Recently a sweet little boy asked, “why does her face look funny?” I knew soon enough someone would ask, but I hadn’t thought about what I would say. I fumbled something about missing cheek bones, just like her Daddy, and called my husband over to show his fake ears to the boy. The boys was, as …
After meeting our baby Lioness, our friend’s 3 year old son told his mama he wanted a baby. She asked “do you want a baby brother or sister?” He answered, “I want baby Ah-sha-sha.” So his mama asked, “what do you like about her?” He responded, “I like her face.” For the past 4 months …
We have a home-visit nurse who comes every week to weigh the baby. She also asks ridiculous questions about the baby’s development in other areas. To ensure that even though Lioness is little, she is not in the “failure to thrive” category. Our first check-up (at 2 months old) went like this: Nurse: Does she …
Just because it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, doesn’t negate the fact the past several months have been really tough in several different ways. There’s been a lot of struggles, hurts, stresses, and disappointments. The biggest challenge for me were the events surrounding Lioness’ birth. We had looked forward to having a …
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 …
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 …
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 …
