It’s a lovely winter morning. I am making milk, while holding the baby. She gives me a big smile as I hear a massive poopoo blow out. Suddenly my lap is damp. Meanwhile, Monkey is shoving crayons in my hands and requesting “helpa me color.” Suddenly she announces “I need helpa potty!” Which really means “I …
When Lioness was first born, we learned to use the Habberman Bottle. It has a special valve and extra long nipple, which needs to be squeezed to shoot milk into the baby’s mouth. Because of the cleft palate, the baby doesn’t have a strong enough suction to nurse or even use a normal bottle. Dada was …
Not much changed when Monkey was born. For the most part, our lives continued as usual, just stopping to nurse a baby every 2 hours and change her diaper. We still did spur-of-the moment movie nights with friends. Or had friends over for board games, while Monkey crawled around underfoot. We still went to meetings …
It seems every holiday I think back on the previous year’s festivities. December makes me reflect on all the Christmas’s since Duane & I met. Every December has marked big transitions in our lives, usually related to moving to a new place or major health issues. But each year I think to myself, “this is …
Back when Duane and I were engaged, I joined a women’s Bible study on a book called “Lies Women Believe” or something like that. Chapter after chapter, I thought “duh, of course that’s a lie.” Maybe sometimes I acted like that lie was true, but I did know it was a lie. I agreed with …
With each pre-term labor scare (and I had several), I would be up all night thinking, “I can’t do this. I’m not ready for this.” Feeling thankful when labor stopped by the morning, only to be frustrated that I was still pregnant for another day. By 39 weeks, I began to wonder if she was ever …
People ask how I make so much milk. Honestly I feel like I’m winging it, but here’s what I’ve figured out, based on my personal experience of a loooonnnggg 6 1/2 weeks of making milk. When Lioness was in the NICU, she ate every 3 hours, which equals 8 times a day. So I was …
As we prepared for our daughter’s birth and hospital stay, a friend prayed we would be a light in the NICU. The first couple days were pretty dark. I was in survival mode, recovering from birth while exhausting myself going back and forth to the NICU to see my baby. After I was released from …
It seems everyone else in the NICU expected a normal birth only to have something go wrong and their babies were suddenly whisked away, even life-flighted to Portland NICU. My story is the opposite. I had a couple months mentally preparing for my baby to be whisked away. I came to the City ready to …
After a long sleepless night, this morning was filled with the chaos of me getting released from the hospital. Drs checking on me, and lots of paper work. Packing up my room, pumping milk for the baby and trying to visit her. The baby is learning to use the “hammerman” bottle (that’s not really what it’s called). …
