“You were there with a bottle of wine the first night of sleep training. You were there when I cried tears, holding my new baby, as I battled postpartum. You were there when my husband and I needed to work on our relationship. You are his hero, his safe haven, his escape.”
‘My sister is not JUST my child’s aunt. She is a second mother. You became my closest ally, my wingwoman.’
‘I had jealousy and hatred for my husband. I imagined him enjoying his 40-minute commute, sipping his hot coffee at his desk, and having adult chats NOT about the color of poo.’
“You’re used to being a high-flying businesswoman, and now you’re sitting on the floor with a load of people who all seem to know the words to ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep!’ I was bloody mad!”
‘So, do you think you’re depressed?’ one doctor awkwardly asked me. I replied quietly, ‘I don’t think so?’ all while screaming, ‘I just wanted to be saved.’ This was the biggest mistake of my life.’
“If I dared to mark the box that said I had suicidal thoughts daily, I would be hospitalized. If I marked those terrifying boxes that my life was just too much for me to handle, I was admitting to the world I was ‘crazy’. I would lose everything I held dear.”
‘Guess what? It’s happened!’ I threw the pregnancy test to my 19-year-old boyfriend. ‘Are you sure you’re pregnant? You hide it so well.’ We had been trying for a baby for months.’
“While I was in labor, I had no support from my partner. At the time, I didn’t care. ‘This is the best day of my life,’ I whispered to my daughter. Then the arguing started. ‘Might as well be a single mom!,’ I said to him.”
‘Not all of us have washboard stomachs in bikinis when their baby is 1-year-old. Some of us still look a pregnant, some of us have muscle separation that won’t heal without surgery. AND THAT IS OK!’
“When I look at my children, I feel invincible. I grew them, I birthed them, and I have the scars to prove it. Talk to yourself as if you’re the most important person in the world, because to little humans, you are.”
‘My dad began boarding up the windows for fear of people watching him. Spending nights in our attic filming neighbors. Insisting there was footage of a red laser being shined into his room.’
“My father was not a part of my life early on. He was successful businessman and wasn’t ready for a kid. But my mom was struggling, and he could give me what my mom couldn’t. Until he changed too.”
‘My child’s father was leaving me. I was a new mother to a 3-month-old baby girl. The only items I had were a bag of clothes and a computer. She didn’t deserve any of this.’
“I looked around, saw a bedroom with a blow-up mattress, a kitchen with hardly any food, and only a few baby items. I then looked at my daughter sleeping so sweetly. Something inside me broke; I told her it would be the last night I would EVER put her in these circumstances.”
‘I vividly remember. My right arm held the new baby I birthed less than 24-hours ago. My left held my foster son, patting his new sister on the foot. I felt so much joy and so much pain.’
“We sat in the courtroom and listened to the story of lives that had been destroyed. We watched as the judge decided our son could no longer live with his biological parents. I’d be lying if I said a part of me wasn’t relieved. I struggled with feeling I wasn’t enough for these two babies 15 months apart. I believed the lie.”
‘I gave birth to my son while high on methamphetamine. I wish I could tell you I sobered up, but I did not. We were joined at the hip. We were both addicts, but wanted to be sober.’
“I was so afraid. I just knew CPS was going to take him, but a miracle happened. He was born completely clean. No drugs in his system. He was perfectly healthy. Neal and I cried and cried. We went home that following Monday and swore we would stay sober.”
‘I was scrolling photos and came across this – 24 bottles of breast milk. This is what a FULL day of feedings looked like for our triplets. We fed every 3 hours, and it was exhausting.’
“I didn’t experience the ‘bond’ I often heard of when it came to breastfeeding. But perhaps the ‘bond’ is formed by simply FEEDING your baby? Each time I held one of my babies, I cradled them in my arms as they received their bottle. I knew this was OUR kind of bond.”
