Hand to Hold's official blog
One of the biggest lessons I have learned from having a preemie, our NICU stay, and even now at home is to have patience. Patience is something I have never really had but having preemies has definitely changed that. When I got pregnant with the girls I wasn’t really worried or had a care besides [...]
Like many parents of preemies, I have remained hyper-vigilant about the care and development of my surviving micropreemie triplets. Early on we are taught how important Early Intervention is to ensure our babies hit their milestones as infants and toddlers. My husband and I felt our girls started life with so much stacked against them [...]
Hand to Hold, a national NICU parent support nonprofit, hosted a FB Chat on April 30, 2013 with Child Life Specialist Julie May of Dell Children’s Medical Center who facilitated a discussion on ways to care for siblings during and after a baby’s NICU stay. This is an archive of that chat session. [Read more]
With my history of premature labor, scarred tissue, a classical c-section… the list could go on… we almost knew that our last child, Evie, would be another early arrival. And she was. She was born two days before New Year’s Eve last year. She came five weeks early, after trying everything under the sun (including [...]
Kelli Kelley describes upcoming initiatives to support older siblings who have a brother or sister in the NICU, including a Sibling Sundaes program, educational articles, downloadable activity pages, and an upcoming NICU Video Tour. [Read more]
Three-year-old’s have a way of accepting life as it is, not as how it should be. They only know that things are the way they are. They don’t have the capacity to think, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this” or “I wish it were different.” They simply accept. My daughter was three years old [...]
For me, the hardest thing about being a parent to a special needs child is watching Caleb, our son who was born with VACTERL, go through what he has gone through: a NICU stay, four surgeries, numerous hospitalizations and ER visits, countless specialist appointments, lab draws, radiology tests, daily medications and treatments, therapy, etc. All [...]
Since my daughter Daphne was born three and a half years ago, I have read hundreds of stories of babies who were born too soon. They are all different, all heartbreaking and many of them share one thing: surprise. A normal pregnancy, nowhere near term, interrupted, lives changed. That is not my prematurity story. As [...]
My last post was about preparing for a NICU stay when you know your baby will need one. This post is about preparing your other children! As a mom of four boys, there was something amazingly special about introducing my first son to his new baby brother, and then two years later, introducing them to [...]
Just when I think I’ve heard it all, when I convince myself nothing and no one can deflate me – some unwitting stranger does. And always at the moment I least expect it. Maybe I’m having a particularly ambitious day and I’ve ventured to the grocery store with my 3-year-old who doesn’t walk or talk [...]
Hand to Hold is a nonprofit 501(c)3 parent support organization and information and resources provided here do not intend to take the place of the relationship between a patient and personal physician.