Being a mom doesn’t come with a playbook. No matter how many (or how few) preparations you make, you can still be thrown a curve ball come delivery day. For these nine moms, motherhood may not have been exactly how they pictured it, but their extraordinary tales of strength, perseverance, loss and (most importantly) love, teach us that every journey is different?and that’s okay.
Photo: Roberto Caruso
Christa Couture, 39

Sona, 4 months

The first thing people notice when they meet me is my leg. I lost it to bone cancer when I was 13. I?ve had four pregnancies in total. The first, I chose to terminate in my early 20s because I was in an awful relationship and I didn?t want to be pregnant. The second time I was with my now ex. The pregnancy was normal, but while I was in labour baby Emmett was distressed and swallowed a lot of meconium. The day after he was born, he died. Losing Emmett was heartbreaking but it bonded my ex and I, and we got married. In 2009, our son Ford was born. Diagnosed in utero with a very rare heart defect called hypoplastic left heart syndrome, Ford underwent three open-heart surgeries, a transplant and numerous other surgeries before he died at 14 months. While Emmett?s death had brought us together, Ford?s was more than we could bear. We tried counselling but the grief was overpowering. In 2014, we filed for divorce. I often thought about having another child?it always came up in new relationships. Then, last year, I received an unexpecte...