Narrating Teddy's Remarkable Life
This is the story of a boy who against all odds THRIVED!
To narrate: to tell (a story) in detail. I still remember the moment so vividly. The firehose of medical terms and odds and unknowns had been going full blast and we could barely catch our breath. The doctor had just given us another round of information that we could barely comprehend about Teddy’s potential future. …
For as long as I can remember, I knew I would struggle to have kids. I have no idea why, as nothing in my life would have suggested this, but there was this underlying intuition that I would not be able to conceive or if I did my child may have medical issues. I knew …
There are very few people that know this part of the story, the week leading up to Teddy’s birth. Like my last post, we haven’t talked about this part because it was too hard and we had the miracle of Teddy to focus on. But I truly believe that the week before his birth was …
At 3:37am on August 10th, 2016, Teddy decided he couldn’t wait a minute longer and made his grand entrance. In that moment the world seemed to stop. Everyone seemed to hold their breath. I remember asking if he was okay. I don’t remember a verbal response, but she gave me a little smile and placed …
Teddy survived not only his first major surgery at 16 hours old, but also his first night. At that moment we felt like we won the lottery. For a week we had been told to prepare for a funeral, but there he was fighting and proving them all wrong. As soon as we would celebrate …
I remember after finding out we were pregnant sitting in the doctor’s office and the doctor giving us his due date. I immediately started laughing, because the date she gave was October 3rd and I thought to myself that hopefully our gummy bear would be a day late! In my family, October 4th is a …
Teddy was stable and it was amazing. The next few weeks were focused on keeping him stable and continuing to find all the underlying medical anomalies and confirm diagnoses. What this meant for us was that just like every new parent with a newborn, we were able to start developing a routine, just one that …
Of Teddy’s plethora of diagnoses, there are two that caused the most fear and uncertainty for me at the time they were given: Caudal Regression Syndrome and Hydrocephalus. Shortly after Teddy turned a month old, he was wheeled out of his room for his first official MRI. It was clear just by looking at him …
Because Teddy had so many things going on, the Caudal Regression Syndrome diagnosis got pushed to the back burner after being told. There was nothing we could do about it surgically to repair CRS, so any interventions he would eventually need to increase his quality of life would come as he got older, and we …
I think as any parent can attest to, the day you get to bring your baby home is one of the happiest and scariest days. You are so excited to be able to be home snuggling your baby, you are also worried about how you will manage to do the whole parenting thing. For a …