Greetings From Holland Kelly Bradley

In this episode we meet Shanna, who shares the story of her son Caleb's birth and care journey. We talk about g-tubes, microcephaly, finding the right medical staff for your care team, DIY toys, asking for help, support systems, ketogenic diets, epilepsy, and finding joy every day. 

Feeding Tube Awareness Week is February 8-12, 2021. For more information, please visit: feedingtubeawarenessweek.org

Shanna's recommendations for helpful resources:

Epilepsy Foundation:  epilepsy.com

Charlie Foundation: charliefoundation.org

December 3 marks the annual observance of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, and instead of giving my own voice a large presence, I wanted to help share the voices of some other creators that I have been following for the last few months. Please give their shows a listen, a like, a share, and/or a rating. 

Disability Visibility

Ask Win

Disarming Disability

Disability Inc

Ability Stories

Pigeonhole

What I Fink About Food

If you are looking for gift ideas for extra special little ones, here's a list that might get some ideas going. 

Who are the educational and medical professionals that you can turn to for enrichment and guidance once you get home from the NICU? How do you find them, and when is it right to switch to someone else? In this episode, I'll share how we found the right care team for our journey. 

greetingsfromhollandpod.com 

Today we meet my friend Dana. I've invited her to tell the story of her son Barnett's traumatic pre-term birth and four month long NICU stay, so please be advised that it may be upsetting for some to hear. 

Her family's journey may have begun months before ours, but astonishingly--and unbeknownst to us--our children stayed just down the hall from each other at the same time in 2018. Our paths crossed again when we met for the first time in September 2019, and we have been so grateful to have them in our lives ever since. 

Thank you for joining me in celebrating NICU Awareness Month and all of the miracles that these little fighters make happen. 

For more information, and to see pictures from Barnett's journey, please visit greetingsfromhollandpod.com 

I couldn't decide whether to name this episode "The Flight Crew" or use a pun. Ultimately the pun won, as they tend to do.

NICU nurses not only care for infants in critical care, but they often become ad hoc caretakers for parents as well.  They function as a sort of butterfly on the wall--they see how loving relationships and bonds form between parents and their children, and they can see how the stress of the medical environment can wear down marriages and/or one's mental health. Today we get to meet Jennifer, an Atlanta area NICU nurse. She offers grace and wisdom and advice to new NICU parents or to anyone that has a friend or family member with a NICU baby.

For more information please visit: greetingsfromhollandpod.com