Category: London’s Birth
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Catastrophizing is a bad habit I have developed since becoming a father. I am no idiot, I know where it has its origins: London’s nearly 4-month-long NICU stay and all the things I witnessed during that, all the scares and setbacks we have had with her since then, and the ASD and ADHD diagnoses. Not…
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When my inbox notified me of a response from the most popular swimming website in the world, I felt like a big door had just opened. This was my break, or really just the evolution of my freelance writing career, which was gonna take off following this gig. I just knew it. The owner and…
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Inspired by the tales about three different days of diagnoses in Autism Out Loud, I’ve been trying to recollect our own, the day London was diagnosed with Autism. Before the day, actually much earlier in that preschool year of 2017-2018, London’s teacher expressed concern about London’s behavior. London rarely shared information with other kiddos and…
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As soon as I carefully took the kids artwork down, picking at the bits of scotch tape holding self-portraits to doors, and taking care not to rip the large piece of paper my son drew a pipe system on, the house felt different. Moving changed from this half-serious idea that has held space in our…
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A version of this post appeared on my blog years ago when London wasn’t even a year old. But I just tweaked it a bit, slimmed it down , and added here and there. I think it’s better now. Here it is… Never in my wildest dreams, as I prepared for fatherhood, did I think I was going to…
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I look at London and whisper, “You weren’t supposed to be three yet.” It is just like last year when I whispered to her, “You weren’t supposed to be two yet.” And the year before that when at 1 she was 9 months old to me. We were robbed. At least that’s how it felt for…
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I rely on my parents to send me inspirational emails every so often. Yesterday, on my 33rd birthday, I received such an email. My mom encouraged me to go to a blog she regularly reads, to read a specific poem, and to listen to a hymn. The blog is Barnstorming. The poem found in this…
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Over a month ago, I read and posted about an article in the New York Times about 22 weeks gestational age being the new definition of viability (for some doctors). In the sidebar I noticed another article under “related.” Its title: For Parents on NICU, Trauma May Last. As soon as I was done reading…
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Today is the one-year anniversary of London’s big move from the NICU to her new home. Reflecting on that day a year later, I think I made the right choice by not overthinking what a big change it was going to be for London and for us. I knew it would be an exhausting transition, but…
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“Do you want us to save your baby?” That’s a question you may have to answer if your baby is born earlier than 24 weeks, the current gestational age of viability. In fact, you may not get that question at all. Quite a few NICUs do not have the means to even attempt to save a 22…
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A few months ago I wrote a post linking back to the story of London’s birth, the first posts on this blog. It had been a while since I had mentioned them and wanted to make sure people were aware of them, especially since they were now buried in the archives. I have finally done…
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May 4th. May the Fourth Be With You. It’s Star Wars day. And it’s also one year from London’s due date. It’s her one-year birthday (developmentally). It is a significant milestone, but I think May 19th will be more of a celebratory day because that will be the one-year anniversary of London’s homecoming. This time…
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London was on a ventilator for the first three weeks of her life. This meant that we didn’t hear a peep from her all that time. We could see from time to time that she was crying, but there was no noise to accompany the cry. It looked so odd, different than any other baby…
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“How old is she?” The simplest of questions for parents of full-term babies to answer, but not so for parents of preemies because there are two answers for this one question. At some point, a baby arrives so early that their actual age is going to be different from their developmental age. For example, my…
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I’ve been meaning to share this comment since it was left on January 29th, when I wrote this post. The comment is from my mom, recalling the night and early morning of January 30, 2014. I have been thinking all day about the phone ringing this night a year ago when we were sound asleep.…
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The hardest day to get through was Wednesday, the day after we got the news that London would need an MRI and a neurosurgery consult. Though we knew that the challenges of having a preemie were not over, we did not expect to encounter an obstacle quite as scary as this. But, with some prayer…
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London. I am only human, so sometimes, when you are testing my patience, I may temporarily forget that taking care of you as a stay-at-home dad has been the most rewarding and exhilarating experience of my life. These are the days that I will treasure for the rest of my time here. I cannot contain…
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Did it go by fast? That’s what everyone asks when we tell them London is turning one this week. Like all new parents we have been very busy this last year. That’s what happens when you have kids. Life speeds up as you nurture another life. Everything takes longer from getting out the door to…
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As London’s one-year birthday approaches, January 30th and the days preceding it are becoming clearer and clearer in my mind than at any point since. Today, I am thinking of January 28, 2014. I was in a bad state of mind that day, one day before Kate went into labor three months early. I had…
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I wanted to share something short today. At some point during London’s NICU stay I was shuffling through some words in my head. The words were not new words to me, but rather old ones with new, real-life experience meaning. Selfless. Difficult. Scary. Challenging. Beautiful. Enduring. Love. The meaning of these words most often change with…