Some parenting firsts are etched into memory.

Our daughter’s first word was “duck” because we went to a park with a duck pond so often. She loved her first day of preschool so much that she wanted to stay when it was time for pickup. I can vividly recall small details from her first birthday party, first airplane trip and first ride on her pink-and-purple Big Wheel tricycle.

A few of these memories crossed my mind as I drove her to the St. Louis County Board of Elections last month. She wore the “Vote” necklace I’d given her for her 18th birthday the week before.

I took a picture of her in line outside the building, and another while she waited inside for her ballot. The election officials clapped when I told them she was a first-timer. When I pulled out my phone to take a picture of her at the ballot box, she rolled her eyes. A poll worker told me to stop and put my phone away.

I waited until she was done to take another picture outside with her “I voted” sticker. I forced her to take a selfie with me in the car. Before we drove home, I told her that no matter what happens going forward, I wanted her to promise to never miss an opportunity to vote in her life.

I wonder if being the child of immigrants makes this responsibility feel so sacred to me. Maybe because I grew up knowing that my parents left behind everything familiar and beloved to them, I have taken each election as a chance to validate that sacrifice. In a country that doesn’t always feel accepting, each time I vote, I am reminded that I belong.

That my voice matters.

I’ll never forget the one time I was denied a ballot. It was more than 20 years ago in an off-cycle election in Missouri. I decided to go to my polling station after work. For whatever reason, I wasn’t on the rolls when they checked for my name, even though I had voted in previous elections. The woman working at that location suggested that I could drive to the county Board of Elections to try to sort it out. But the polls were about to close, and I knew I wouldn’t make it there in time.

I was devastated, walking out without having cast a ballot. It felt like I had been robbed.

The experience did teach me a lesson. Since that day, I’ve always voted first thing in the morning, or in-person absentee if I know I’ll be out of my jurisdiction on Election Day. This year, I double-checked my registration, and that of the two new voters in my household, multiple times.

My husband, who became an American citizen three years ago, has now also voted in his first presidential election. I drove him to the Board of Elections two weeks after he was discharged from the hospital after battling a severe COVID-19 infection. He took his oxygen tank with him, and I took just as many pictures of him in line as I had of my daughter.

I knew more first-time voters in this election than ever before. As I write this, I still don’t know the final outcome from the record-breaking turnout. The only thing we know for sure is that nearly half the country will be bitterly disappointed with however it ends up.

It’s been remarkable to see so many people determined to have their voice heard. But the long lines should also remind us that people should not have to wait for hours to exercise a basic, fundamental right.

I hope that each of those first-time voters felt the same addictive thrill that I did casting my first ballot.

Regardless of outcome, the message endures: You belong. Your voice matters.

Jane was born and raised in a conservative Catholic family in a conservative Midwestern suburb.

Growing up, her working-class parents scrimped to put her and her siblings through private Catholic schools. Jane attended Masses for the unborn, prayed at vigils to end abortion and raised money for pro-life groups. She believed fervently in the messages she was taught.

She was working part-time at a pizza place as a senior in high school when she discovered she was pregnant. Her then-boyfriend disappeared; her mother told her to have the baby, then let a wealthy relative raise the child.

Instead, Jane chose to raise her daughter -- now 17 -- herself.

Jane, now 35, recently wrote about her pregnancy and childbirth experience in a private Facebook group, saying that it had converted her from a “pro-life” Catholic Republican to a pro-choice Democrat. She gave me permission to share a version of that post, along with some clarification she offered during an interview, using her middle name for privacy.

“When I was 17 and pregnant with my daughter, my dad’s insurance did not cover maternity care for a dependent. The state of Missouri considered me legally emancipated because I was pregnant, so I could not get state coverage. I didn’t qualify for Medicaid because my parents ‘made too much’ as a beautician and a union laborer.

“We could not find a single facility to take me in (Missouri’s) St. Charles County. I even walked into Catholic Charities in my school uniform, with my pregnant belly hanging over my plaid skirt, and said to the receptionist, ‘I am pregnant. I don’t have insurance and my parents’ insurance won’t cover me, and I need help.’

“The receptionist looked at me and said: ‘We don’t do that type of charity here.’

“Then, a family friend who was a nun and worked in a hospital system was able to help us get a cash deal for care at St. Joseph Hospital in St. Charles. Thank God for that nun; I don’t know what we would have done otherwise.

“My parents had to pay in cash before every checkup, screening, ultrasound, etc. When it came time for delivery, there wasn’t much cash left.

“The cheapest option was forced on me: vaginal birth, no pain medication, no epidural. I went into labor the day before my 18th birthday.

