Dominic’s Story: Part 4
No one has a baby and expects to walk out of the hospital with a shattered heart and empty arms. But that's exactly what I did.
No one has a baby and expects to walk out of the hospital with a shattered heart and empty arms. But that's exactly what I did.
The doctors explained what Treacher Collins was, to what degree they believed my son had it, and what it could possibly mean for delivery. I remember hearing cleft palate, small jaw, difficulty breathing, and tracheostomy. And I remember crying. That deep soul kind of crying where my very being wept with grief. I cried for myself. I cried for him. I cried for the dreams and hopes, plans, and desires I had unconsciously been holding onto so very tightly without even realizing it. And I cried because I was scared. Really scared.
With no time to think or process, we were quickly whisked away to the admitting department, and after another lengthy paperwork process, I had my hospital bracelet, the clothes on my back, and a starchy hospital bed up on the prenatal high-risk ward.
2020. Wow. What a year. I think it’s safe to say that 2020 was hard. Really hard. Unexpectedly hard. I distinctly remember sitting at my neighbor’s house on December 31, 2019 playing cards and toasting in the New Year while all the kiddos watched a movie...
It was February 8th, 2011. The day before my 24th birthday and I was 24 weeks pregnant with my first child. Everything was new and so very exciting. I had just started to feel the baby move a few weeks earlier and as far as the pregnancy went everything was totally run-of-the-mill.
My mom. My momma. The woman who birthed me. Who loved me. Who prayed for me. The one who showed me how to bake cookies. The one who I would call crying in the middle of the night when I had my first daughter and I had no idea what I was doing. The one who could “tea party” with the best of them. The one who couldn’t really cook but could bake a mean coffee cake.
I never knew that having children would be just as much me learning from them as them learning from me. But here we are, 8.5 years into this whole “mom” gig and I’m constantly stopping, thinking, and doing a heck of a lot of heart-checking and pride-surrendering.
I can feel my heart beating a bit faster and my armpits are starting to sweat. Two sure-fire signs that things are about to get real up in here. I’m Katie, a wife, a mother, an entrepreneur, and I have an eating disorder. The official diagnosis being anorexia nervosa.
Sunday Family Cake. I can’t remember when exactly it started but for quite some time now I have been making a cake for my family every Sunday. Yep, almost every single Sunday we eat cake. It’s my time to experiment. To explore. To create. And yes…be with family.
My family. My people. The ones who drive me crazy and make my heart burst all at the same time. Thick and thin…we walk through it all. So here is a quick little intro into my life and what better way to do so than tell you about the people with who I do “life” with.