Love What Matters

‘I got pregnant a month after turning 21. I am living through a deployment and now, like everyone, surviving a pandemic.’: Mom asks others not to judge, ‘They should feel validated in their sorrow’

“After being on my own for five years, I moved in with family again (thanks deployment). Every single one of those situations brought a screeching halt to what I had planned ahead. People who imagined 2020 to be THEIR year, I absolutely see you.”

‘He should be institutionalized!’ People wanted to know why we didn’t put him in a home to free up our time.’: Nephew of late uncle with Down syndrome shares his journey, ‘I always knew Kelly’s life mattered’

“He began having seizures. He required a wheelchair, was unable to feed himself, could not use the restroom, and basically became dependent for all of his daily needs. But in the midst of all the changes, Kelly never lost his ability to smile.”

‘When people find out we’re expecting they say, ‘Wow, you’re brave.’ ‘Brave’ often sounds a lot like ‘crazy.’: Mom pregnant with rainbow baby during quarantine, ‘This is exactly the right time’

“This little one is the exact person we need, joining our family at exactly the right time. We know this is how things were designed to be.”

‘I don’t know where you guys live, but where I am, there’s structure and a schedule. It’s flexible and resilient.’: Woman reminds others to ‘find happiness in what’s in front of us’

“I don’t have to set my alarm. My husband and I stay up late watching our favorite show. We’ll be staying at home until the summer.”

‘Her boyfriend told my photographer, AT MY WEDDING, ‘Yeah, I don’t really like Harley.’ I’m not close with any of my bridesmaids.’: Woman urges ‘some friendships end because they need to’

“I got married at 20; we were all young. My friend and I were literally making up from a fight when I told her I was getting married. ‘Will you be my maid of honor?’ I asked. She and I stopped talking after the wedding. Some friends are lifelong, and some are temporary.”

‘I quickly pick up my phone and have a peek at Zoom. I was scammed by my 5-year old. It looked like he was listening.’: Mom hilariously pranked by 5-year-old, ‘Today’s home school session was mildly unsupervised’

“Today’s home school session was mildly unsupervised. He had his sisters iPad, propped up and situated perfectly in front of his iPad’s camera lenses. A picture of him sitting at the desk looking slightly amused. Scammed by a 5-year-old. I AM DEAD.”

‘I heard him say to his sister Ellie, ‘I’m going to save these for you. We can all have chocolate for my birthday!’ I swelled with pride.’: Mom explains why teaching kids to share is a ‘priority’

“Today my son woke up to birthday presents. Right away, he gave out his chocolate to his siblings and his mommy and daddy. Next, he gave his sisters a balloon for their bedroom. We have never FORCED them to share. We’ve just always modeled it.”

‘Get off the frontline, you aren’t a hero.’ I wasn’t supposed to be seeing COVID patients at 8 months pregnant.’: Physician Assistant fights COVID-19 during 3rd trimester

“I heard, ‘You are a bad mother.’ ‘You’re putting your child’s life at risk.’ It is heavy, it’s raw, and it leaves us feeling incredibly vulnerable. There is no place for shame in motherhood.”

‘Will you take a 2-year-old little girl?’ I didn’t sign up to foster 5 kids under 5!’: Single mom adopts 5 kids from foster care, ‘Once I saw their faces, I couldn’t say no’

“‘First comes love, then comes marriage and then comes a baby in the baby carriage.’ But what if you can’t get to love?! There I was, 38 years old with no man in sight. It was time to stop waiting for Mr. Right. It was time to take action.”

‘He hugged me tightly. ‘Mommy, I’m so happy. I hope school never opens. I don’t want to see my bully ever again.’: Mom says ‘let us return to school changed and kinder’

“We’d been dealing with his bully on and off for 2 months to no avail. My eyes filled with tears. He hugged me even tighter. ‘I don’t want to see my bully ever again. I love being safe at home with you.’”

‘My boss said, ‘You’re a liability due to your health issues.’ I felt like I’d lost my purpose. I didn’t think I’d make it.’: Child abuse survivor, chronic illness warrior births child with down syndrome, ‘I WILL be the mother my kids deserve’

“We were told, ‘Your daughter has Down syndrome and will need heart surgery.’ I was urged to have an abortion, due to my own health issues. Everyone doubted my ability to be a mother to a special needs child. I was determined to prove everyone wrong.”

