“I called my dad and he didn’t answer, which was weird. I drove over to his house. His car was there, but he wasn’t. I started panicking. I knew something had to be horribly wrong. My dad never ignored me. I called bars I knew he’d go to when he relapsed. I couldn’t find him. Finally, around 4:00 p.m. I called the morgue. The very kind woman informed us there was a John Doe. When she described him to us, I knew it was him.”
‘Don’t worry honey, I have no plans to die today.’ He asked me to watch a movie with him, but I declined.’: Daughter regrets turning down dad’s invitation night he was murdered
10 Things People Need To STOP Asking Twin Parents
“My rolling circus attracts the attention of every rando in the tampon aisle. This party on wheels, I’ve found, invites a menagerie of questions about my sons’ multiplicity…”
‘I knew why they were there. Our child appeared on the screen, only this time something was different.’: Wife documents ups and downs of infertility journey
“Someone once explained fertility to me and compared the journey to a tunnel. Some tunnels are short, and some tunnels are long. But at the end of every tunnel, there is a light.”
‘Hi, my name is Mom. I feel like a ghost walking through the aisles, completely unseen and unheard. I roam around lost secretly hoping someone will ask me if I need help just so I can interact with them.’
“My girlfriends still call, most of them don’t have kids yet. I try to be the old me, the one with a name. I’m getting tugged on, sucked on, and yelled at while trying to listen to their weekend plans. I remember those. I beg them to keep asking me to hang out even though I know I won’t be able to come. Hi, my name is Mom.”
‘Today, you are no longer an actual baby. I’m not sure what the official age cut off is, but in my mind, this is it. This is the moment we turn the page into toddler-hood.’
“These days, I feel lucky if you want to be held for more than a few seconds. You are so busy exploring and playing. You already feel the need to be independent. To do it yourself. To have things your way. Your little baby features are fading away, and I can suddenly see a big boy peeking through.”
‘I have nightmares about my child being ridiculed and assaulted.’: Mom transgender child candidly shares fears
“I want you to know about the nights I lay awake, helpless and shaking. I want to tell my story of our family, who fiercely love someone being attacked and can do very little about it.”
‘My mom drank. A lot. We were placed in separate foster homes. It was difficult to prove a mother unfit. She showed up to court intoxicated. The judge granted Dad custody.’
“Dad was diagnosed with lung cancer. It’s unbearable to think about. It has always been the 3 of us that make sure the other is okay.”
‘I was pregnant at only 17. In true Jerry Springer style, I married the childhood best friend of my baby’s daddy.’: Teen mom says she was ‘petrified but determined’ and ‘always knew’ she’d have the baby
“The news rocked my parents’ world. I was smart in school and dumb in love. I enrolled in community college, worked a full-time job and went to class at night. I married a man who had been my friend from the start. He too was at the hospital the night my daughter was born. When my daughter was 11, my husband adopted her. The paperwork was the thing that gave her his name, though she already had his heart.”
‘To the nurse who held my stillborn baby, unfazed by the appearance of a tiny child born 20 weeks too soon.’: Mom thanks nurse for her ‘love, compassion’ during ‘darkest night of my life’
“You stroked those itty-bitty fingers and toes. You talked about those eyes. You told me my baby was beautiful, although the rest of the world would likely have disagreed. As you placed my breathless baby into the palms of my hands, I too became breathless.”
‘I promised him we’d go trick or treating. I got home to find him asleep in his costume waiting for me and ugly cried.’: Woman overwhelmed by other mom’s act of kindness for son
“I messaged a local Facebook moms’ group to ask if anyone still had their decorations up. Immediately I was flooded with messages. I have been in tears all day.”