#131 –Melanie Rangel - Overcoming Childhood and the Death of Her Baby
Welcome to the #ShareYourHotness Podcast episode 131!
Melanie Rangel has been married for 20 years this year. Her husband and she have 5 wonderful healthy children - a boy aged 19, four girls aged 15, 11, 4, & 5 months and they also had another baby girl who is their angel who would've been (17 years old).
On top of being a full-time mother and wife, she's also a full-time student at the U of U, earning her bachelor's degree in social work.
Her passion in life is to one day help grieving mothers in the maternity ward who just received the devastating news that their baby most likely will be stillborn or won’t survive. She wants to be a mother's support system during their toughest moments in life. Her passion is to prepare these mothers on what to expect and to also encourage them to spend as much time with their baby as they can handle.
As a young mother, she had endured the loss at the young age of 18. During their hospital stay, her husband and she were so numb they didn’t know what they should do such as take photos of their baby girl, bathe her, to even be able to have that choice to bring her back to the hospital room until she felt ready to let her go. They had no guidance whatsoever, yes they were surrounded by family but then again they still felt so alone.
Melanie is also very passionate about advocating for mental illness and helping young adolescents on their journey through their toughest years.
She had watched her oldest suffer through his struggles with severe PTSD from being attacked by two pit bulls at the age of 6 years old. During his early to late teens, she had watched him suffer from suicide ideation tremendously. It was so hard for her to watch from the sidelines.
Aside from that, she knew what it felt like to not have a single friend and practically felt unworthy and unloved by her parents. She felt so alone since she was a little girl but still somehow gained resilience growing up.
As a young mother at 16 years old, she was very lucky enough to have found her husband at the young age of 15 but due to her upbringing and unhealed trauma, she suffered a lot with mental illness for the past 17 years. She is now learning how to heal from past trauma.
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