‘Go home and rest. It appears there is nothing we can do to prevent this.’ I look over at my husband and his face breaks me.’: Mom adopts after infertility battle, ‘He chose us, he set us aside to be parents’

“Every time I saw some pregnant woman smoking a cigarette… I questioned how in the world he could be giving all of these women these babies and they can’t even take care of them? It hit me like a semi-truck. They fulfilled us and completed our lives.”

‘Ezra is sick and I can’t get to him!’ We sat in tears while they operated on him in front of us.’: Mom loses baby to Congenital Leukemia, ‘He worked so hard to make sure we got to meet him’

“The doctor explained, ‘Ezra has bleeding on the brain that we can’t stop.’ We were told they believed the kindest thing to do was to turn his life support machine off. She asked me so many questions about what I did during my pregnancy, as if something I had done may have caused it.”

‘Before quarantine, people said, ‘I don’t know how military families do it.’ Well…now most of the world knows how it’s done.’: Military spouses share words of wisdom for quarantined families

“You can’t see your family. All holidays are cancelled. You miss saying goodbye to a person when they die. Here’s a plan. No, scratch that, this is the plan. Wait, that’s changing. This is the plan. Yes, this is it. You will be stronger at the end of this journey.”

‘They said I mishandled the baby. All the blame came to me. She was met with 18 fractures and a brain hemorrhage.’: Mom of child with Osteogenesis imperfecta says ‘I won’t give up’

“She keeps on crying in devastating fear of breaking. But the smile on my little fighter’s face always pulls me up. Her twinkling eyes always said, ‘Yes mommy! I can do it.’ My husband and I were blank and confused.”

‘This morning I folded my son’s school shirt, and it got me all teary-eyed. My baby was making friends.’: Mom says son’s teacher was an ‘angel here on Earth’

“He loved her. Scratch that. He loves her. And, he misses her. She’s with us every day through our computer screen, and it’s probably the best minutes of his day.”

‘You look better, keep losing more.’ We had mealtimes taken away if we didn’t perform well.’: Dancer recalls anorexia recovery, ‘I barely made it through alive’

“They told me, ‘If you want that job, you need to lose weight off your arms.’ I would have black coffee to suppress my hunger and started going for runs. I would never allow myself to finish a whole meal. How greedy of me, I thought. By the middle of the year, I was merely a skeleton.”

‘I picked you up for spring break and you never went back. There were no last words or hugs goodbye.’: Mom says to students ‘one day you’ll get a redo and you’ll get to thank your teachers’

“But if I’m being honest, isn’t this what all the preparation was for?. They must be challenged. They must have opportunities to overcome. And Corona, the cancellation of school and all future plans, is just that.”

‘Should we intubate her?’ She went into anaphylactic shock. As she got better, COVID reared its ugly head.’: Husband celebrates nurse wife, ‘She doesn’t wear a cape, but she wears scrubs’

“Coming into contact with anyone who had a common cold would have killed her. She is not 100% healed, yet day in and day out, she is taking care of COVID positive patients. It’s her calling. Although she does not wear a cape, she wears scrubs.”

‘The nurse’s note he left behind said, ‘Brooke is my everything.’ Mr. Hudson didn’t have any family, so I gladly stepped up to be a daughter to him.’: Woman pays tribute to friend who died of cancer, ‘I will see him again’

“Around 3:30 p.m., Mr. Hudson went to be with his Lord and Savior. The nurses told me prior to his passing, he sang ‘Amazing Grace’ so loudly it echoed throughout the facility. He had been a little confused lately, but he knew every word. I’ve been crying all afternoon and evening.”

‘The time will come too quickly, when they’ll be out the door. Before you know it, those 18 years fly, and you’ll be wishing for the time back.’: Mom urges ‘take every day for what it’s worth’

“You stand on the sidelines cheering them on, guiding them through the ins and outs of life. You take every hug you can get, kiss every boo-boo, give advice when they need it, and hope as they grow and age, they know mom will always be there with her door wide open.”

‘My grandma showed up in the OR during my c-section. She had a few choice words for the doctors.’: Grandmother teaches pregnant woman important lesson about kindness in dream

“When I shared this dream with her, she laughed! She said she’d have to start consciously watching her language again before Little Man arrives. Their minds are not the only ones impacted by this chatter.”

‘I pulled him hard and fast. He began bleeding, crying. My single thought was, ‘Well maybe he shouldn’t have been climbing.’: Mom with postpartum depression says ‘be there for the struggling mom or dad, it takes a village’

“He was climbing the arm of the couch. My husband stepped in and comforted him. I didn’t feel sorry or remorseful. I didn’t feel sad or have ping of guilt because I had just injured my son. I don’t know how to fix this.”