“As I threw the rock into the river, I said, ‘I forgive you,’ letting go of all the pain and resentment I had been carrying. Don’t get me wrong… the people who abused me in my past, who were supposed to care for me and protect me, did NOT deserve my forgiveness.”
‘My mother and stepdad sent me with a strange man in the middle of the night. ‘Was I traded for drugs?’ I was ten years old.’: Woman overcomes childhood trauma and rape, ‘I learned the power of letting go’
‘I still reach for him in bed. I still think I hear him coming in from work. I have to force myself to live.’: Widow suffering from PTSD says, ‘I can hear him telling me to get back up and fight’
“My anxiety hit a fever pitch. Yesterday, my child was happily climbing on rocks and pretending to be a cat with her friend by the water. I couldn’t shake the feeling something bad was going to happen. I was shaking out of my skin.”
‘When we finally kissed, I sat sobbing in my car. I hit rock bottom and lost everything. I needed to work on myself.’: Woman finds her happily ever after, ’The love you deserve will come to you when you’re ready’’
“Our paths crossed several more times over the next eight years but we were never ‘available’ at the same time. I hit my ‘rock bottom.’ Then, just before my 30th birthday, we reconnected once more.”
‘You’ll sit with your midwife and calmly place your order. ‘A 2-hour water birth, please,’ you’ll say, smiling toward her. The big day arrives, they’ve messed your order up, bad.’: Mom laughs at the reality of motherhood
“You realize you can’t shove them back in your womb, And there are no refunds allowed, so you gotta face up to your doom. Mother to mother, if I had to say one thing, it would be ‘buckle-up tight and stock up on the gin.”
‘We were certain this goat wouldn’t make it through the night. ‘Momma, I know it sounds silly, but I prayed for her.’ You can imagine my face when the goat stood up.’: Mom is reminded to ‘trust in the little things’
“One of our little goats was attacked by a dog. This goat kept getting out of the pasture, no matter how many times we put her back. Well, Saturday night, we weren’t fast enough.”
‘As I prepared to tell her sisters she was no longer with us, I heard a bird chirping. I’ve heard that bird every day since.’: Bereaved mom ‘finds comfort’ in signs left by daughter
“Someone who has been down our same road of losing a child said, ‘We believe our angel comes back as a dragonfly. It had me thinking about what Kinsley would come back as. Never in a million years would I have thought a damn bird.”
‘I threw plates across the kitchen, and threatened to hurt my sister. ‘Accept that you’re never going to get better.’: Anorexia survivor says ‘recovery can only come from within’
“At my weekly doctor’s appointment, I could no longer hold the manipulation and I peed all over the scale. It was the most extreme weight manipulation my doctor said she had ever seen, and again, I was forced into treatment.”
‘You can go home now.’ How could I leave him? I felt as if a black cloud surrounded us.’: Couple’s last baby born with Down syndrome, ‘Our precious bonus child is a gift’
“All I wanted was to run down the hall to the NICU, scoop my baby up, and run away. Away from all the seemingly bad news. I didn’t want to know any more.”
‘How are you holding up?’ I gripped the steering wheel, my eyes so blurry I couldn’t see the road. She isn’t a friend I talk with often, but she’s a friend who asks the tough questions, and then just shuts up.’: Woman thankful for true friend during hardships
“My mom had just been diagnosed with advanced cancer, and I was also busy caring for a newborn along with a potty-training two-year-old. ‘How are you REALLY holding up?’ She gave me THE LOOK—you know, the ‘don’t BS with me’ look.”
‘Today I wore a mask to Target with lipstick underneath. It’s automatic, and I keep forgetting about the mask.’: Woman says she is wearing a mask to protect others, ‘It is not living in fear, it is siding with science’
“No one could see my really cute lipstick I just applied before I put my mask. I was hot. I was uncomfortable. My glasses were foggy. You do you’ is really no way to plow through a pandemic.”
‘It started with sharp stomach pains. Two days later, I was hunched over, trying to catch my breath. My body felt like I’d ran a marathon.’: 21-year-old nurse recovering from COVID-19 urges ‘nobody is too young’
“When I arrived at the ER, that’s when things started to get critical. It’s like my body knew I was finally in the right place, in the right care, and it could stop fighting. My lips and turned blue and my oxygen dropped. I couldn’t stand up any longer. Both lungs revealed patches where COVID-19 was present.”
