“‘Wow, she’s gained weight! She could use a little help. Is she even trying?’ You scroll through your feed and see SO MANY girls who are so much prettier than you. They have so many better options.”
‘My girl is nice, but if only I could have THAT! Why would anyone choose you?’: Woman pens self-love letter, ‘If you want love, you’ve got to love yourself first’
‘I took him to the ER. His circumcision didn’t look to be healing right. We had a gut feeling something was wrong.’: Parents perplexed after newborn’s near-death scare, ‘He’s a fighter’
“His temperature wouldn’t come above 95 degrees. The doctor said it was ‘fine’ and set to discharge us with a prescription for antibiotic cream. We had a gut feeling something was wrong. The doctor was white as a sheet. ‘This test can’t be right.’ Life stopped when he was 5 days old.”
‘I was told recently that I had ‘let myself go.’ I gave birth 18 months ago. My body is not an apology.’: Mom responds to body shamers, ‘Wear the sweatpants and the yoga pants and let yourself go!’
“I’ve gained some weight, my eyebrows are shaggy, and I’ve got a couple of chin hairs. And I won’t apologize for it.”
‘She was a ticking time bomb. ’Was this my fault? It could be the last time we’d see her.’: 4-month-old with Williams Syndrome survives open heart surgery, ‘She is our perfect daughter’
“I still had the ‘it won’t happen to me’ mentality. When I saw the cardiologist’s number pop up on the phone, I started sweating. For 10 hours, my husband and I sat in the parking garage of the hospital, crying.”
‘This is not just about me. HIS BABY DIED, TOO.’ They dismiss or ignore his grief.’: Woman reminds us dads also need support after losing child, ‘He, too, needs to heal’
“Martin lost the opportunity to teach Sage how to lace a glove or how to properly stand at home plate. Everything he could have done with Sage, or for Sage. He lost all of that.”
‘My body failed me. Betrayed me in the worst way. I wanted it to be a mistake.’: Woman’s first pregnancy results in miscarriage, ‘I’m not going to give up on becoming a mom’
“My husband and I needed to be together, but not at home. Not at the home where we were going to raise our first child together. Where we had the room picked out for the nursery. The home that had every ultrasound image plastered on the fridge.”
‘The nurse said, ‘This poor baby just needs something to eat!’ I knew there was something else going on.’: Woman loses preemie daughter to infection, ‘We have continued to celebrate our girl’
“They had to poke her AGAIN for more blood because they must have mixed up her blood with someone else’s. ‘That couldn’t have been hers,’ the doctor said, ‘she’s not that sick.’ The blood tests came back with the same terrifying results. Our girl was very sick.”
‘His heart kept stopping. It was as though I was adrift at sea, waiting for a life vest.’: Mom births baby with Down syndrome who has open heart surgery, ‘I’ll spend the rest of my life shouting his worth from the rooftops’
“The first 36 hours of my son’s life were some of the worst of mine. I wanted to turn back the clock and return back to my normal life. In that hospital room, it felt as though nothing would ever feel normal again.”
’I woke up hanging from my seat belt. ‘Can you move your legs?’ They hung like dead meat.’: Woman paralyzed from car accident, ‘My mind, soul, and spirit remained untouched’
“My last thought before losing consciousness was that I had killed the car full of people, and those people were my family.”
‘Come on,’ we whispered, willing life into our soundless baby. We took lessons on bringing him home to die.’: Woman loses son to sepsis, ‘Grief taught me the enormity of love’
“First came silence, then fear. We watched helplessly as the nurse administered oxygen. We attempted to rock our baby into heaven. But life had another plan. Now I understand why it’s called The Miracle of Life.”