Browsing Category: Preeclampsia

My Mother’s Day established a new Mother’s Day tradition

Mother's Day Tradition

I had a seriously eye-opening Mother’s Day. It was intense and emotional, but also pretty transformational – what I did first thing in the morning on a day all about celebrating moms is definitely going to become a Mother’s Day tradition for me. But first, let me back up and tell you how it all came to be.

You see, I was approached for the Cape Town Embrace campaign, and I wrote about it a few weeks back. I wrote all about how even with all the love, support and help that I had as a new mom, it was still so daunting, so scary. And I encouraged all of you to take part in this idea of visiting moms on Mother’s Day. We’d reach out and encourage them, make their day a little brighter and generally just welcome them to the mom tribe. But there was one problem. I had no idea which hospital I’d be going to or what it would be like. So I felt like a total hypocrite, telling everyone to do this and not even sure how I would manage to do it. Well, the amazing Sharon from The Blessed Barrenness stepped up and organized for us to visit Charlotte Maxeke hospital on Sunday morning, and I was blown away. Continue Reading

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Comment Parenting, Preeclampsia, Rambling, South Africa

World Prematurity Day – An open letter to Harley’s NICU nurses

Dearest sisters,

I came around for a visit to the NICU with Harley yesterday, wanted to show off just how big she’s gotten. I wanted to show you all how far she’s come, how much she’s grown. I brought a cake and snacks and whatever else I could think of that would be nice for the team, a nice treat for all of you. But nothing I could buy, nothing I could give you could ever compare with what you gave to me. It was so wonderful seeing you all, taking pictures of you with an almost-year-old Harley – even if she did cry in all the pictures.

Growing up, I remember seeing donation tins for The March of Dimes. They used to be next to the check out counters in the drug stores in New York, and I would always look at them, but never really noticed what they were about. In fact, even last year I didn’t really pay attention to this day. I was already a mommy blogger, and I saw some of the other moms writing about it, but I don’t think I even read the posts. Oh how times have changed. Continue Reading

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6 Comments Parenting, Preeclampsia, South Africa

Six weeks later

Today, I went to the doctor for my six week post-op check up. It’s kinda hard to believe that six weeks ago my life changed so completely. It feels like an eternity since then, although that could just be because I’ve been mostly awake for the past week of it, but still – so much has happened that turned everything upside down. I already sorta wrote about what I went through, although I’ve realized that there is so much more to the story. I mean, imagine being Dean, waking up to a wife with a mouth full of blood having a seizure? What about the ambulance that didn’t come, or the fact they couldn’t do the surgery until my blood pressure went down and it just wouldn’t, staying at a life-threatening 240/180 no matter how much medication they gave me.

Lately, I’ve been focusing on the day to day of being a first time mom to my princess Harley. I will continue to do so, but I think at a milestone like this, it’s important to look back as well. So much has changed in such a short period of time, it’s kind of hard to even process. That’s probably why I’ve been feeling so down lately, too – sleep deprivation will do that, but so will some PTSD and the emotional shock of adjusting to a complete lifestyle change a full two months before I was expecting it. Continue Reading

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4 Comments Fitness, Marriage, Parenting, Preeclampsia, Pregnancy

Eclampsia and Emergency

In the kitchen, there is one tool that I would never want to own or use, no matter how cool I think it is in theory. I’m not afraid of knives or food processors or whatnot, but I have never owned a pressure cooker, and I don’t even like going into other people’s kitchens when they use one. They creep me out and make me anxious – I’m always afraid that they’re going to burst or something, no matter how safe everyone always tells me that they are. Well, it seems that we can’t avoid those things we might like to; last week, my heart became a pressure cooker.

I am still only finding out about the story as time goes by, so I’m not 100% sure of what happened, but here’s the stuff I do know for now. It’s been quite an emotional time for me, and every time I talk about it, I well up with tears. The same will probably happen as I write these words, but if it can help just one person, it’s worthwhile. Continue Reading

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28 Comments Marriage, Preeclampsia, Pregnancy