“My phone rang while I was asleep. It was my doctor on the other end. ‘Your testing came back positive for Trisomy 21. I’m sorry.’ I started ugly crying. ‘How on Earth could this happen to me?!’ At 36 weeks pregnant, I noticed the baby hadn’t been moving. I did all the things I knew I needed to do. I ate, drank, lay down on my side. Still, I didn’t feel anything. I called the nurse. ‘Come in right away.’ I drove so fast. She hooked me up to monitors. I knew immediately my baby was in trouble. She was in distress.”
‘How could this happen?!’ I found myself unexpectedly pregnant at 40. Then the doctor said, ‘Syndrome.’ I held back tears.’: Mom births baby with down syndrome, ‘The minute I saw her sweet little head red hair, I fell in love’
‘She looked directly into my eyes and placed her hand up as if to touch my son. This beautiful creature had me in tears.’: Mom shares ‘breathtaking’ moment zoo orangutan ‘supports, protects’ her while breastfeeding son
“Today I got breastfeeding support in the most unlikely of places. While on vacation at the zoo, we stopped to see the orangutans. My son made it clear he was hungry. While breastfeeding, the orangutan kept looking at me, then my son, then back again. For half an hour, she kept stroking the glass. She then got up, carried a piece of cloth to the window, and sat down with me. My heart melted. I’ll never let my little boy forget her.”
‘We’ll refund your money, but you have to leave.’ ‘What?’ Husband: ‘YOU NEVER GET TO CHOOSE WHERE WE GO AGAIN.’: Woman recounts hilarious attempt at saving money on vacation
“‘Allison, this is a mistake.’ ‘No way! It’s great. It has a pool for the kids to swim in.’ My daughter dropped her pacifier on the floor under the bed. I bend down to grab it, and what do ya know? There’s a pair of dirty underwear under the bed. About 20 minutes pass and we hear a knock at the door. It was the poor desk clerk. ‘You have to leave.'”
‘Heaven forbid we decide to play hooky to visit Santa before our holiday break officially begins.’: Witty mom admits parenting isn’t at all what she imagined, ‘We haven’t breached the truancy threshold just yet’
“I imagined sipping Arnold Palmers on the deck, casually thumbed through the newspaper we would obviously be mature enough to have delivered by then. What I did NOT imagine was me at 5:14 a.m., shushing children from my bedroom, shouting, ‘IN THIS FAMILY, CHILDREN DO NOT GET UP BEFORE 6!’ and shoving a small corner of my pillowcase in my ear. I think we can all agree that raising children isn’t exactly how we pictured it.”
‘Geoff… GEOFF?!’ His eyes were wide open, staring at the sky struggling to breathe. He went limp.’: Pregnant woman loses husband from freak seizure on vacation, ‘they wouldn’t let me see him’
“We went on an organized boat trip. My husband decided to go in for a swim. 5 minutes in, he started to have some sort of seizure in the water. They took him to shore, leaving us on the main boat. I shouted at the captain, ‘Bring us back!’ The answer I got was chilling: ‘You need to think of the other people who paid for this trip, I cannot just turn the boat around.’ It took us another 2 days to find out where they had taken him.”
‘You are on vacation again?’ I feel like a fake. They don’t see I want to be anywhere but here’: Woman receives ‘reminder’ of faith in moment of struggle, ‘I was broken in shambles’
“Social media sees me on a Caribbean island right now, drinking fruity drinks, floating in the ocean. While everyone was still waking up, I walked the beach. I was angry. I need more answers than that! Moments later, I found a beat-up dime floating in the ocean. I cried painful tears. ‘This is what I am doing to you.'”
‘Will you be my wife?’ You never emerged from the water to hear my answer. ‘Yes! A million times, yes!’: Man tragically drowns while proposing, ‘please love each other hard, while you can’
“Just days before you died, you said to me, ‘We are so blessed.’ My perfect love, my angel. Yes, we were. In the cruelest twist of fate imaginable, we never got to embrace and celebrate the beginning of the rest of our lives together. I will carry the love we shared with me forever. I will find you and marry you in the next lifetime, and the next, and the next, and the next.”
‘On Labor Day, I lost my 3-year-old, autistic son at the worst place possible: a water park.’: Mom loses toddler in public scare, says it ‘takes a village’ to ‘save a child’
“He went down the slide, ran a few feet ahead, turned a corner, and was gone. The only thing in front of him was a lazy river with a strong current. I dove in and couldn’t find him. I wish I could say I was distracted by my phone, or talking to a friend, but my eyes never left his body. And yet, he is fast, and he was gone. Guilt has kept me awake every night since.”
‘Mom, I keep thinking today could’ve been my last day. You saved my life. I’m so glad you jumped in.’: 8-year-old son who nearly drowned encourages mom to share his story to ‘help even just one kid stay safe’
“I saw him in the deep end. I called his name. His arms were moving fast but he didn’t answer me. I saw a look of terror in his eyes. I jumped in, fully clothed. ‘What’s going on?!,’ my husband asked. All I remember saying is, ‘He was drowning.’ When he came out, he kept asking to go home. It sounds crazy, but I felt like he needed to get back in the pool.”
‘Call the attorney. Tell her you changed your mind,’ he said with gun-in-hand. I was breathless.’: Husband adopts formerly abused wife’s adult sons after their biological father dies from addiction
“I got a call that my 3-year-old had been left at Disney daycare at 2 a.m. The daycare worker called the police. My husband was a master manipulator. This was the last straw. We fled to another state. One night, I got a knock on my apartment door. The door NO ONE knew where I was. My ex was released from jail 2 days prior. With every being in my bones, I knew it was him.”
