Momumental Life Changes

It’s been a minute since my last blog post but the time away was well worth it because it was spent growing the most beautiful tiny human. On May 20th, my husband and I welcomed a healthy baby girl named Harleigh Grace. She is my third and last baby and I am absolutely soaking up every baby snuggle and milestone to the fullest.

I have always wanted to be a mom and I am thankful every day to have been blessed with three beautiful healthy girls, particularly because of my neurological condition of Moebius Syndrome. But the road here has had some interesting twists and turns. My first daughter Jadann was born in 2016 and although the pregnancy and birth were both relatively uneventful, an unsuccessful first attempt at exclusively breast feeding landed us both in the hospital for failure to thrive. Tough lessons about knowing my body’s limitations and advocating for myself and my child were learned here. In March of 2018, I found out I was pregnant with my second child. Unfortunately, I miscarried a few days shy of 6 weeks. I still think about my angel baby and who they would have been if they could have stayed with me…and it hurts. My second daughter Aryia was a pandemic baby and was born in June of 2020. This is probably why she is such a fighter and absolute force of nature. Her collar bone was broken at birth and this was later discovered a few days later by the pediatrician at the follow-up visit. This didn’t stop her from eating an insane amount of food, sleeping through the night and being generally chill and adorable. Harleigh is turning out to be equally chill and adorable but has been far more social, especially at night.

Being blessed with strong-willed children has not been easy. They say parenting doesn’t come with instructions so you just have to make the game plan up as you go and tailor it to each child’s personality…or try to anyway. It’s actually pretty terrifying because it leaves me to wonder about “the right way” to raise them to be successful humans. I wonder who they will be when the grow up and worry that they will be safe, healthy, generally happy and well adjusted. They say that the days are slow but the years are fast and that you should soak up all the moments before they are gone. I’m certainly trying. So here’s to all the adventures in the years to come.