“I began experiencing crippling panic attacks. I started drinking heavily. I had fallen into a deep depression. I didn’t have any coping skills, and ended up turning to food.”
‘My mother committed suicide the summer before I turned fifteen. The pain was too much to face, so I tried burying it.’
“I fell down the stairs while carrying my son to bed. He had to be life-flighted to Children’s Hospital with a fractured skull. That was the beginning of my rock bottom.”
“I was doing great, two weeks away from having full custody granted to me, and then I relapsed. I drank for the next 20 days.”
‘It is unbelievable. We had one little miracle – then we had four more!’
“To think we thought we could never have children – and now we are outnumbered by five, is crazy. Even more miraculous still is that doctors advised us to terminate the pregnancy.”
‘I would have to carry my baby girl until she passed away in the womb. Our world stood still.’
“Our journey has been the absolute hardest we will ever endure. Not one single day goes by where she is not on my mind.”
‘Dad starts crying and asks for me to walk away’: Garbage man’s act of kindness for man with Alzheimer’s leaves daughter unable to ‘stop the tears’
“I’m trying everything in my power to stop the tears and gain my composure. Then I look back and see Harold on his knees next to my father sitting in the chair, and there was no stopping the crying at this point.”
‘I couldn’t do it anymore. I didn’t want to die. My son needed me.’ Single mom ‘didn’t choose to be an alcoholic’
“One glass of wine after work turned into three. Then turned into taking shots of vodka before work, going to get vodka on my lunch break, and driving home at night to have more alcohol.”
‘I was on drugs, depressed, and close to a divorce. I had gone a month without bathing or brushing my hair’: Pill addicted mom overcomes personal demons to care for autistic son
“I started taking up to 30 Lortabs a day. Yes, 30. I was hooked on pills, and I was going to the methadone clinic every day. I hated it. I was a slave.”
‘As we entered our street, the driver said, ‘Which house is it?’ Then he stopped mid-sentence. ‘Oh… never mind, you’ve got quite a crowd waiting.’’
“I looked out the ambulance window and started bawling as I saw the crowd so excitedly yelling for Ellie. I couldn’t help but think about heaven, and how I could taste a small glimpse of what it will be like.”
‘I’m the lady with the dead baby. It’s okay, I’m allowed to be so blunt because it’s my truth.’
“One day my baby was living and the next day she died. That is what happened. It doesn’t offend me if you acknowledge this. It offends me when you don’t.”
‘So when are you due?’ I got asked the words that every woman dreads when she is not pregnant’
“Not due for my period, not due for a poo, not due for the promotion… when am I due to have my baby? That’s what she meant.”
