Making a Mother E2: Your Story Doesn't End Here

Coffee + Crumbs Podcast

Ashlee Gadd

Storytelling, Kids & Family, Religion & Spirituality, Toddlers, Friendship, Pregnancy, Grace, Coffee, Adoption, Miscarriage, Parenting, Motherhood, Newborn, Christianity, Crumbs

4.8 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 9 January 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When Kate receives the call about a newborn boy in need of foster care and a forever home, her heart is ready to open wide. Assured that the baby’s mother is unlikely to regain custody, she dreams of a future with this child. Meanwhile, Cindy begins to see glimmers of hope amidst all her struggles. Fueled by faith and a determination to turn her life around, she begins the hard work of creating a stable home. Through time and a mutual love for the same baby boy, Kate and Cindy form an unlikely friendship. Together, they navigate the complexities of love, sacrifice, and what it truly means to put the best interests first for the child they both cherish.

“Making a Mother” is a production of Coffee + Crumbs.

Executive Producer, Writer: Ashlee Gadd.

Producer, Writer, Host: Julie Vlahon.

Music, Sound Design, Mix Engineer: Scott Vlahon

Special thanks to Amanda Morales. To learn more about Serenity Foster and Adoption or other information shared in today’s episode visit our show notes at coffeeandcrumbs.net/makingamother. If this story impacted you, please consider sharing it with a friend and leaving a 5-star review wherever you listen to podcasts.

This episode is brought to you by Needed—offering Radically Better Nutrition™. Use CC20 at checkout to get 20% off your first order of a single product. If you’re shopping between Jan 6th-20th, check out their New Year’s deal, which offers 25% off your first subscription.

Thank you for supporting the brands that helped make this series possible.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	From Coffee and Crumbs, I'm Julie Valon, and you're listening to Making a Mother, a collection of stories about the complex circumstances and unique challenges women overcome in the pursuit of motherhood.
0:14.7	From the physical scars left on our bodies to the emotional scars that remain on our hearts, this series is about heartache, love, broken dreams, and resilience,
0:24.6	loss and redemption.
0:26.6	Motherhood remakes us all, but at what cost?
0:30.6	What would you be willing to endure to become a mother?
0:39.9	Last time on making a mother, we met Kate and Cindy two women with two very different
0:45.3	stories. Kate married her high school boyfriend who was paralyzed their entire relationship.
0:51.2	They knew having a family would be difficult. However, nothing could prepare them for
0:55.9	three failed rounds of IVF. The third ended in a miscarriage. I couldn't even pray at one point.
1:03.2	My prayers were so anguished. I couldn't even speak anymore. I could just squeak. I remember just
1:07.9	squeaking out prayers because I was so, so sad. The other mother in her
1:17.0	story is Cindy. After being sexually assaulted at 11 years old, Cindy fell into a deep depression,
1:24.3	became addicted to drugs, and spent 18 years living on the streets.
1:29.3	In the course of that time, she gave birth to five children, all of whom were removed from
1:34.8	her care by child protective services.
1:38.0	Now pregnant with her sixth, a high-risk pregnancy, we left Cindy just before she was about
1:43.5	to give birth, which her doctors
1:45.6	had said would likely end her life. The doctor had told me that the best decision would be to
1:53.1	abort Isaac, that there's no way that I would make it through the pregnancy. There's no way my body
1:57.9	could... There's just no way I could survive, and I just couldn't do it.
2:06.8	Cindy is faced with an impossible decision, her life or her baby's life.
2:12.5	She's told repeatedly by doctors that due to her congestive heart failure and multiple other health issues,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Ashlee Gadd, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Ashlee Gadd and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.