be having a boy, but we also found out that our baby had an anomaly, and we needed to see a specialist right away.”

‘Doctors told me, ‘He will look like a ‘normal’ newborn.’ The tech said, ‘They saw something wrong with the brain, right?’: Baby born with Factor V Leiden, ‘I am beyond proud of him’

“He had his hand on my shoulder when he told me my son’s condition has gotten worse. ‘Your sweet little boy needs you to stay strong’ he said. ‘He is still absolutely perfect.”

‘He found the one man in the mall he felt deserved a ‘thank you.’ A man wearing a Navy veteran’s hat.’: Proud mom watches from afar as son thanks elderly man for his service

“Without hesitation, he respectfully stood before that man who came 50 years before him, and told him he could rest easy, and that his generation would take it from there. All those sleepless nights, all the tears — magically disappeared. It suddenly became worth it.”

‘I found myself obsessing about alcohol and how much was too much while breastfeeding. Doesn’t everyone get so buzzed they can’t drive home?’: Mom grateful to enjoy family with ‘freedom from alcohol’

“I wish I could say that was the first time I woke up after a night of heavy drinking wondering who put the baby to sleep.”

‘He was yelling down the hospital halls, ‘Best day ever!’ As happy as I was for my son, I felt such sadness for my daughter. She was diagnosed first.’

“Both of our babies had cancer. Even before their diagnoses, they were inseparable, best friends. We sometimes joke, he couldn’t even let his sister go through brain cancer without him.”

‘It’s a cancer children are known to get. Your daughter has a tumor in her brain.’: Parents work to overcome daughter’s pediatric brain cancer diagnosis

“I looked at Abby and I told her, ‘You know those bad headaches and the vomiting you keep having?’ Abby looked at me and said, ‘Yes mom, they hurt.’ I told her, ‘It’s because you have something growing in there that shouldn’t be there. We have to get it out.’”

‘I couldn’t keep any food down. I had lost 25 pounds. Something serious was going on, I could feel it in my bones. And I was pregnant.’

“I remember saying to him that something must be brewing for us because our life had been too easy! The rest was a blur of grief and anger. I have a lifelong disease—one that will never be cured. One that was caused by IVF.”

‘And there’s the other one!’ she said. Another blob appeared. My husband and I were shocked. I broke out in a huge smile. ‘Oh my gosh, oh my gosh!’

“I’d never seen my husband speechless until that moment. I remember being terrified, but I assumed everything would end up okay. These sorts of terrible things happened to ‘other people,’ and surely not me.”

‘I told her, ‘Your mom is here.’ I admit, her appearance is shocking to most people.’: Mom gives birth to daughter with severe birth defects

“The nurses started whispering I didn’t want to see my own daughter, that I was rejecting her. After hearing those comments, I got up. I touched her face. Sometimes it’s impossible to not be uncomfortable when people stare at us in the street, and see her as an alien. I dream they can see her like I do, as a beautiful little girl.”

‘This is an unhealthy pregnancy. There is no way he will make it.’ My husband and I didn’t believe them. We saw a baby kicking with a strong heartbeat. We have never felt more confused.’

“He was born the following morning, eyes still fused shut. His skin was translucent. It was the scariest thing I have ever seen. He was intubated right away. I refused. I knew he was strong, and I knew if they just gave him TIME he would get there, as he always had.”

‘You’re too young. You’re making this up. It’s all in your head.’ She tortured me through the test, insisting I was fat and overweight, and THAT’S why I was having pain. I was done.’

“I was going through customs when I got pulled into secondary screening. I didn’t know why. I sat in a locked concrete room and was told all my wrong-doings and mistakes and what my options for consequences were. I had to leave the country.”