Hand to Hold's official blog
When you have a pregnancy that results in the premature birth of your child(ren), you learn pretty quickly to be grateful for every morsel of positive progress. If there’s time before birth, a neonatologist may share with you some worst case scenarios. And by the time you leave the NICU, you feel like you have [...]
If you are familiar with the preemie world, you have most likely heard the NICU experience referred to as a roller coaster. With all the baby steps forward and the major and minor setbacks along the way, parents often feel as if they are on a hair- raising carnival ride; and much like riding on [...]
In my state of irrational thinking, I knew it was my fault. There was no other logical explanation. I scolded myself for doing fertility treatments. I told myself I should have accepted that I wasn’t meant to have children. I was convinced this was punishment, through the suffering of my 25-weeker triplets, for my past wrongs. Guilt and self-deprecating thoughts weighed me down like a sodden blanket. And then, tragedy struck again when one of our daughters died suddenly at just 14 months. [Read more]
One of my greatest struggles as a mother who has lost a child is how to honor my daughter’s memory in a way that seems good enough The problem is, no matter what I do, no matter what I think of, it never seems grand enough or poignant enough to properly show the depth of [...]
So I’m driving along and from my backseat hear, “You are my sunshine. My only sunshine. You make me happy. When skies are grey….” sung by the sweet little voice of my daughter Kate, born at 2 lbs., 1 oz. and 25 weeks, 6 days gestation in 2007. I am instantly taken back to the [...]
A friend of mine once told me: “Worrying is like paying interest on a debt you may not owe.” Which is true! It is a hard concept to put into practice as parents of babies whose lives are in jeopardy, but if we can allow ourselves to let go of the worry and the “what ifs”, even for a few hours, we create an opportunity for ourselves and our partners to focus on the day at hand. We should ask ourselves: What can we do today to be involved in our baby’s care? How can we show our baby we love him/her? What can we celebrate today? [Read more]
“Oh, twins! They’re so cute!” exclaims the lady in the checkout line at the grocery store. In a nanosecond, I have the following conversation with myself: “No, they’re not twins, they’re triplets you just can’t see the third one. Does this lady care that one of my girls died? Am I just going to depress [...]
I like to write lists. Then write them again because I’ve either left the list at home and I’m at work, or it’s in my other jeans pocket, or I wrote it on a receipt and ended up throwing it out thinking it was garbage, or I’ve just completely lost it. Either way, writing things [...]
I was six months pregnant with Jack when suddenly his heartbeat could no longer be heard. One month shy of the fourth anniversary of losing my sweet boy, I sent out a request for donations in his honor to be made to Hand to Hold. A week before the dreaded anniversary, a package arrived from my [...]
Avery and Lily are my surviving 25 weeker triplets, now 5 ½ years old. Their sister Zoe lived for 14 months before succumbing to a secondary infection after being hospitalized with flu and pneumonia. Lately, they’ve been asking a lot of questions. “Mommy, is Zoe a baby or a big girl in Heaven?” “I’m going [...]
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.