“Needless to say, childbirth was far too much for me to handle. I was hyperventilating, panicking, begging for it to be over. And that was my first hour. Although I was legally emancipated, the hospital would not let me make my own medical decisions until midnight when I turned 18. When my mom left the room for a few minutes, a nurse rushed me epidural consent forms to sign before she came back.

“It was another 15 hours before I started pushing, and the epidural had worn off. I tore in four places (third-degree lacerations, I was told). Because I didn’t have the money for any more medication, I was sutured without any numbing. Can you imagine? Eighteen years and 16 hours old, pushing out a baby -- tearing and stitching, with full feeling and no medication, in the most sensitive area of your body?

“After I went home from the hospital, I was still uninsured since I was now 18 and not enrolled in full-time school anymore. (I had graduated four months earlier.) I could not see a doctor for follow-up care. A week after giving birth, I returned to working full-time. I got mastitis two weeks postpartum that stopped my milk production and caused excruciating pain. My stitches got so infected, I used a mirror and tweezers to take them out myself and treated it with alcohol.

“Was I in a developing country? Was this the time when America was great? Nope.

“This was all in Missouri in 2003 before the Affordable Care Act.

“If the ACA is repealed, your daughter could suffer the same way.

“This is barbaric.

“To be pro-life is to demand universal healthcare coverage for all.

“To be pro-life is to demand maternity coverage.

“To be pro-life is to demand coverage for dependents to age 26.

“To be pro-life is to demand coverage for preexisting conditions.

“To be pro-life is to demand unrestricted access to birth control.

“All the above is covered by law in the ACA, passed in 2010.

“Guess who wants to repeal it with no real plan in place?”

I’ll answer Jane’s question: the people who call themselves “pro-life.”

Erin Schellert finally decided to have a benign growth removed from her breast last year. As a mom of two young children, she had breastfed for two years each; the growth had become uncomfortable.

After her pre-op ultrasound, the radiologist discovered another small tumor that seemed suspicious. Two weeks prior, she had undergone breast exams that didn’t find anything irregular.

“Let’s just go ahead and check this out,” the radiologist suggested.

The biopsy came back cancerous.

Additional scans showed the breast cancer had spread to the bones in her hip and neck, to her lungs and into her brain. Schellert is a 37-year-old stay-at-home mom in Kirkwood, Missouri, with a 3-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter. Doctors diagnosed her with Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer.

Prior to this diagnosis, she had no serious symptoms other than feeling tired and having a dry cough.

“I thought it was just being a mom in the springtime,” she said. The tumor itself was very small, but the type of breast cancer is aggressive.

Initially, Schellert refused to Google anything about her illness.

“I didn’t want to know how bad things are,” she said. That lasted about a week. The five-year survival stats for her type of breast cancer are around 25% and even lower if it has metastasized into the brain.

She’s determined to beat those odds. She underwent pinpoint radiation and eight rounds of traditional chemotherapy, plus two targeted therapies. She will remain on targeted therapies and treatment for as long as they work. She goes for scans every three months.

“I’m lucky that 15 months out, I’m still on my first line of treatment,” she said. Her brain scans were clear, other tumors had shrunk and some stayed the same. When her body stops responding to this treatment, they’ll move onto the next one.

There is no cure. She joined an online group for women under 40 who have metastatic breast cancer, where the conversation is different from typical breast cancer survivor groups.

“We have no expiration date,” they tell one another. “Don’t let any doctor or Dr. Google tell you how long you have to live.”

But with this positivity and perseverance, there is also preparation.

They talk about the boxes they are making -- the letters they are leaving for children for future birthdays and milestones. Schellert, who loves holiday traditions, even started a journal for her husband with detailed instructions on how to re-create their family traditions -- just in case.

All their plans for summer 2019 were stolen from them by chemo; the pandemic took this past summer.

“This was the summer we were supposed to make up for last summer,” she said. “You have this list of things you want to do and memories you want to make, and we don’t have the opportunity to do it.”

The biggest thing on their list is to take their children to visit all 50 states. Right now, she says they live in three-month increments -- from scan to scan.

This week, her scans told a different story from last time.

They showed progression of the cancer.

“I’ll have the potential to be significantly immunocompromised on my new treatment protocol while entering flu season in the middle of a pandemic,” she texted after she got the news.

She also said the day’s report is why she volunteers for METAvivor, a nonprofit dedicated to increasing awareness of advanced breast cancer and equity in research and patient support. Metastatic breast cancer gets overlooked in the conversation about early detection and survivors.

Schellert is advocating for more research, better treatment and a cure one day. Until then, she is also working on the journals she purchased for each child. She’s organizing them into sections -- one to be read each year on their birthdays, another section for first days of school, a special letter when they turn 16 or when her daughter becomes a mom.

“I want them to know the words I would say if I were there to say them,” she said.