“‘Stay with us Katie, stay with us.’ I either had the option of being victim to my trauma or I had to stare at it head on, whatever that meant. I trusted her. I had to put on my big girl panties and fiercely bring light to my inside compass. At a ripe 19-years-old, I wasn’t expecting to be fighting for my life, especially at a random house party.”
‘What’s going on, dear?’ Weeping, I shamefully got in the front seat. The veins in my neck bulging like a hose.’: Woman living in ‘epic bliss’ after overcoming extreme PTSD, ‘I transformed from victim to viking’
‘Every doctor told me, ‘He will be brain damaged. We just have to see how much.’ They wanted to put me under, but I said, ‘If I am put under, I will never wake up.’
“Something felt ‘off.’ She noticed the same thing. Then, things moved quickly. They had never seen this happen.”
‘The mother left them like this. Our 3-year-old Lily looks up at me longingly. ‘Mommy, can baby stay?’: Family founds children’s hospital to help orphans
“’How old is he?’ I asked. ‘More than 4,’ the relative said quietly. ‘Months?’ I asked. ‘No, 4 years,’ he clarified. ‘This is his twin sister,’ he said pointing to Selena. There were no shoes, socks, or undergarments. I pressed him against my body, attempting to cover him as best I could as we passed the crowds of school children on the street.”
‘He looks at me. ‘What’s wrong?’ I respond, ‘I’ve been punched by your son and your daughter has done a massive poop in the bath.’: Mom recounts funny ‘stay at home mom’ instance
“He hands me a paper towel. I mean dude, what the hell am I gonna do with a paper towel? Dry the poop? Soak the bath water?”
‘Don’t worry, you’re young and have plenty of time,’ is what a complete stranger said to me at work. He asked me how many kids I had. ‘None yet!’
“I’ve gotten the ‘Why did you rush into marriage?’ question, because I was married at 22 years old. But being young isn’t doing me any favors.”
‘You can’t do this. You’re 27.’ My husband was untraceable. I couldn’t divorce a man I couldn’t find.’: Woman marries divorce lawyer who comforted her in aftermath of domestic abuse
“I wasn’t like him. He was a prestigious lawyer, while I was a beaten, broken, and utterly lost human being. I’d lost all of my future at the altar 8 years earlier. I didn’t say anything as I tried to choke back the tears. Eventually he said, ‘let me help you,’ breaking the silence, and branding the words onto my heart.”
‘I awoke to no vision in my right eye. I was sitting on a lobby floor, half dressed, my friend begging me to stand up.’: Woman overcomes decades of alcohol abuse, now nearly 2 years sober
“I woke up handcuffed to a hospital bed covered in my own vomit, dirt and mud caked in my ears and under my perfectly manicured acrylic nails, having no idea where I was, how I got there, or what was next. Thank God it was a hospital where law enforcement had arrested me and not in some stranger’s basement.”
‘My husband left. My son was homeless. My daughter swallowed 160 pills, and my baby would likely be stillborn.’: Woman details surviving ‘massive ball of horror’
“The next morning, I awoke in our empty bed and reality came crashing down around me. I completely shattered. It had been almost a year since I walked out on our back deck and breathed in the gorgeous fragrance of the fruit trees in full bloom, felt the warm sun on my skin, and took a big, deep breath as my heart swelled with gratitude. Now, my life felt unsurvivable.”
‘I went to the ER expecting to find out I was anemic, get treatment and be good to go. Instead, I got that diagnosis. Our worlds were turned upside down.’
“We are almost completely out of milk for her. I am continuing my fight daily in hopes I’m able to watch all of my children grow up, and grow old myself with my husband.”
‘Years after meeting my now husband, I got a call from my father’s new wife. ‘Mommy, are you crying?’ I think she’s on to me.’
“I didn’t need him in my life. ‘We can make it on our own,’ she would say. And I did, for so many years. Then, in early July, he called.”
‘We should talk delivery options.’ My response? ‘Um, excuse me?’ My husband’s phone got the call at 10:53.’: Active-duty Army woman gives birth unexpectedly while on vacation
“We were vacationing in Florida. My husband and I are both active-duty Army. I was 35 weeks pregnant when we flew for one last vacation as a family of 3. I had fallen forward on my belly. I was placed on a gurney, in full uniform, and wheeled through the ER. Little did we know, our little man was about to make a big entrance!”
‘I gave my 10-year-old a math test. He spent nearly an hour on it. He worked each problem with intense concentration.’: Mom urges ‘children are so much more than the box we try to mold them into’
“And then, with a deep breath, he handed it to me to be graded. I quickly worked my way through the test and calculated his score. Immediately his eyes filled with tears.”
