Becoming a Medical Mom Changed Everything

TL;DR

• Looking back at NICU photos brought me right back into one of the hardest seasons of my life.
• This journey didn’t start in the hospital, it began at my 20-week anatomy scan.
• I knew something was different, but I didn’t yet understand how much would change.
• Becoming a medical mom reshaped every part of my life, not just parenting, but how I think, advocate, and move through the world.
• If you are walking this path too, you are not alone.

The Photos That Took Me Back

Recently I was asked to send a photo from our NICU days for an upcoming podcast episode about the NICU experience on The Rare Life. I opened my camera roll thinking it would be a simple task. Just find a photo, send it over, and move on with the day.

But the moment those images appeared on my screen, everything came rushing back.

The fear.
The grief.
The exhaustion.
The quiet depression that crept into every part of my existence.

I sat there scrolling through photos of my tiny baby with a shaved head for clean IV access, surrounded by wires and machines, ears and eyes covered so he wasn’t stimulated. Then suddenly I was right back in that hospital room again. The sounds of the monitors. The constant watchfulness. The unease and anxiety. The thick, deep sadness.

I couldn’t have stopped the tears even if I’d wanted to.

The Shift in Hindsight

Looking at those photos reminded me of something I’ve come to understand over the last few years.

There are moments in life when everything quietly changes. At the time, you may not fully realize what is happening. But when you look back later, you can see exactly where the path shifted, heading in a new direction.

For me, one of those shifts was becoming a medical mom.

Becoming a medical mom changed everything about the life I was living and the life I envisioned for myself.

But the first shift in this journey didn’t actually happen in the hospital.

It happened months earlier at our 20-week anatomy scan.

The 20-Week Scan

This was my third baby. By that point, I thought I understood pregnancy and motherhood pretty well. I had already walked through the newborn stage twice before and felt relatively confident stepping into this next chapter of my family.

Up until that point, this pregnancy had felt normal and familiar. 

But during that appointment, it became clear that something wasn’t quite right.

My baby was potentially missing a part of their brain? Their heart could possibly have issues too? What the heck is MFM?

I walked into that appointment expecting to leave with a few cute snapshots of my babe in utero. Instead, I walked out carrying fear, confusion and a referral for MFM (maternal fetal medicine) aka the “high risk” doctors.

Between Knowing and Not Knowing

From that point forward, pregnancy existed in a strange space between hope and uncertainty.

I knew things would be different, but I didn’t yet understand the extent of the road ahead of me.

There were many appointments, tests, images, and conversations with doctors as I tried to gather pieces of information and make sense of what was happening. Each new piece of information helped me understand a little more, but also raised new questions.

At the time, I couldn’t have imagined how much my life was about to change.

The Moment My Motherhood Changed

The birth itself was stressful. Everyone knew my baby was different, but nobody knew exactly what to expect. Nerves were high, and it was pretty traumatic for me. Then he was here. He was “ruddy.” 9lbs 1oz and covered in vernix. 

After being stitched up and left alone to be with my baby, everything felt normal. He was doing well (or so I thought.) I got about 24 hours to just be with him, hold him, nurse him. That day is sacred to me now. It was the last “normal” day I have had in the last 3 years. 

Then the hit came. 

Sitting in the hospital bed holding my sweet babe. Hearing a nurse say that he needed to be transferred to a nearby NICU and seen by endocrinologists and geneticists. 

Motherhood as I understood it changed at that moment. That was when I truly felt the weight of becoming a medical mom. There is little that compares to watching your one-day old infant be loaded up into a plastic tube to be taken by ambulance to a NICU at another hospital.

That shift didn’t just affect my hospital experience.

It touched every part of my life.

Entering a New World

The NICU became my introduction to a kind of motherhood I had never imagined for myself.

Instead of learning the rhythms of life with my newborn at home, I was learning how to navigate hospital rooms, medical terminology, and teams of specialists. My baby was surrounded by monitors, alarms, and equipment that felt overwhelming and unfamiliar.

Every day brought new information, concerns, and questions.

34 days of NICU/CICU life is one I don’t wish on anyone. Our experience was unusual, and I will go into details about specifics in another blog post. 

That time challenged everything I thought I knew.

What This Changed

It changed the way I approached parenting.
It changed the way I thought about the future.
It changed the way I understood my children and their needs.

It shaped the way I approached homeschooling and education. It influenced how I structured our days and how I navigated the balance between medical care, therapies, and everyday life.

Becoming a medical mom didn’t just change one part of life.

It changed everything. Every relationship and belief I held up until that point took a hard shift down a path I was completely unfamiliar with.

It changed how I walk into doctor’s appointments.
How I listen when specialists speak.
How I advocate when something doesn’t feel right.

It taught me to hold both grief and gratitude at the same time.

Grief for the life I thought I was stepping into.

And gratitude for the child who is right in front of me.

If You’re Here Too

If you are a parent who has also entered this world of medical motherhood, I want you to know something.

You are not alone.

So many of us are walking this road, learning as we go, carrying both the beauty and the heaviness of loving a child whose path looks different than we imagined.

Becoming a medical mom changed everything about the life I was living.

And in many ways, I am still learning what that means.

Resilience, advocacy, medical systems/settings, therapies, diagnoses, research. All of these and more. Fueled by deeper love than I knew I had.

You can do this. You are carrying a load that feels unbearable. It is so incredibly heavy, and yet you move forward every day. 

Your best is enough. I believe in you, and I am holding you in love and solidarity.