“I realized trying to conceal the severity of my symptoms for the sake of ‘keeping my chin up’ was incredibly dangerous. I needed help. My precious baby needed help. My body is forced to keep my baby alive by slowly killing me in the process.”
‘You’re supposed to be glowing, showing off your pregnant belly. Instead, the bones in your chest are popping through as your body wastes away.’ After struggling with IVF, Mom now battles Hyperemesis Gravidarum in surprise pregnancy
‘Who could I call? To say I was sick? I was dismissed at 1 a.m., my husband and kids asleep. I thought about that in my lonely Uber drive home from the hospital.’ Mother’s realization about ‘isolating, lonely’ life
“I was off to the hospital in an ambulance. Even though I was sick, I was a little bit happy. I was living the hospital fantasy that mothers dream about. Time alone! I was asked how I was doing constantly; I was doted on. ME! But eventually, sadness crept in. This hospital room felt like the four walls were closing in.”
‘I just want to stand by dad,’ I told her. This feeling came over me. For a second, I thought it was a joke’: Daughter’s eerie intuition about dad’s untimely death
“We got settled into our seats. I was on one end, my dad on the other. I felt this feeling come over me. I got up, went and stood by my dad. My mom asked me what I was doing. Minutes later, I see his cell phone drop from his hand. His head goes back, and his body is shaking.”
‘She starts to gag. She is extremely pale with blue lips. Her pupils got really big.’ Little girl collapses while sister curls her hair due to bizarre Hair-Grooming Syncope
“Brushing, curling, braiding, or drying can cause nerve stimulation on the scalp and cause some children to have seizure like symptoms. Apparently very rare but so scary to see it happen!”
‘We left with a box. Not a baby. Not our child. But with a box.’
“I resented that box. I wanted nothing to do with that box. It felt all wrong in my hands, but still I couldn’t put it down.”
‘A woman had just given birth and wanted my husband and I to raise him. She didn’t even give the baby a name before she left. This tiny little boy had absolutely no one.’
“I knew right away this baby was destined to be ours. Mike and I had settled into a routine of pinching pennies, sharing domestic duties, and bonding with our little guy, when my world was shattered once again. For reasons of which I’m still not entirely sure, my loving husband, Brenden’s father, took his own life.”
‘I excused the thought something was actually wrong. I blamed my husband’s ignorance. What do dad’s know anyway? I just held her earlier.’
“I’ll never forget. It was a breezy April afternoon. I can’t erase it from my memory– the phone call or the panicked voice on the other end. ‘There is something wrong with Avery… You need to get home.’ I had left to run a couple errands. It had been only minutes since I had last seen her.”
‘I see you as an attractive woman, not my daughter.’ Then he said, ‘You’re the kind of woman I always wanted. If you weren’t my daughter I would marry you.’
“My father made me feel guilty about it. He said I would destroy our family. That he would get deported to Mexico and my family would lose everything we worked so hard for. He told me to say I made it up because I was a rebelling teenager angry at my father. So I lied to them, I told them exactly what he told me to say.”
‘This is how her ‘boyfriend’ shows her he loves her. He is on the run. Her children are in CPS custody. Our family is devastated.’
“This is my middle daughter, Jessica. She is on life support as a result of Domestic Violence. Her body is covered with bruises, her head has large knots, and she was strangled to death. We are waiting to see if we will have our beautiful lady back.”
‘My sister whispered during one of those many hours, ‘Dad is teaching us how to die.’ The man who named the project suddenly became the subject.’
“We watched him go from a life-loving, bike-riding, wine-drinking, book-writing, word-weaving, soul-enriching mensch, to ashes in a box on my mother’s mantle in some of the shortest, yet longest weeks of my life.”