‘I was told my chances of getting pregnant were 15%. To this, I took the Pee Wee Herman approach of ‘LA-LA-LA-LA I can’t hear you.’: Woman gives advice for those struggling with infertility, ‘Know your options’
“You probably spent your whole life trying to NOT get pregnant. Taking the pill, using condoms, panicking when your period was a few days late, taking a pregnancy test with your girlfriends and praying you wouldn’t see two pink lines. Now here you are, desperately hoping.”
‘Jack was screaming for over 10 hours, no tears. ‘Did you forget how to hold a baby?’ The nurse took him out of my arms.’: Mom advocates for son with rare epilepsy after multiple misdiagnoses
“A tight smile on my face and a pang in my heart, I joked along, but something felt off. His painful cries stopped, and his little body became rigid with eyes that would no longer focus. I was done trying to not be the overly sensitive mom – it was time to sound some alarms. After only knowing our son for 5 short days, he was taken away on a helicopter in critical condition.”
Why My Door Will Always Be Open For My Mother-In-Law
“As far as I was aware, you hadn’t lost your ability to be an amazing nanna to them overnight.”
‘I recently reached out to a medium who told me I was in a ‘religious cult’ in my past lives, forced to have kids.’: Mom details experience with medium, ‘My whole life finally made sense’
“From the very beginning, the past lives that were popping up were me in religious cults or groups. I was hooked! I needed to know more about this whole reincarnation thing. Call me crazy!”
‘TikTok people are making fun of kids like my six-year-old son, and I am not okay with it. It completely devastates me.’: Mom of autistic child reacts to TikTok bullying, ‘We need to do better’
“They are at home making videos about how people like my son move, jump, flap, bounce and dance to express themselves. We are supposed to laugh and be entertained? Well, we are not.”
It’s Never Too Late To Find A Partner Who Appreciates You
“Tonight, my boyfriend said ‘thank you for cooking’ after I put frozen chicken strips in the oven.”
‘She decided at 5 a.m. that she wanted eggs. I was ready to snap. ‘Well if you can’t hack it then you shouldn’t have had kids.’: Mom suffering from sleep deprivation says ‘it’s okay for a mom to say she’s struggling’
“Mothers all over the world are literally being tortured. And I guess when you ask or complain about it, you’re met with, ‘Well if you can’t hack it then you shouldn’t have had kids.’ I mean calm down Betty.”
‘Where did this come from?’ My mom will stop at nothing to get ‘the mom bag’ to me.’: Woman says ‘no pandemic can silence a mother’s love’
“I glanced in the backseat and saw a grocery bag on the floor that hadn’t been there before. There’s never anything in ‘the mom bag’ that would look valuable to an outsider. But I know its worth. It speaks of mothering that does not end.”
How COVID-19 Robbed Me Of A Positive Pregnancy
“I had my first COVID pregnancy breakdown yesterday.”
‘Today should have been my daughter’s recital, but instead, she and her friends decided to make the most of it.’: Dance mom in awe, ‘They remembered to celebrate what matters most’
“I should have been waking up early to apply her makeup and put her hair into a dancer’s bun. Instead of staying home and being sad, they banned together, grabbed their costumes, and danced the day through from a distance.”
‘I’m sorry, she is non-viable.’ Daddy held her so very close, tears in his eyes. He knew it was time. She gave us 60 minutes in pure heaven.’: Mom loses newborn to Bilateral MCDK, ‘She taught us nothing but pure love’
“I remember the drive to the hospital, telling Jose I wasn’t ready, that I couldn’t do this, and just crying. He grabbed my hand and told me, ‘Baby, no matter what happens today, no matter how long or short her life is, she will know if nothing else LOVE.’ Scared and shaking, I received her on my chest. Our 60 minutes in heaven started.”
‘There was no sugar-coating it. Her brain was bleeding. We we warned, ‘She may end up blind, deaf, or mute.’: Daughter born with hydrocephalus, ‘I find joy in every single second’
“She’s had 100 brain surgeries. I’ve sat alone in a waiting room in the middle of the night after signing consent forms for emergency surgery, not knowing how she was going to be when she made it out. If she made it out. But it’s obvious she’s not giving up.”
‘She anonymously set up a safety net of basics for a single mother. The seed blossomed and sprouted into another.’: Woman teaches the importance of ‘planting good’ during pandemic
“My friend shared that she was inspired on her way home from her essential job one day. She emphasized she used the word ‘inspired’ intentionally because the train of thought just appeared to her like a gift.”
‘This was not the motherhood you had planned for, but it won’t be any less. It will be more.’: Woman pens letter to the ‘mom who didn’t get a healthy one’
“You didn’t get the ‘healthy one.’ But still, you hold up your head, move forward, and smile. You never back down. Your motherhood was not the way that you planned. But today you love more—and stronger you stand.”