In April 2006, my sister Roxanne announced she was pregnant! I remember feeling shocked, happy, disappointed, and excited all at once. When we were kids, we vowed to go through the pregnancy journey together, when we were grown up and married. I was married in 2004, but I definitely didn’t feel like an adult even though I’d just turned 32 when my sister told me she was pregnant. I remember thinking she told me because she wanted me to take her to the clinic… so I offered to attend the abortion with her since she wasn’t yet married. Fortunately, she saw my good intentions and assured me she was ready for motherhood and that she and her partner had plans to marry after the baby was born. Her due date was November 2006. She was so beautiful, pregnancy definitely agreed with her; labour not so much as I recall she had ‘back labour’ and was in a lot of pain. I remember feeling guilty that I wasn’t pregnant at the same time so we could experience growing a human being together. I also reme...
"Don't Shame the Family" is the story of how I came to have and live with PTSD. I promise to be as honest and transparent as I can with my own feelings and actions regardless of how humiliated I may feel. If my blog helps one person break the cycle of abuse and realize they're not alone, I will have succeeded.