“Today my son woke up to birthday presents. Right away, he gave out his chocolate to his siblings and his mommy and daddy. Next, he gave his sisters a balloon for their bedroom. We have never FORCED them to share. We’ve just always modeled it.”
‘I heard him say to his sister Ellie, ‘I’m going to save these for you. We can all have chocolate for my birthday!’ I swelled with pride.’: Mom explains why teaching kids to share is a ‘priority’
‘Get off the frontline, you aren’t a hero.’ I wasn’t supposed to be seeing COVID patients at 8 months pregnant.’: Physician Assistant fights COVID-19 during 3rd trimester
“I heard, ‘You are a bad mother.’ ‘You’re putting your child’s life at risk.’ It is heavy, it’s raw, and it leaves us feeling incredibly vulnerable. There is no place for shame in motherhood.”
‘Will you take a 2-year-old little girl?’ I didn’t sign up to foster 5 kids under 5!’: Single mom adopts 5 kids from foster care, ‘Once I saw their faces, I couldn’t say no’
“‘First comes love, then comes marriage and then comes a baby in the baby carriage.’ But what if you can’t get to love?! There I was, 38 years old with no man in sight. It was time to stop waiting for Mr. Right. It was time to take action.”
‘He hugged me tightly. ‘Mommy, I’m so happy. I hope school never opens. I don’t want to see my bully ever again.’: Mom says ‘let us return to school changed and kinder’
“We’d been dealing with his bully on and off for 2 months to no avail. My eyes filled with tears. He hugged me even tighter. ‘I don’t want to see my bully ever again. I love being safe at home with you.’”
‘My boss said, ‘You’re a liability due to your health issues.’ I felt like I’d lost my purpose. I didn’t think I’d make it.’: Child abuse survivor, chronic illness warrior births child with down syndrome, ‘I WILL be the mother my kids deserve’
“We were told, ‘Your daughter has Down syndrome and will need heart surgery.’ I was urged to have an abortion, due to my own health issues. Everyone doubted my ability to be a mother to a special needs child. I was determined to prove everyone wrong.”
‘Go home and rest. It appears there is nothing we can do to prevent this.’ I look over at my husband and his face breaks me.’: Mom adopts after infertility battle, ‘He chose us, he set us aside to be parents’
“Every time I saw some pregnant woman smoking a cigarette… I questioned how in the world he could be giving all of these women these babies and they can’t even take care of them? It hit me like a semi-truck. They fulfilled us and completed our lives.”
‘Ezra is sick and I can’t get to him!’ We sat in tears while they operated on him in front of us.’: Mom loses baby to Congenital Leukemia, ‘He worked so hard to make sure we got to meet him’
“The doctor explained, ‘Ezra has bleeding on the brain that we can’t stop.’ We were told they believed the kindest thing to do was to turn his life support machine off. She asked me so many questions about what I did during my pregnancy, as if something I had done may have caused it.”
‘Before quarantine, people said, ‘I don’t know how military families do it.’ Well…now most of the world knows how it’s done.’: Military spouses share words of wisdom for quarantined families
“You can’t see your family. All holidays are cancelled. You miss saying goodbye to a person when they die. Here’s a plan. No, scratch that, this is the plan. Wait, that’s changing. This is the plan. Yes, this is it. You will be stronger at the end of this journey.”
‘She is moving mountains, even when she loses her footing. She will never forget the pain of fatigue, but she’ll find herself aching to breathe in those cuddles again.’: Mom urges ‘you are enough’
“If I could go back, I’d tell her she’ll have alone time again, but it will feel like two hearts wandering in different directions. I’d tell her the memories she’ll lose herself in won’t just be the milestones, but those long nights. That a love like this is a silent language that speaks volumes.”
‘They said I mishandled the baby. All the blame came to me. She was met with 18 fractures and a brain hemorrhage.’: Mom of child with Osteogenesis imperfecta says ‘I won’t give up’
“She keeps on crying in devastating fear of breaking. But the smile on my little fighter’s face always pulls me up. Her twinkling eyes always said, ‘Yes mommy! I can do it.’ My husband and I were blank and confused.”