“We sat down to watch another episode of Scooby-Doo. My daughter laughed as Scooby and Shaggy devoured a pile of hamburgers. ‘They ate too much!’ she giggled. Then she got serious. I felt tears tickling my eyes. Christy and Tammy are two of my friends. This is the curse that has been placed on me, on so many of us.”
‘My 5-year-old turned to me, suddenly serious. ‘You shouldn’t eat too much, Mom. Or you get fat like Christy and Tammy.’ I felt tears tickling my eyes.’: Mom urges ‘all bodies are valid’
‘I’d just turned 18 when this strange man I met minutes before gave me life-altering news: ‘You’re pregnant.’: Teen mom says ‘things from your past don’t define who you will grow to be’
“He asked me on a date, but I was so unsure he would ever be into me that I didn’t know it was a real date. ‘She invited her FRIENDS,’ he yelled. ‘Don’t look at me!’ Those are the first words the love of my life, Kyle, would speak to me. It really sets the tone for our story.”
‘I was over 400 pounds. I felt like a failure as a woman and wife. I lost jobs because I didn’t ‘look’ the part. When I’d walk my dog, people would scream things at me out their car window.’
“I had crazy mood swings and extreme fatigue. Yet, I ate super clean and worked out every day. I couldn’t lose a pound and would yawn through my workouts. I knew something else was wrong.”
‘There was something wrong with his face. ‘It’s not fair! I wasn’t supposed to have a baby like THIS.’ My husband kept telling me the doctor was wrong, but I knew otherwise.’ Mom a ‘blubbering mess’ after ultrasound reveals son’s cleft lip and palatte
“I walked to the parking lot, then to my car. As soon as the door closed, and no one was watching, the tears started to flow. How could there be anything wrong with my baby?! I couldn’t even picture it. It didn’t make sense. I felt like I let everyone down.”
‘If you’re having trouble losing weight, CHECK YOUR THYROID. Before I was medicated, I was sick, sad and dying.’
“My highest weight, at 4’11”, was 230 pounds. Yeah, that’s what you call a dangerous BMI. I was terrified, afraid I’d die in my sleep. My boyfriend rushed me to the hospital after finding me barely conscious in my car in a Walmart parking lot at 2 a.m.”
‘When I was 12 weeks pregnant I was told he was going to have Down syndrome’: Mom didn’t want to hear ‘I’M SORRY’
“‘Your son either has an infection, or he has leukemia.’ My heart stopped in that moment. I didn’t know if I was ever going to be able to take my son home, or if I was going to lose him.”
How this young mom’s 2-pound ‘NICU Princess’ defied the odds to grow into 17-pound ‘ball of sass’
“Having a child in the NICU is terrifying. You don’t know what the road ahead holds as your tiny child fights to live.”
‘He told me it kills 75% of people’: Woman has ‘obligation’ to tell other moms about her terrifying symptoms
“I began having really intense heart palpitations. I thought it was postpartum depression (PPD) or anxiety, but my heart was beating so fast and pounding so hard it was scaring me.”
