Trailer - Mommy Life Is Hard

Erica Stanson is a proud Marine Corps veteran and mother of four. While she served overseas, her white husband—once the love of her life—made a life-altering decision: he arranged for a surrogate to carry their child. But the betrayal cuts deeper than deception. There was never a medical procedure. The surrogate was his mistress, and the children she bore were his biological children—with her.

Erica, a strong Black woman already navigating the strain of military life and the trauma of war, returns home to find a family that looks nothing like what she imagined. With one child living with autism and another suffering from epilepsy, every day is a different kind of battle. Her husband’s family never approved of their interracial marriage. Her own family calls her “too strong to need help.” And Erica? She’s exhausted.

But she’s not broken.

Through each episode, we follow Erica’s struggle to hold her family together, manage motherhood, cope with PTSD, and ultimately find her voice again—on her own terms.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
They told me coming home would be the easy part.
Hell I believe them. I had my discharge papers in
one hand and a picture of my husband and the
promise of a family in the other. I stepped off
that military plane thinking I was coming back to a
welcome mat, a warm meal, and maybe some peace. But
what I walked into was a damn battlefield I wasn't
trained for. My name is Erica Stanson, Marine Corps veteran wife,

(00:23):
mother of four, and this is my story. I served
four tours, three overseas, saw things I don't even have
the words to describe. But nothing, and I mean nothing,
prepared me for what I walked into when I came home.
When I left, we were trying for a baby, me
and my husband. Mixed race marriage. Yeah, black woman, white man.
People had opinions, but I didn't care. Love is love, right.

(00:44):
I couldn't carry after my second deployment. You turre in trauma.
So we agreed on a surrogate, Or so I thought.
While I was dodging bullets and praying I'd make it
back to see my future. My husband was building a
future without me with her the surrogate. But there was
no clinic, no procedure, just a whole lot of life
eyes and pillow talk. By the time I touched American
soil again, there were two kids, then three, then four.

(01:05):
Not one of them created in a lab, all of
them created in betrayal. Now, don't get me wrong, I
love those kids like they came from my own womb.
They call me Mamma. I answer. I care for them,
I raise them. But that doesn't erase the sting of deception.
It doesn't erase how my husband let me believe we
were building a family together when he was just playing
house behind my back. And the part that gets me
when I finally confronted him, he looked me dead in

(01:28):
the face and said, I did it for us. No, baby,
you did it for you. I wish that was the
end of it. But one of my babies, Mason, he's
on the spectrum and Ava she is epileptic. I'm managing meds, therapies, appointments, meltdowns,
seizures on top of managing my own damn trauma. I
got no help from his side. They smile at me
in public and whisper welfare mother behind closed doors. Even

(01:49):
though I served this country. My own family too busy
judging my choices to show up. So I do what
marines do best. I adapt. I survive even if I
cry in the closet, even if I scream in the car,
even if I have to pull over during a seizure,
cancel a therapy session, or put dinner together with food
stamps and faith. This is my war now, and I'm
not the only one fighting it. Next week on battlefield

(02:09):
at home the surrogate Lie, I'll take you deeper into
the deception and share the moment I almost walked away
from everything, including myself. Until then, hold the line, Mama,