“I’d catch the scent of him on my shirt or the smell of the hand soap I used at the NICU and my heart would long for him. After six long months in his tiny corner of the world, never seeing anything outside that NICU pod, we brought our new son home.”
“‘How could you discuss our marriage with your MOTHER?’ I demanded to know. I yanked my rings off. ‘Isn’t this what you want?’ He asked. ‘Don’t you hate me?’ It felt like a weight had been lifted. We planned our divorce. Everything was going great until the paperwork was signed. I suggested we go out to dinner to celebrate. He shook his head. ‘Just go, Tara.’ I didn’t understand. And then a tall, thin woman with wavy hair walked in the door. He locked eyes with her. I was struck with another revelation. It wasn’t his mother with whom he’d been consulting about our marriage, it was his girlfriend.”
“At 7 p.m. all the houses around the country breathe a sigh of relief at the end of the day when parenting ends and ‘me time’ begins. That is simply not the case for me. My kids go to bed late and wake up late. And that’s okay. Children are more capable at recognizing what they need than we give them credit for.”
“The doctor turned off the lights and we looked at the screen. I immediately saw two sacs. Twins? My husband didn’t know what he was looking at, so he didn’t realize until the doctor said it out loud. We both started crying and saw both little heartbeats flicker on the screen. We joked we were going to get our money’s worth from IVF by getting two babies for the price of one. I never thought a miscarriage would happen again. I was wrong. ‘I’m so sorry, I only see one heartbeat.’ I just had this gut feeling that we would lose the other baby.”
“I was the wrong sex. I kept telling myself the more weight I lost, the better it would get. I just hadn’t lost enough yet. I spent my free time counting calories and thinking up convincing lies if anyone were to ask. I changed who I was before I knew who I was, and I lost any identity I had.”
“My parents comfort me by saying, ‘We will get through this.’ I needed oxygen pumped into my nostrils at all times to breathe. I was afraid I was dying. I’ve seen videos where they interview elderly people on their deathbeds who are asked what they regret in life. Most people regret not having lived passionately, fulfilled and happy. I believed I would be one of them if I didn’t make a change.”
“I struggled to eat because my belly always felt so full. Every day I assumed it would be the day we rush to the hospital, but days went by and somehow, I kept them in. When they pulled out the first baby, it felt like a 5 lb. weight was lifted off my lungs. ‘If you can get out of bed and into a wheelchair, you can go see the babies.’ Challenge accepted.”
“I must’ve been tested for everything under the sun. ‘There’s nothing wrong with you.’ The harder I worked, the more stamina I lost and the weaker I got. They told me it was anxiety. They were doctors. They had to be right. At that point, I’d given up.”
“She was dancing around the facts, and we could tell. She wanted to see if we would scare. He’d run from his previous placement, was failing all of his classes. She had no other place to turn. We asked to FaceTime him. We saw the emptiness in his eyes and the face of a kid who didn’t even know what hope was. He couldn’t make eye contact. His skin was covered with sores, his hands curled and tremored. He was 15. He was ours. He told us the drugs he’d done, the girls he’d been with, and the things he’d seen, and I couldn’t help but see the beginnings of a boy who would leave that past behind.”
“I was invited to a party across the street. There were white rocks on the table. I asked, ‘What is that?’ They asked me if I wanted to try it. The second it went into my body, I was already addicted. In the middle of winter, I walked down the street with no shoes as blood ran down my legs. After ONE HIT, I went from start athlete to sticking needles in my arms in abandoned apartment buildings. I sold my body, my soul, and everything for the next one.”