Rachel Donoho grew up in the countryside of Orchardville in Wayne County, Illinois. Her life may seem pretty average on the surface. She had plenty of friends and a boyfriend that she was head over heels for; but when she was seventeen, life became much more complicated.

When Rachel was fifteen, she discovered a love for riding horses, this would be what brought her to her high school sweetheart, Jeremy. They had a complicated relationship, sort of on and off as the winds changed, but she always found her way back to him. They frequently went horseback riding together and had lots of laughs while making memories. When she was seventeen, she found out she was pregnant. They had been together for two and a half years. Like any seventeen year old would react, she was very stressed. While going to the parking lot after school that day, a girl started very rudely talking about her, “Long story short, she locked her truck, but left the window down. Her face quickly met the steering wheel,” Rachel said. 

Four months later, her parents still weren’t aware of her pregnancy. As far as high school students go, most of them knew. A girl had been causing problems between Jeremy and her, and she then decided to tell Rachel’s parents about the baby. Rachel denied it as a simple rumor. She married Jeremy while she was five months pregnant. A month later, she and Jeremy finally told her parents. They weren’t very happy with her, especially waiting that long to tell them, and they never did react well. 

She had her son Dakota on October 22, 1998. After he was born, most of her friends distanced themselves. Jeremy started going out more and leaving her with the baby. Dakota was a year and a half old, when Rachel had enough and moved out. Jeremy told her before she left, “That wedding ring will be sitting there until you tell me to put it back on.” 

Rachel was out with her older brother Craig shortly after and met a guy named Corey. Six months later, after coming out of a five year relationship with Jeremy, she married Corey. After two years, she decided if she was going to have another baby, she should have the child before four-year-old Dakota got any older. She soon got pregnant after months of trying. Kylee was born on August 14, 2003. Rachel quickly realized she had made a mistake in marrying a man she practically just met. Seven years later, when Kylee was five and Dakota was ten, they got a divorce. 

Rachel moved out and started living on her parents’ property. She was friends with a man named Lonnie that she worked with at North American Lighting. They started dating and got married after two years, in November of 2010. They have now been together for almost ten years, and she says she couldn’t be happier. Dakota is now twenty one and lives at home. Kylee is sixteen, and she lives with Corey one week and her mom the next. Rachel says when she was seventeen she didn’t want kids. However, now she’s glad that she does, because they are the biggest blessings in her life.