“At that moment, I was not his. That was a feeling I never want to feel again. A partial hysterectomy ended my childbearing years. The days seemed to drift by with dark clouds hiding the bit of sunshine left in my life.”
‘It was bottle after bottle. After 32 years of marriage you would think he would have walked away because he had every reason to.’
‘I looked at my daughter standing beside me. You could see the fear in her eyes. No one was talking. I finally yelled out ‘HELLO!’
“I kept thinking, ‘I just have to make it to the hospital, I just need to make it to the hospital.’ Her coloring was terrible. I entered the door carrying my limp daughter.”
‘The police said, ‘If she gets caught using drugs, THEN it’s our problem.’ My sister was missing and vulnerable. I just wanted her back.’: Woman searches 20 years for addicted sister, ‘In looking for her, I lost myself’
“I heard my mother shout, ‘Your sister is missing! We have no idea where she is!’ I got on the next plane, determined to find her myself. Because of her mental state and drug addiction, it didn’t seem to matter to others. We were told, ‘Maybe she doesn’t want to be found.’”
‘Snip snip, Hooray! We have some exciting news. I brought up the vasectomy, and knew we had to have a party.’
“I think that’s all my husband thought I had planned, but little did he know!”
‘I have a 16-day-old baby girl in the NICU ready to be discharged.’ We fell head over heels in love.’: After battling infertility and infant loss, couple adopts their ‘forever daughter’
“We received a call from our agency. ‘She will need an adoptive home if the placement falls through.’ We had agreed we would not take another infant. NO WAY would we put ourselves in a situation to experience infant loss… AGAIN. We were in awe of this little bundle that God was entrusting us with, for however much time he had planned.”
‘Are you prepared to take care of someone with an EXTREME disability?,’ she asked while practically rolling her eyes. It wasn’t a question. It was more of an accusation.’
“His head was shaped differently, his ears were low set and he had an extra thumb on his hand. ‘Did anybody see this?,’ I asked. My midwife nodded.”
‘Colds, ear aches, CONSTIPATION! Have you ever pulled a hard log out of a babies’ bum with your bare hands? I have. I’ve seen the devil, my friends. It was ugly.’
“Your child is power vomiting all over you and you’re trying to catch it like a baseball. And God forbid any of that makes you tired, GOD FORBID! Because Sensible Susan will start giving you her ‘be grateful’ advice.”
‘Test after test doctors would tell us ‘it came back normal.’ How? Why are they coming back normal? My son seems to be getting worse, NOT better.’
“I thought to myself, ‘How long has he had this? Was it something I did?’ I had so many questions. To this day, most of my questions still haven’t been answered.”
‘He said he ‘knew what I had done.’ My clothes were all thrown on the floor. My boyfriend was kicking me out.’: Woman escapes abusive ex with bi-polar disorder
“I asked her what was wrong. She told me she didn’t know how to tell me, but I should probably get home as soon as I could. My boyfriend had called her to let her know he was throwing out all my stuff and kicking me out. ‘Why?!,’ I asked her crying. My boyfriend yelled at me, saying I needed to get my (explicit) out of there now.”
‘This pregnancy was different. I thought it was because there was just one baby. Our son came into this world completely in his sac. Looking back, I should have known something wasn’t right.’
“There is a term in nursing ‘Wimpy white boy,’ that refers to little white boy babies. They have a tendency not to do well in situations such as this. At 2 a.m. I had woken up and my oldest twin was facing me. I felt peace in that moment, and I knew right then I would have a baby that day.”