Kerri’s journey proves that family is not something you wait for it’s something you build on purpose, with open hands and an open heart. Kerri is a 31-year-old flight attendant from the Atlanta area who has always known one thing for sure she was meant to be a mom. She and her sisters were raised by a single mother by circumstance, a woman who taught them to stand on their own feet and see a partner as a want, not a need. As a kid, Kerri babysat, worked in daycare, and fell in love with caring for children. By sixteen, she told friends that if she wasn’t on a path to marriage by thirty, she’d have a baby on her own. People laughed. She didn’t.
Her twenties brought some dating and one deeply harmful relationship that left scars. In early 2019 she started seeing someone casually. When she found out she was pregnant that May, she was overjoyed. He wasn’t. He pushed for an abortion; she refused. She told him she would carry the baby with or without him. At eight weeks, she miscarried. The joy flipped to grief, and the questions began. Did she work too much Did she do something wrong Therapy became a weekly lifeline.
By November 2019 she decided it was time to move toward the life she wanted. She searched for a known donor, sifted past the pretenders, and finally found someone serious. Month after month, nothing. In March 2020 her OB ran a full workup. Everything was “normal,” which earned the label unexplained infertility. Clomid for three months did not help. Then, another blow her sister called with happy news of her own pregnancy. Kerri felt anger and heartbreak in the same breath.
Later they repaired the rift and, in a tender twist, their sons would arrive four months apart and become little best friends. She met with fertility clinics over Zoom and chose a doctor at Shady Grove Fertility who felt right. More tests. A plan to try IUI, with IVF on deck if needed. On August 28, 2020, the day of the procedure and her great-grandmother’s birthday, Kerri sat in peace, said her prayers, and spoke her hope out loud. Two weeks later, on September 11, her nurse called with a grin you could hear through the phone. “You’re pregnant.” Kerri cried with relief. The first trimester came with steady worry, but the pregnancy stayed strong.
Four days after her thirty-first birthday, on May 20, she met her son after an emergency C-section. She looked at him and said, “I have been waiting for you.” Everything, at once, felt complete. The rainbow after the storm was real and breathing in her arms. The first weeks were tough recovery plus newborn life is no small climb but she and her baby found their rhythm. What she loves most about being a single mother by choice is simple: she gets every snuggle, every decision, every quiet moment to mother the way she believes is best. She also knows there will be hard questions one day about “traditional” families and fitting in. She plans to answer them with the truth that her son was wanted beyond measure, and his family is built on fierce love and intentional choice.
Kerri does not preach, but she is clear-eyed. The path wasn’t easy. It took therapy, faith, medical science, and a spine of steel to hold onto a dream through loss, diagnosis, and doubt. It also took the community, the doctor who listened, the sister who walked the later months beside her, the coworkers and friends who cheered. She finds it empowering when people step off the script and build the lives they actually want. Marriage and a white picket fence are not the only doorway into parenthood. If another woman asks for her advice, Kerri keeps it short do it. If motherhood is your calling, being single doesn’t disqualify you. It means you are choosing bravely. She believes the SMBC community is full of strong women writing their own stories, and she is proud to be one of them.