‘Stop pushing!,’ my doctor said. ‘No time to wait. His heart rate keeps dropping with every push, I cannot let this keep happening.’
“The epidural I was given hours ago never worked, I was feeling every intense pain throughout my labor. I clung to his words.”
‘The doctor has my husband bend over, takes one look and says the words you don’t EVER want to hear. WHAT HAS HAPPENED? We were hiking just weeks ago.’: Woman shocked by husband’s cancer diagnosis, ‘We were so in love’
“We came home and I made him scrambled eggs and toast for dinner. He fell asleep on the chair. About 8:30 or so, I thought WOW he’s been asleep for a while now, and I tried to wake him up.”
‘I’ll never forget walking into the hospital on a cold January night, preparing to give birth for the second time. The nurses buzzed me through the doors, but the atmosphere was anything but celebratory.’
“Strength was required to face the inevitable questions of ‘is this your first pregnancy?’ Or, ‘how many children do you have?’”
‘She’s too confident,’ they whisper to each other. If only they knew she leads with self-assurance to overcome her debilitating self-doubt and social anxiety.’
“‘She’s too unkempt. Kids are not an excuse for looking so ragged,’ they added. ‘She talks and shares her opinion too much.'”
‘Just as I was attempting to fall asleep, I heard my oldest son whimpering in his room. This is so unusual that I raced down the hallway to check on him.’
“I cried a little bit thinking about my dad and how much I miss him and wish he were here. I fell asleep for a bit, but a weird dream jolted me awake. There were some creaks. Then, there was silence.”
‘Nothing prepared me for my wife’s cesarean. NOTHING. Birth was the most frightening thing I’d ever seen.’: Husband praises ‘stoic, strong, powerful, dedicated’ wife for ‘bringing children into the world’
“Reaching from a gaping hole in my beautiful wife’s stomach was the head of a bloody, powder white, child-like creature. I recall Mel lying naked in front of the doctors; her stomach like a deflated balloon. But nothing shocked me as much as the next day. She was the most badass person I knew.”
‘I go from loving him to hating his guts over a period of 24 hours. I never thought that would ever happen to us. Ever.’: Wife talks ‘seeing the bright side’ in your marriage and falling back in love
“Some people say they loved each other MORE after having children. I think that’s surely got to be a crock.”
‘When people ask me why I would ever do something like this, I have a simple answer – ‘I have a uterus, it works, I’m not using it, so why not let someone else who doesn’t have that same ability?’
“I was supposed to be the one to bring them fertility, and yet here we were, almost a year later and nothing.”
‘We heard this loud, echoing bang above us in the bathroom. Thirty seconds later, this scream came from upstairs. I can still hear it to this day. There she was, on the bathroom floor.’
“My best friend entered before me. She begged me not to come in. I did anyways – I had to see for myself. All of her shoes were neatly lined up next to the foot of the bed. Her clothes were hung up, and her beauty products were organized.”
‘I was starting to look pregnant, my boobs were huge, and I welcomed the nausea. The image appeared on the screen. I looked intently and finally asked, ‘where’s the heartbeat?!’
“I started laughing, mostly because it couldn’t possibly be true – I felt pregnant, I looked pregnant, and a week before, things were fine. I began sobbing.”
‘Before the doctor punctured my belly, my husband looked to me. ‘Do you wanna know?’ My fairytale pregnancy was being ripped apart.’: Mom’s devastation over shocking Lymphatic Malformation diagnosis leads to ‘pure bliss’
“I had no clue what to feel. I was so devastated that something was wrong with our perfect little baby. The only thing running through my mind was, ‘Please don’t take my baby.’ I never once cried seeing how severe his malformation was. I just kept thinking, ‘That that’s my baby boy. I was so in love.’”
‘She told me I ‘look like a damn banana’ and needed to go to the ER right away. I had been fighting horrible flu-like symptoms for almost a week leading up to this.’
“They sent me home with strict orders not to take my birth control anymore. I wish I had known this was possible. I met with the doctor and got the scariest news of my life.”
‘I was standing in line. An older gentleman said, ‘Why are you wearing that rainbow shirt? Are you some sort of fa***t?’: Man encounters homophobia for wearing rainbow shirt
“This man then goes on to mumble homophobic slurs to me, the whole time I’m waiting in line. I ignore him, pay for my food, and start to walk away. I then notice his card gets declined.”