At thirty-nine, Martha López is a name everyone in her small Arizona town knows—sometimes whispered, sometimes admired. With twenty children from twenty different fathers—and one more on the way—her life is extraordinary, messy, loud, and fiercely full of love.
“I don’t apologize for who I am,” Martha says with a shrug. “Life doesn’t follow plans. It just happens, and you do your best.”
Her story began far from Tucson, in a poor New Mexico neighborhood. The oldest of five, Martha dropped out of high school at sixteen to help care for her siblings. By seventeen, she was a mother herself. Her first child’s father left before the birth. “I was barely ready myself,” she admits.
Over the years, relationships came and went. Each time, Martha believed it would be different. “I wanted what my mom never had,” she says. “A family that stayed together. But people change—or show their true colors when it’s too late.”
Today, her twenty children range from toddlers to young adults. The oldest, Luis, works in Phoenix and sends money home. The youngest, little Camila, just turned two. Her home—a sprawling four-bedroom rental—buzzes with activity. Bunk beds line the walls, the backyard doubles as a playground, and every meal is a production: boiling three pots of pasta, scrambling twenty eggs, and keeping up with lunch bags and school schedules.
Continue reading on next page…