“Both of my girls were upstairs napping when I sat down to surf the internet. Messages started coming in from iMessage. The name didn’t look familiar, and it just seemed odd. I started reading the conversation between my husband and a name I didn’t recognize… He had a stranger over at my house where my kids sleep.”
‘My entire 10-year marriage was a lie. I never really knew the man I was sleeping next to. I married a stranger. ‘Now what? What do I do?’ Something in my gut told me I needed to dig deeper.’
‘She’s been promising her baby to 4 other families.’ We’d been scammed by our birth mother. Tears streaming, I hoped it was a bad dream. All I wanted was to be a mother.’
“At that same ultrasound, while holding the hand of another adoptive mother, she was texting me details of the visit and sex of the baby. She’d ‘panic’ and ask for more money so she wouldn’t change her mind and take him away from us. She knew all about me and my infertility. She knew exactly what she was doing.”
‘I asked for $20 for diapers. My husband called me a ‘pathetic gold-digger’. It felt like a cruel joke. Post-labor, I became a full-time mom while he worked. We made this decision TOGETHER.’
“I felt my blood boiling. ‘Was this your plan all along? Mooch off me while you do NOTHING all day.’ He followed me into the bedroom. Nothing could have prepared me for what happened next.”
‘Their mom unexpectedly passed. My heart hurt for them, but inside I was glad she wouldn’t fight us for them anymore.’ Family fosters 2 teens who they ‘loved instantly’ despite troubled past
“We were looking into adoption. It was dicey. Their mom was doing JUST enough to make it seem like she was on track to get them home, but barely. And then we got the news. We didn’t think much of the warning signs.”
Boy grows hair to donate to kids in need: ‘What are you doing in the boy’s bathroom? You look like a GIRL!’ One parent asked, ‘Is that a boy? That is such irresponsible parenting!’ His hair was long and angelic. I never understood.’
“No matter what he wore, he was mistaken as a girl by strangers. Even in his Spider Man costume, someone said, ‘Oh she’s so cute!’ I got used to correcting people. One day, I was called into the principal’s office.”
‘I married a wealthy man at the age of 19. He was already divorced and 15 years older. I ran away and broke all ties with my parents. I was vulnerable.’
“I remember someone from another relationship telling me, ‘You should be happy, at least I am taking off one major thing in your to-do list by marrying you!’ I made the decision that my son and I will never meet him again. People often remind me I am a single mother. I tell them, ‘I was a single mother even when I was married.’”
‘She couldn’t stop looking over to where her brother would have been, had he survived. I couldn’t help but feel he was lying there, letting her know he was present, and will always be with her.’
“‘You’re having a boy AND a girl!’ I thought to myself, ‘One of each. How perfect!’ When I arrived and saw what she had set up, I lost it. I knew I had to honor James somehow. She smiled countless times in his direction.”
‘He slipped something in my drink. He had a razor blade. He ‘accidentally’ sliced my thigh. I took photos of the blood dripping down my leg. When I woke up, the photos were deleted.’
“I met someone new. Someone who made me feel alive again. Six months later, I found out I was pregnant. Then I received devastating news.”
‘I had just gotten in my car when my phone rang. It was my best friend. She sounded serious. ‘What’s wrong?’ She didn’t know how to tell me, but I should get home as soon as I could.’
“My boyfriend was kicking me out of the apartment we shared. ‘Why?!,’ I asked her crying. I drove home as fast as I could. My clothes, makeup, shoes, were all thrown on the floor. He said he ‘knew what I had done.’ I was so confused.”
‘I had failed at having that family’: Single mother by choice recounts her IVF journey to get her ‘miracle’ daughter on her own
“I spent years contemplating having a child on my own, always holding on to the hope that I would find a husband and have kids. At 33, I gave up that hope. I decided it was time to do it on my own.”
