“He is biting me again!’ She turned around and pushed him and yelled, ‘YOU CAN’T BITE HER!”
‘She started breaking into my room, forcing her way in, terrifying me. I was yelling at her to leave me alone, asking her, ‘haven’t I been through enough?’ I saw no way out.’
‘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.”
‘Where is she?!’ There was no time to call for help. With one forceful kick, the lock snapped. I ran around the house, my mind racing. Then, I opened her bedroom door.’
“My body was in complete panic. A high-pitched ring pierced my ears. I held her in my arms. This wasn’t part of the plan. This was supposed to be her fresh start.”
‘I said I was going to the lounge. ‘I’ll be back .’ I took about 10 steps. That’s when I heard. Heavy footsteps. Then they sped up.’: Woman survives attack, reminds people to ‘be smart, be safe’
“His arms wrapped around me and he started pulling me into an unlocked maintenance room. This man thought he killed me, but he failed. How do you explain to your kids, ‘Mommy is coming home, but I don’t look like myself?'”
‘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.”
‘The intensity of our fights made me think he loved me. We’d break up, get back together. I was addicted to chaos. When he returned from Iraq, he said, ‘Bad news. You’re both going to jail.’
“I saw his eyes change and I knew I was in trouble. My jaw dropped. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. We figured once we moved, our problem wouldn’t follow us. Turns out, wherever you go, your problems follow you!”
‘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.”
‘In a blink, we sold absolutely everything, put our house on the market. We were DONE with the American dream. The waiting for our kids to grow up, for our house to be paid off.’: Woman urges ‘live fearlessly and chase your dreams’
“We traded our passion for the typical American dream. The house, the yard, the white picket fence. It seemed we’d spent all of our time waiting for retirement age, for the kids to grow up, for the house to be paid off. Among all the waiting, there was no time to bring our beautiful dreams into reality.”