“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.”
‘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’
‘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.”