In honor of Heart Month and Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week, I’ve been participating in the #CHDAware Challenge on Instagram, organized by the Pediatric Congenital Heart Association. Today, I posted about being a heart mom. One phrase I wrote really got me thinking: “My role as a heart mom...has helped me become a truer version of myself than I think I ever was before.” I … [Read more...] about How Being a Heart Mom Helped Me Be Me
General
Why I Don’t Call My Son a “Heart Warrior”
In the heart kid community, our kids are usually referred to as our “heart warriors.” This word makes me immensely uncomfortable, for lots of reasons. The word warrior, to me, carries violence and anger with it. For whatever reason, I immediately picture the Huns in the movie Mulan. That image is not my Evan. Nor is it any of the amazing kids I’ve seen taking on a congenital … [Read more...] about Why I Don’t Call My Son a “Heart Warrior”
How My Toddler Sees Her Medically-Complex Brother
People often ask me how Emerie does with all the things that Evan has going on. While we were in the hospital, she struggled at times, of course, but she really doesn’t know any differently than having Evan for a brother. For all she knows, all babies spend months in the hospital and come home with little tubes in their noses and have to go to doctors’ appointments all the time. I … [Read more...] about How My Toddler Sees Her Medically-Complex Brother
My Best Strategy for Stopping Mom Guilt in its Tracks
When Evan first went home from the hospital at about 3 months old, I unconsciously thought everything would be sunshine and rainbows. There certainly was a lot of that, but the guilt I mentioned earlier this week did not miraculously go away--it just changed. One particular day, it all started with the guilt I felt when I took Emerie to my mom’s house so I could do some work, … [Read more...] about My Best Strategy for Stopping Mom Guilt in its Tracks
My Biggest Mental Hurdle
Guilt is a big struggle in my mind in general, but particularly in this season of my life. I know it doesn’t serve me, I know it has no purpose, but I just can’t get it to stay away. So, having a baby in the hospital and a toddler out of the hospital can sometimes send that guilt into overdrive. Back in June, while Evan was in the hospital for the first time, I … [Read more...] about My Biggest Mental Hurdle
How We’ve Become More Intentional Amidst Our Challenges
It’s no secret that this season of life is really challenging for our family. However, I strive to be a person who looks for the good, as I hope this blog will clearly show, and one of the really good things that comes out of the challenges our family has been faced with is that they have made us more intentional. As we are finding, moments are fleeting. Heck, even … [Read more...] about How We’ve Become More Intentional Amidst Our Challenges