I gave birth to my daughter completely alone — and only hours later, my mother sent me a text saying, “Your sister’s kids need new phones. Send $2,000.” I said not
I gave birth to my daughter alone on a gray Thursday afternoon inside Oak Ridge Military Medical Center while fluorescent lights hummed endlessly overhead. My husband Caleb was stationed nearly a thousand miles away on a mandatory training assignment he had no permission to leave, so there was no dramatic family moment waiting for me in the delivery room. No comforting hand to hold, no relatives gathered nearby, just exhausted nurses rotating through shifts and fourteen brutal hours of labor before they finally placed my baby girl against my chest.
I named her Hazel.
Continue on the next page:
