“I had just found out my parents were getting divorced. I struggled with it a lot. Her unexpected, wrong calls helped me so much. When she realized it was my number and not her grandson’s, I wondered if I would ever hear from her again. Well, I finally got to meet her.”
‘This sweet lady called me for 3 months thinking I was her grandson. She finally figured out I wasn’t Barry. She always ends her calls with, ‘love you, later.’
‘Your baby doesn’t have eyes.’ What do you mean she doesn’t have eyes?! I know people are born blind, but to actually not have eyes seemed impossible to wrap my brain around.’
“After sharing concerns with my husband, I told her doctors I thought something was wrong. They blamed her blindness. I insisted it was deeper than that. She slept all the time, I had to wake her to nurse her, and I’d never seen her smile. Crazy, I know.”
‘I asked my husband if he had it. He said, ‘Yes.’ One nurse even said, ‘I think he has what mommy has!’ He had white chunks of skin around his fingers and toes, and was bright red.’
“I looked at the ultrasound picture with his hand balled up in a fist. In that moment, I knew. I felt guilty that my choice to potentially pass this on could cause one of my children to have a less than perfect life.”
‘This is dwarfism and I’m 99% certain the result will be fatal.’ There it was. A bomb. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t talk, I didn’t understand at all. She was perfect.’
“As she rambled, completely ignorant of the fact I was in my own puddle of tears, she wrung her hands. It was horrible. At that point, my mother stepped in. She and my husband scooped me out of the chair and we left, never to return.”
‘Realizing I was gay gave me feelings I was trying to numb. I felt like I was doing something wrong and if people found out, I wouldn’t be loved. I spent 15 years in a downward spiral.’
“I hated drugs, but I also couldn’t be away from them. My family had no idea what to do. You name it, they tried it in hopes of getting their son back – but it got a lot worse before it got better.”
Elderly couple holding hands during Hurricane Florence evacuations proves true love withstands all storms
“My tears are flowing.”
‘I wasn’t a drug addict. I just took pills. That’s not being a drug addict. Boy was I wrong.’
“I was a mother, a daughter, a friend, a hard worker, someone you could trust and depend on – then all that changed in one short year.”
‘My twin is the GREATEST. He took both of our pics for picture day back in HS when I was sick.’
“We’ve actually switched classes before in middle school, and gone to work for each other. The perks are endless!”
‘They found a baseball-sized cyst on my ovary’: Mom celebrates overcoming risky pregnancy with Chick-fil-A photo shoot honoring her ‘little nugget’
“I was told it was unlikely we would be able to conceive with the cyst, because the other ovary also had several small cysts as well.”
‘I couldn’t get to her fast enough.’ Mom warns of treadmill burn dangers after 3-year-old was caught between belt and wall
“When I heard the machine come on and then her screaming, I felt like I was running in tar or I had concrete blocks on my feet. Everything felt like it was moving in slow motion.”
