I am a thirty-eight-year-old, single mother of two great children. I have been struggling to receive a college education since I was 16-years-old. I began my “adult life” at the tender age of fourteen when my older brother helped me in my fight to win emancipation from my mother and her new husband. Soon after they were married, my step-brother began forcing him self on me almost immediately. When I went to my mother for help, she responded by telling me to “not mess this good thing up”.

I began working a full-time job at the Sonic as well as going to High School. I met my first husband while working there. He was twenty-one-years-old when we decided to marry; I was barely sixteen. I became pregnant with my son within months after we were married so my husband felt it would be better for me, and the baby, to attend a private school that would allow me to graduate early if I could make the grades; which I did.

My first real experience with death came upon me when I was in the delivery room. Somehow, and quite suddenly, toxemia set in causing my baby’s heart to stop. He actually died (at least that’s what it seemed like to me) on eight different occasions during delivery. While he was still in the womb, the doctors had to “jump-start” his heart eight different times. They feared the worse and tried to prepare me for what could be the most devastating event in my life. Everyone in the room was praying but I was begging my Heavenly Father to spare my precious baby and take me instead. My Father listened to my pleas and granted my prayer (half of it anyways). Not only did he spare my life but he also allowed my baby boy to bless my life and live. He actually came out waving to me when he made his grand entrance on that hot August day!

Before my seventeenth birthday, I had my High School diploma, a brand new beautiful baby boy, enrolled in the local community college, and received a promotion at my job to Assistant Manager. Life was everything I had hoped for and then some! At least it was for a short while. Within two years I would mis-carry three times; one at three months, one at four months, and the last one at eight and a half months. Needless to say, this put a huge strain on my marriage especially since my doctor could give us no apparent reason as to why; divorce followed soon after.