“Trust me, I was shocked too. I can’t count how many times I had to explain he wasn’t adopted, wasn’t my stepson, and wasn’t albino. That I was his mom – not the aunt, Godmother, or the nanny.”
‘When he was born I heard, ‘Oh my God. He has RED HAIR!’ I paused. ‘No, just wash him a few times.’ The nurse washed him 3 times. ‘No mama, you’ve got a little ginger.’
‘Some of the bravest warriors I know aren’t the ones in uniforms, they are the ones left behind on the home front. Yes, I’m talking about you, military spouse.’
“I see you, military wife/husband. I see you standing quietly by their side as praise is given for their service.”
‘I’ve been hiding our family’s ‘secret’ for years. I have been silent. Masking our smiles. Faking OK. A complete nightmare. I am so sick of living in fear.’
“The officer had actually committed suicide and faked his own murder. This brought out things in Ty I had never seen before. Our family has been in nonstop crisis.”
‘Oh God. I am about to puke.’ All of a sudden, I see a white van and someone whispers, ‘There he is.’
“I couldn’t wait any longer so I drove myself to the hospital. They told me there was nothing they could do to stop this baby from coming today. Alex was set to leave for deployment in 17 days.”
‘His divorce was final in January and by March, we were engaged. This man made me feel special. I was so beat down. I felt like I deserved all the horrible things that had happened to me.’
“Out of curiosity, I signed up on an online dating site. I created a fake account. Something about talking to him just felt right. The girls needed a daddy.”
As the bus was pulling up you could hear the ‘DADDY’ screams from her little mouth. She was jumping up and down, pointing, ‘Daddy get off the bus!’
“She suddenly lets go of my hand and starts running. I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed a smile from my husband like when he finally got his little girls in his arms after 175 days away.”
‘Our child’s personality changed overnight at the age of 15 months. A once happy, easy going child suddenly turned aggressive, irritable and OCD’ish.’
“He would be physical with people, throw toys, completely lose it. This wasn’t just the normal tantrum; he was in his own world. It is so frustrating that medical professionals don’t know about it, and some even deny its existence.”
3-year-old tearfully clutches her ‘Daddy Doll,’ asks mom ‘why did he have to leave?’
“Never could I have prepared myself for explaining to her it is okay to be sad, it is okay to cry and to be mad. And it is okay that your heart hurts.”
‘When we first got married, we were convinced we didn’t want any kids’: Military family fosters, then adopts, 5 kids under the age of 5
“Some days I said ‘no’ to more than 20 kids. The need for foster families was huge. Finally, I had a case worker ask me, ‘What will you say yes to?’ It made made us reevaluate.”
‘With both of us active duty soldiers, we’ve learned to adapt to spending more time apart than together, and live for the quiet moments.’
“I had just flown back from halfway across the globe, feeling as though my heart and soul had been drop-kicked across the Pacific. I spent the last of my savings to get home, with divorce papers clutched in one hand and the last of my dignity in the other.”
