“I was afraid to leave my house without my husband. ‘I know this is hard for you,’ he would say. ‘Can you tell yourself that you’re safe?’ ‘No,’ I would respond. I reached out as a bit of a last-ditch effort, right there in the grocery store, tears running down my face. The response was incredible. Those women saved me.”
‘Are you ok tonight?’ I was in the grocery store trying to pretend everything was OK, but it wasn’t. I was bawling my eyes out. ‘This isn’t a forever feeling.’ I’m so grateful to you.’
‘At 7 months pregnant, I found messages online to a dozen women, telling them he hated me, wished I was dead. He was my best friend, and had promised we could co-parent.’
“He cheated with lots of women, without protection, one of them had an STD. I spent months trying to love a baby that had the face of the person who ruined my life. And then I had an idea – Turns out my daughter was not all him, she was a lot of me too.”
‘My best friend pulled into my driveway. As l was venting my pain, she was texting my HUSBAND in a secret relationship with him, that l would soon find out about.’
“I constantly had a voice playing in my head, saying, ‘How can you continue to love this man, when he continues to hurt you?’ If you had told me l would be sitting in my living room with my best friend who secretly started having a relationship with my husband, I would have laughed in your face.”
‘We swiped right. She was heading on a huge trip. My first thought was: SHE’S ADVENTUROUS. Then she asked me if I’d join. My second thought was: SHE’S CRAZY.’
“Nevertheless, I booked all my flights. We had a match. We spent every single day together. It could have gone awry, but it didn’t. It became clearer that, ‘If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it.’ So I did.”
‘Yesterday we broke down 2 hours away from home on a busy interstate with three kids in tow. It wasn’t exactly ideal, especially with a hungry newborn. It was late, nothing was open, and we couldn’t get a rental car until the morning.’
“We called dispatch and AAA and an Alabama State Trooper showed up to help. I thought he was just going to divert traffic away from our lane, but he did so much more than that!”
‘I gave my last hug to my mom and sister-in-law, Taylor. Our car hit a puddle, hydroplaned, flipped 3 times and hit a tree.’
“Jacob talks of that night and the reality of how nightmarish it was. When he came to, my head was dripping blood and he thought there was no way I could still be alive.”
‘I was called into the office. My mom was there, waiting to pick me up. ‘We are leaving your dad,’ she said as we walked to the car. I loved him so much, and I was heartbroken.’
“When I got the autopsy report, it read: no evidence she had a child. That was hard. When people tell me she loved me, she just didn’t know how to show it, I think back. ’There was no evidence at the scene that suggested she had children.’”
‘I met an older couple before our flight. They had the unfortunate chance of sitting next to us. Sofia is truly the devil’s child, and acted accordingly.’
“My children had never flown before. Sofia hates loud noises and is spooked easily. I was really worried.”
‘It was the middle of the night when I got this call. I sat in the basement, frozen and in shock. Please tell me this is just some virus that will go away next week.’
“We also noticed he had a bruise on his back from one of his Nerf gun battles that wasn’t going away. Nothing crazy, nothing that made us extremely worried at the time.”
‘Oh my God, He’s coming!’ as I felt his head pop out, I stood up hoping to catch my tiny son, but he just slid right out and landed in the toilet.’
“Five minutes before our flight was to board, we all piled into the tiny family restroom and I sit down on the toilet. The firefighter asked me ‘Heather, how far along are you?’”