“I was in disbelief. I thought he would be taken away from me like the girls were. I didn’t want to get attached. Even with a giant belly at 38 weeks, seeing him move wasn’t enough for me to believe. I wanted to protect myself and prepare for the worst.”
‘Michael got news something had gone wrong. I was being put under anesthesia immediately. He wasn’t thinking he would have to worry about me too.’
‘He waited until we were driving home. Cancer. Stage 4. After, I call my dad and tell him ‘me too.’ My stoic dad cries, not for himself, but for me.’: Woman copes with the effects of cancer
“Looking back, there was ‘The Before,’ and then there was ‘The After.’ I am a stranger to that woman now. Loss happened to other people. Cancer happened to them. Until one day they are gone, and all that is left is the heartbreaking absence of their presence.”
I Was Fat Shamed By A Complete Stranger On A Plane
“He only saw my extra weight and my physical ‘flaws.’ He didn’t see me as a person, or strong woman whose body has been through a lot of medical history in the last year or so.”
Today, For The First Time, My Son Refused To Hold My Hand
“I knew the day was coming. I forced a smile when it happened, but the honest truth is, my heart wanted to burst out into big, bubbling tears.”
I’m A Boy Mom Who Doesn’t Care To ‘Finally’ Have A Girl
“My boys are constantly reminded that they aren’t girls. That they are ‘more trouble’ and ‘more of a handful’ and burden.”
‘I knew she wasn’t going to make it. I whispered, ‘I love you.’ I felt a faint squeeze of her hand.’: Woman loses mother and sister to addiction, says they ‘never learned to cope’ without drugs
“My mother took me down into a basement with some strange men. They packaged up large bottles of what I was told were antibiotics. I was only 12 at the time. I put them in my backpack. The rest of the trip my mother was incoherent. She couldn’t even keep her head up. That was the last straw for my dad. Later I found out that she had me carry over 1800 pills of narcotics and muscle relaxers that she planned to use all for herself.”
‘Our 18-month-old grabbed a bottle of baby oil and drank a little. Minutes later, he was acting lethargic. When we picked him up, he was dead weight.’: Mom shares PSA after son poisoned by baby oil
“They did X-rays on his little lungs and told Case it’s the equivalent to you or I drinking gasoline.”
‘I saw a glow in my son’s left eye. I started to turn the flash off in photos, then I remembered a story about a girl whose eye was glowing. My eyes filled with tears. ‘Is it cancer?’
“All of a sudden everything changed. She looked in his eye and things became serious. ‘I’m trying to get him into a specialist today.’ The word ‘today’ was lingering. What could be so important? I couldn’t believe my ears.”
‘Maybe it was possible we could live together again.’: Couple ‘breaks away from the conventional beliefs of what breaking up ‘should’ or often looks like.’
“The first night, Onyx cried out and before I could rush to his side, Tyler was already there soothing him back to sleep. I knew in that moment that although this was unconventional, this was right for us.”
‘My eyes welled up. 2018 has not been easy on this ever-changing family. 7 little people that hold the pieces of my heart were under one roof, and I felt whole.’
“Raising children who spent their first years of holidays in chaos and insecurity can be challenging. We juggle the joy of now, with the reality of painful memories.”