Last year ended and this year began…crappy. From Christmas on someone has been sick in our home and for the last 12 days it has been me.  And not like runny nose, cough, push through sick, but an excruciating and debilitating ear infection that landed me flat on my back for a good 10 days and had me going from urgent cares, to doctors, to the ER seeking relief..  and it sucked. The other night as I held a warm pack to my ear and tried to distract myself as I counted down the minutes till my next Ibuprofen popping session, I inevitably found myself scrolling social media.  Most p ..read more

I think it is often the case that the healing journey begins with the question, “What’s wrong with me?” and should eventually bring about the answer, “Nothing.” I personally remember the first time I asked myself, “What is wrong with me?”  I was watching Finn as he was working through a little cough, maybe he just swallowed wrong even, and I thought, “Alright, here it is, our next trip to the hospital.” When the coughing fit passed, and it was clear he was fine, I felt what I can only describe as disappointment.  I thought, “What the hell is wrong with me wanting my son to have to go ..read more

I didn’t think too much about myself the first year of Finn’s life.  There were too many other things that needed thinking about and caring for.  It wasn’t until he turned two (the age which doctors had told us he would be caught up with other kids) and I stopped breastfeeding, that I realized the last two years had really worn on my mind and my body. Along with the stress of caring for Finn, my mom had been very sick and died just one week before Finn turned one. I had been in survival mode for so long that I was literally waiting for the next emergency. I was ready to go into actio ..read more

Many people have heard me talk about our NICU experience and a moment that a fellow NICU mom shared a bit of wisdom with me that helped turn my attitude around. I had been struggling mentally with all that had happened and I felt cheated, robbed of so much.  I walked up to the NICU doors every day already feeling defeated, sleep deprived, and worn down.  A mom next to me at the doors came in with a smile on her face, curls in her hair, and even little heels on her feet.  I thought she must be hospital staff for sure, but then in she walked into one of the tiny rooms just down fr ..read more

We are experiencing a time like none other in history.  We are being asked to give up our personal privileges and freedoms for the greater good.  We are urged and now ordered in some places to stay home and stay healthy. For the average American much of the consequences from this pandemic are losses that we will recover from, but for others it is literally life and death.  I do feel my own sense of sadness for our vacation that was cut short, for the loss of a schedule for my kids, and for being isolated from my family, friends, and new found gym community, but I am also no stra ..read more

When your baby cries you instinctively pick him up, hold him close to you, maybe rock him gently and sing a familiar lullaby. You don’t think about why it works, you just know that it will soothe him and calm his cries. What if you couldn’t pick him up?  What if you couldn’t be there every time he cried?  How could you still comfort him with what you know is so soothing and healing to him? These were the questions I asked myself when I was developing Finn the Panda and I asked the “why” behind what we instinctively know as mothers.  The research shows the importance of a tool li ..read more

I am such a nerd when it comes to the New Year.  I absolutely love it.  I love reflecting on the past year, reviewing goals, wins and losses, growth and lessons, and I love planning for the New Year and imagining where I’ll go next in life. 2019 marked the official start of Finn & Co. so I am taking some time to reflect on where the business has gone this year, and I thought I would share it with all of you who have supported me along the way.  Overall, even though there has been discouragement, frustration, and even tears at times, this has been an incredible first year in ..read more

Before I had children, let alone a child born premature, words like prematurity and NICU did not mean much to me.  I knew people who had babies in the NICU, but I didn’t really understand what that meant for their lives and their hearts.  I had heard sad stories of challenging pregnancies and hospitalizations, but I didn’t understand them further than trying to empathize with the person for what that must have been like. That is where most people sit on the subject and thank God.  It is better to not personally know, but to still try to empathize and offer some help even if you ..read more

When we were leaving the NICU in August 2017 we were warned about RSV season coming up.  We were told to take precautions like not going to crowded places, washing our hands, and not letting people hold or touch are baby who really didn’t need to. We took these precautions and isolated ourselves from much of the world around us.  When the season hit, it hit hard.  My mom and my father-in-law both got RSV and Finn’s 100 cousins (exaggerating a bit) were all sniffles and colds. We stayed away as much as possible, but my older son James, who was two at the time, was missing out on ..read more

The other morning when my son woke me up at 4am I noticed some sharp pains in my stomach.  When I woke up I was certain I had some kind of flu or food poisoning and just needed to wait for the inevitable mass exodus from my body. As the pain grew worse and I became more nauseous without throwing up I started to realize something more might be wrong, and when the pain brought me to tears while I was reading my son a nap time story, I knew my day would end at the hospital.  It was so reminiscent of preeclampsia—a pain that could be something simple like indigestion, but it builds and b ..read more