the foco dad
a stay-at-home dad muses about raising his two children
Category: NICU
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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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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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What seems like two years ago, I submitted a short essay to the Denver Post. To my delight, I heard back from them. They wrote that my essay was being considered for online publication as a guest commentary. A couple months passed and I hadn’t heard anything from them so I emailed the Post again.…
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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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A friend recently asked me for some advice. She knows someone who just had a preemie at or around 26 weeks gestation and wanted to know how she could help them out, what to say, what not to say, etc. She gave me permission to post my response to her. It follows: I am happy…
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London had just peed out her diaper. I thought it was odd since London had not peed out of her diaper in months. It could have just been that whoever changed her diaper last did not get a good seal. I couldn’t quite believe it so I dabbed my hand on the big wet spot…
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On July 16th, I read the last page of the Harry Potter books to London. It had taken me one year, two months, and four days to read that page and the previous 4,099 to her. Before May 12, 2014, I had never made an earnest attempt at even reading the first book. I had…
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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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Two days ago I posted “Turning One Again“. In that post I mentioned that this time last year London was going through a bunch of new tests to find out why she was so tired. Actually, “new tests” is incorrect. By May 4th, 2014, London had had several echocardiograms, she was just going to have…
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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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Last week I uploaded a video of Kate and I feeding London 1 ml of milk from a very tiny syringe. Though it was a long, long time until London could move on up to a bottle and I took many videos between that syringe and the first bottle, I wanted to skip to a…
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This last weekend we walked with London in our family’s first March of Dimes event. Last year we were still in the NICU when it took place and prior to that, I had no clue what March of Dimes supports. The organization exists to help moms have a full-term pregnancy. And if that doesn’t happen, then…
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A long way from a full feeding, but a good start. There were about two months of training from the day (February 27, 2014) I took this video of London until she could take a crack at an actual bottle. What an amazing step for her this was. A 1 ml syringe holds quite a…
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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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I love having my phone on silent. Even though my phone is consistently within reach, having it on silent makes me feel a little more free of it and maybe even a little disconnected. So when my grandma called me this morning it was only by chance that I noticed the iPhone’s screen light up,…
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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…