‘Mommy is sick and needs to go to the doctor.’ I begged them to admit me to a psych ward. ‘You don’t fit the criteria,’ I was told. It was a hard pill to swallow. So, I admitted myself.’: Mom urges ‘it’s totally okay to ask for the damn help’ when struggling with mental illness

“I didn’t know what to expect. I thought, ‘Where am I sleeping? Should my kids come visit? Can I get fresh air?’ I remember feeling like a lab rat. The doors were locked and I needed to be buzzed in and out. One day when eating, I felt a presence. It was him.”

‘I got a call from a strange number. I immediately trembled. Inside I was screaming, ‘Answer the phone! It’s her!’ Then came a voice I’ve waited my whole life to hear. ‘Hello, is this Heather?’

“The floodgates opened and all I could do was cry. I had gone over this conversation in my head a thousand times, but I couldn’t get a single word out. I had so many questions. Up until this point, I kept it a secret from my dad. I was afraid of him getting hurt.”

‘It’s a girl!’ My heart sank. On the way home from my gender reveal, I cried. Hard. I was hoping it was some mistake.’: Woman candidly shares reality of ‘gender disappointment’ after years of mother’s abuse

“‘Wow, she must be shallow to care about the gender of her unborn baby.’ ‘She should just be happy to have a healthy baby!’ ‘How selfish! Some women dream of getting pregnant and can’t!’ Gender disappointment is real. We are afraid to speak about it. We fear judgement.”

‘That wasn’t our baby, and he got to stay with his mama.’: Couple’s failed adoption leads to beautiful open relationship with new birth mom, ‘I never felt a love so strong’

“She was only four months along, I felt my nerves spike. She and I held hands and laid eyes on that sweet boy together for the first time. We both cried and cried. ‘This is the moment our lives change forever,’ she said. He loves and adores her, but that doesn’t make us any less of his parents.”

‘Stop saying adoption rocks. It doesn’t. And there’s a side to it no one wants to talk about.’: Adoptive mom gets real about adoption, ‘It is a beautiful, painful, heartbreaking journey’

“The part where I cried when I couldn’t have children and the doctor told me to ‘man up’ because ‘the world population is too big anyway so just get a dog.’ The part where, despite my best efforts to love my child, she still says, ‘I want my other momma.'”

‘There must be a mistake.’ Our fling turned into something more. My parents claimed they did something ‘wrong’ in raising me.’: LGBT couple marry, conceive baby through IVF, ‘Our hearts couldn’t be fuller!’

“While working together, our ‘fling’ turned into something much more serious. We realized we didn’t want to be without each other. We decided it was time to come out to our families. Until that point, they’d presumed we were just good friends. Laura’s parents were accepting, unfortunately mine were not. In fact, it went as badly as it could have. Laura was not allowed in the house. I was asked to keep the relationship a secret.”

‘The ambulance will be here soon. Want me to go with you?’ He was a stranger, all alone, with a bloody gash above his eyes.’: Woman finds man of her dreams in ‘random chance meeting’

“The EMT arrived. ‘You don’t know him, do you?’ I felt totally called out! ‘Well, he’s cute. Maybe you’ll get his number.’ As we chatted, his deep dimples began to show. Once I knew he’d be okay, I checked him out a little more. ‘Okay, he looks kinda tall lying on that stretcher.’ I thought I was helping a stranger. Turns out I was setting myself up to fall deeply in love with the man of my dreams.”

‘I was 17, in love with a dad twice my age, and preparing my son’s autopsy.’: Teen mom loses son to SIDS, re-discovers herself after ‘flailing through life in destruction mode’ for decades

“The clock reads 5:36. I hear him yell. Blood is trickling from his mouth. Shock. Fear. Confusion. Put him in the car. Stop. No time. He’s not breathing. Cry. Scream. Beg him to breathe. The police are here to question us. Why aren’t they doing anything? It’s too late. We have to plan a funeral. Shortly after, my relationship ends. The burden of a dead baby is too much. I fall asleep crying on my son’s grave frequently. I cannot breathe. I am a disaster trying to maintain normalcy.”

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