“I was alone when they told me. I do remember carrying my still squirming baby boy up the stairs to his room and collapsing on the ground next to his dresser, unable to move, unable to even cry. A strange thing happened during this time. I grew up. I got tough. To the rest of the world, it was a defect, but to us, it was precious.”
‘It took him nearly an hour and a half to finish a bottle. Milk would come out from his nose, his ears. EVERYWHERE.’: Boy’s cleft lip and palate ‘gave him a chance to know why he’s special from an early age’
‘She comes from a broken home. Are you sure you want to marry her?’ My heart sank into my stomach.’: Woman urges ‘just because you come from a broken home doesn’t mean you’re broken’
“The words were written in a letter addressed to my soon-to-be husband. Was the author right? Did he deserve better? My emotion overflowed from my eyes and ran down my cheeks.”
‘I have a live-in nanny and I’m a SAHM. People enjoy bashing that. I can be in bed by 8′: Stay-at-home mom of autistic child says, ‘I have MS but MS does not have me’
“I can look drunk. I may walk into a grocery store and barely stumble out. I was even accused of thinking I was ‘better than everyone else’ or I ‘don’t have children’ because of what I do for my husband. I choose to stay positive.”
‘If you do this, Kara, you will not be able to undo it. It will be permanent, forever.’: Woman writes letter after cousin’s suicide, ‘You must not know the impact it’s going to have on the rest of us’
“If you do this, Kara, my daughter is going to ask me if she is going to die, too. I reply, ‘Everyone does die eventually.’ She is going to ask me if she will die soon or when she is bigger. I will have to admit mommies don’t actually know everything. If you do this, everyone who loves you will have their own heartbreaking story to tell about how they must now go on without you.”
‘Out of the blue, my 17-year career ended. I lost all three of my brothers by 40. It felt like a divorce’: Woman says ‘there is no way to compare grief’
“At 40, when the kids are older and kind of self-sufficient (somewhat), you should be hitting autopilot. You feel like your crap is together and BAM…ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE. Well, at least it did for me.”
‘I love my kids, but I don’t miss them when I get a break. I look forward to it.’: Mom says ‘loving time without your kids doesn’t make you a horrible mother, it makes you human’
“I went out with a friend last weekend for a late dinner. When I arrived, she asked where my kids were. ‘Oh, they’re at their grandparents for the night.’ And she said, ‘Oh, that must be hard, you must miss them!’ I thought to myself, ‘Not really!’ It’s important for me to remind myself that I am a person. I am not just ‘mom.’ I am so much more.”
‘I’m tired or vibrant. I’m drinking water or in the drive-thru with a Coke. I wake with the sun and get everything done or I’m coasting till bedtime.’: Woman admits ‘I often wake up wondering which side of the line I’ll fall on today’
“I’m either an hour into the elliptical or I’m halfway through a bag of Doritos. I’m either a mom with a bath/book/bedtime routine, or a mom locked in the bathroom hoping they’ll soon fall asleep. I’m always thinking of all the good things, or sometimes it’s just pure worry. I often wake up wondering which side of the line I’ll fall on today.”
‘We need to talk, Kayleigh. The amount of water you’re drinking is drowning your body.’: Woman talks about fighting mental illness, ‘You don’t have to believe your thoughts.’
“I kept saying, ‘I don’t know, I don’t remember, I don’t think so.’ I felt so stupid. Like had I not been living in my own body? How come I didn’t know how much I have been sleeping, or using the washroom, or what day it was for that matter? Healing was for people who had time to sit around and think about their problems.”
‘How will you know you don’t like sex if you don’t try?’ Kissing left me uncomfortable. As a ‘good Catholic girl,’ I was pressured to marry and have kids.’: Asexual woman says she ‘doesn’t need sex to feel happy’
“I grew up in a conservative household. My father had strict rules: Dating was for finding someone to marry, and premarital sex was bad. I had my share of crushes, but I could never imagine myself doing anything sexually charged. When I went to college, a guy friend asked me out on a date. He was aware I wanted to stay a virgin. I quickly realized kissing left me uncomfortable. I was told time and time again, ‘You just haven’t found the right person yet.'”
‘My dad killed himself, didn’t he? That’s why you cried so much when I was a baby?’: Mom doesn’t let labels define her, ‘I am more than just an amputee or widow’
“I still remember that day. The taste of blood and dirt in my mouth. Later, when I sat up in the hospital bed and felt the missing weight of my right arm, I looked over and saw nothing but a stump wrapped in bandages. It was the most horrific thing I’d seen in my 10 short years. But life moves on, and I slowly gained a sense of new purpose. There was more to me than just one label.”
