Welcome to Dr. Mom

Two years ago, I was on my way to Alabama and Florida – I had a road trip on my own, as an “independent and free” person – more free than I even knew! I was very excited because it was the first time I felt fairly free after I lost my first baby. I started taking Lexapro, an anti-anxiety medication, and decided to record a voice memo to listen to once weaned off antidepressants. I knew I would have hard days and I wanted to encourage myself when I had hard days. In that voice memo, I told myself how strong I am, how much I’ve accomplished, how when I fall, I always get back up, and when I find a problem I want to solve it…. I told myself things like “you could do a YouTube channel!” or “you could start a blog” or “you could grow your business as big as you want to.” I also told myself I was a good mother and made a joke about how I might know more about motherhood when I listened to this memo, thinking I could possibly have a child in my arms then. I encouraged myself in my excellent work ethic and how much I love being a wife to my husband John. I had so much ahead of me, and I made sure my future self knew that. 

I listened to that voice memo for the first time in March of 2023 – or was it April? I can’t remember! I was in a hotel room and my baby girl was in the ICU. I had less than an hour a day with my husband between our hospital shifts (just an idea to add for clarification). My girl has a neurological condition. She has a trach and is fed through a g-tube. I listened to the voice memo while I was pumping, since that was something I could do for her under any circumstances. I listened to it in one of my darkest points – I listened to it so I could get through that day. So that I could survive mentally. It felt like survival physically, but isn’t that how deep mental conditions feel? My words humored me – here I was, sitting there listening to myself talk, thinking “little did she know.” 

I had thought my YouTube  channel or blog – or whatever this will become, as I sit here recording myself talking while I pump (again!) – would be about bookkeeping, running a business, or simply a journal about life – I never knew I’d be making a blog about a life I never expected I would be living. I didn’t know it would be called “Dr. Mom.” That title never even existed in my mind. I didn’t know how much I would endure to get here. I didn’t know that telling myself “you are strong and you are a good mother” meant continuing to breathe while holding my paralyzed daughter, who can’t breathe on her own. Or that it meant standing beside my husband while we face the most difficult decision parents have to face. I didn’t realize that doing a YouTube channel, or blog, would be a means of “survival.” I thought it would be a light in the middle of success. Instead, these are things I do to understand and verbalize what’s happening that may perhaps, someday, help someone else going through the same. Like it or not, I love helping people – and I’m driven to try new things in order to do just that.

I am a wife. I am a bookkeeper. I am the mother of a disabled child. I have a handicap sign in my car now. I pump every three hours. And I am trying my hand at sharing my lifes struggles to see if my thoughts and methods help someone else out there survive too – and not only survive, but thrive, through God’s almighty, powerful hand.