“Although I was pregnant with what I believed to be a baby girl, I knew I wouldn’t be for much longer. Shortly before dropping my daughter off at school that morning, my water had broken.”
‘Mommy, when will I have a sister?,’ she asked. As my eyes welled up with tears, I said, ‘I don’t know honey. You’ll have to talk to God about that.’
‘The doctor knelt beside my bed with our baby. ‘There are things I want to point out to you.’ Those words hit me hard. ‘No she’s perfect. That’s not possible – she was already tested for that.’
“This was not how it was supposed to be. I was grieving the perfect baby I had in my head for 10 months. I felt pity for not only myself, but her. I wanted to know ‘why us?’”
‘As I looked in the mirror, I immediately started critiquing myself. Then I heard my daughter tell my husband, ‘She really IS Wonder Woman.’ My heart just stopped.’
“I go to bed and beat myself up for all the things I didn’t do perfectly that day. They go to bed with smiles, and I fall asleep with a panic attack. I see scars everywhere from the life I’ve survived.”
‘Was it my fault?,’ he wrote down. I ran to get his mom. ‘Is everyone else okay?’: Husband makes miraculous recovery after car accident, months in ICU, ‘completely overcome’ on wedding day
“His coworker saw one of their work trucks in a bad accident on the highway. My heart started to race. I frantically called Brian over and over again. Still no answer. Driving to the hospital is all a blur. I turned to my right and saw a crew of doctors performing surgery on a person’s head. With horror in the nurse’s eyes, she realized I belonged to the man under the operating light.”
‘I’m about to share a coveted family secret with you. With ears prone to infections and broken eardrums, I use this all the time.’
“Your child ever wake up screaming in pain of an ear infection? Because it takes 30 minutes for pain meds to kick in, this is the handiest trick you will ever learn.”
‘I’m finally happy, and now I’m going to die?’ I was losing blood from somewhere. My heart sank. I was terrified. All I could think about were my children and my husband.’
“My periods were out of control, I did nothing but bleed constantly. I would fill overnight pads within an hour. I stayed in pain, it was unbearable. My husband came home on his lunch and found me doubled over in the floor, unable to move.”
‘To the 18 year old kid I stopped, you were minutes away from an unspeakable Christmas tragedy. If not only killing yourself, you were on your way to killing an innocent person.’: Police officer pens letter on public safety
“You said you didn’t realize how fast you were going. That’s a lie. You were scared when I stopped you. You were visibly shaking and breathing hard. Unfortunately, you were scared for the wrong reason.”
‘I have no—I mean NO—idea what I want. When I’m with my kids, I crave alone time. When we’re together as a family, I wish it were just my husband and me.’
“Anyone else? Just me? I don’t want to be discontent. I don’t want to accept my heart’s crummy tendency as normal.”
‘Mommy! I’m going to ask Santa for a baby in your belly!’: Woman shares emotional journey to little Christmas miracle
“Doing all I could to keep it together, I replied, ‘That may be a hard promise for him to keep.’”
‘Please think about how you would feel. If your everything. Were no longer here. Please know that for some. This is the absolute most difficult time of the year.’
“Always offer us an invitation, even if we do not want to attend. Please know that we are not jealous of your joy. But that seeing others happy can be a devastating reminder.”