Sad
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‘She put her tiny hand around my finger. We said our hellos, then we said our goodbyes. ‘It’s okay, mama. It’s going to be okay.’ It wasn’t.’: Woman terminates pregnancy after lethal Trisonomy 13 diagnosis, vows to to ‘carry her with us for the rest of our lives’
“I remember the phone call as clear as day. I was home, and our daughter was playing in her room. The phone rang. We were told that our baby did not have Down Syndrome. There was a ‘but’ at the end of the sentence. Then the tears came. Loud obnoxious tears. I hung up the phone and cried as hard as I ever have. She wasn’t going to live.”
‘I was 15, pregnant. My principal looked at me. ‘Your mom didn’t graduate. Your dad didn’t graduate. Just drop out.’ I never felt more hopeless.’ Teen keeps pregnancy against all odds, loses son 18 years later
“The hardest part was telling my mom. She had NO IDEA I was even having sex. My baby daddy would walk by me like he never even knew me. Yet, if I knew then, pregnant at 15, that my child would pass away in a tragic car accident at only 18, would I still have chosen to keep him? The answer is yes. A billion times, YES.”
‘My daughter came home from preschool different. She was biting herself. She stopped speaking, sleeping, playing with toys. I could no longer write it off.’ Mom receives Rett Syndrome diagnosis, told it’s ‘one of the most severe cases’
“I get a call from the geneticist. The call drops 3 separate times. The most important call of our life and I miss it. I sit and wait. My phone rings again. He says, ‘Genetics just confirmed Evie has Rett Syndrome.’ He says, ‘There’s no cure. We can’t change it. You can’t do anything.’ My heart sank. This was serious.”
‘I’ll never forget his words. ‘Shut up. Just let me finish.’ I lay there, weak, my best friend’s hand over my mouth.’ After years of denial, sexual abuse survivor accepts it wasn’t her fault
“There were no warning signs. No grooming. I remember wanting to scream, but not feeling like I could talk, so I made a mumbling noise. I didn’t want my body. I wanted to take it off like a jacket, but I couldn’t. I woke up the next morning with a huge bump on my head, my underwear backwards. I never wanted to be the girl who was raped.”
‘Mom, why did we only get him for 3 years and not for a real, whole life?’: Mom urges parents to know ‘drowning happens, to real people, in seconds’ after son ‘slips away’ to pool 2 floors below
“I asked him for the hundredth time: ‘Do you ever go near the water without me?’ He shook his head adamantly and said: ‘No way, Mama. Then I wouldn’t see you again, and we would be so sad.’ I never imagined these words would come true.”
‘I was called ‘gay’ before I even knew what it meant. I have to be a strong papa to my girls. I can’t let them see I’m hurting.’ Gay father from deep south says he’s just like ‘any other family’, finds confidence after years of bullying
“My cousin called my mom screaming when she found out. ‘How can you be happy for him?!’ In public, we get looked at A LOT. It doesn’t matter if we’re at Olive Garden or Home Depot. It’s hard to turn a blind eye to the glares. As much as I wish I wasn’t bothered by my past, it comes bubbling back up. There’s something that happens to one’s confidence when they grow up in an environment like mine.”
‘As my daughter was giggling, bursting with love in the next room, I was learning she wouldn’t be growing up at all.’ Mom’s 18-month-old daughter diagnosed with ‘Childhood Alzheimer’s’
“The phone rang. I grabbed a notepad, a pen, took a deep breath. How do you prepare yourself to answer a call with the results of whether your 18-month-old daughter is going to die? My mind shut off. All the air left the room. ‘Very serious, no cure yet, not sure, lots of research.'”
‘Her 17-minute life was filled with nothing but love. Dads, you are allowed to cry, too.’: Couple shares ‘life-shattering’ moments their preemie daughter is born, dies in their arms
“He was on his knees at his wife’s bedside. Like a ton of bricks, it all caught up with him. He deflected his own grief to make sure everybody else was okay. But we all knew that deep down, this was tearing him up.”
‘My brother molested me as a teenager. Later in life, he became a youth pastor.’: Woman’s harrowing journey overcoming sexual abuse, brother’s resignation from church
“I finally mustered up the courage to tell my friend. She and her husband worked with my brother in the youth group. ‘I have to tell you, I’m not surprised by this.’ She said she had seen red flags and strange behavior from my brother and always thought there was something off. Eventually, he confessed.”
‘Mama, where are we going?’ My heart raced as I tried to quietly get his shoes. And then I heard the noise I was terrified of hearing. Footsteps coming down the stairs.’ Woman escapes abusive partner, re-marries ‘wonderful, loving’ man
“I remember my teacher saying, ‘We’ve helped every way we can. Now, you have to find a way to leave.’ I opened the door, not knowing where to go, if he’d come after me. I called my stepmom and explained he’d been abusing me for years, that I just left him and needed to be picked up. Her response? ‘Can you call us back later? We’re just eating dinner.’ I didn’t have time left.”
