Support Aria's NICU Journey: A Tiny Fighter

Aria Kimberly Nuss made her arrival on August 19th at 1016 in the morning.

Aria after Arya Stark from Game of Thrones. A tiny but mighty warrior that marches to the beat of her own drum and diverges from traditional expectations. Kimberly after my mother- another fierce woman. If ya know, ya know.

My water broke at only 22 weeks and 2 days. We were devastated because we knew 24 is known as the "viability" week, but the doctor took a chance on us. We managed to keep her inside my belly for 8 more days while in the hospital on bedrest. We held our breath for those 8 days, hoping to stay pregnant as long as we could. Since a week had passed on bedrest, we were optimistic that we were in it for the long haul, but she had other plans for us. She decided to make her grand appearance at 23 weeks and 3 days, weighing only 1 lb 2.7 oz and 11.22 inches long. She stayed strong for her delivery and is putting up a good fight in the NICU. She is truly living up to her name and is quite the little warrior princess already. She seems to be little miss popular in the NICU and has been impressive with her resilience so far. We have a long road ahead, but with her fiery spirit, we are ready to fight with her and hold her tiny hands through it all. She's proved us wrong in every moment of fear we've had. If we've learned anything through this, it's that she makes the rules. This is Aria's world and we're just living in it, but what a beautiful world it is.

This is very hard for her father and me to do. We both grew up working hard for everything we have, and we take pride in our work ethic. We hold value in earning what we work hard for. With that being said, this journey is going to take a lot of time away from us being able to work and unfortunately, I do not get paid a full maternity leave. I am blessed to have been able to give natural birth to her, but with that comes a shorter recovery time and therefore less time covered under leave pay. We would typically just find a way to make ends meet, but these times are stressful enough as is, and our priority is to be with her as much as we can. We also thought we had several more months to accrue more PTO and put extra money aside to prepare for my time off and bridge that gap- but again, Aria sets the tempo.

We are swallowing our pride and allowing ourselves to ask for help. We of all people understand the crisis of the economy right now, so if you are unable to donate, you can help by sharing our story. And if you are unable to do that, we are more than grateful for just a quick prayer or positive thought for our sweet baby girl. If you decide to donate, all the funds will go towards our monthly expenses as we are off work and run out of paid leave time. Anything that exceeds our goal will go towards her medical bills and items for her transition home. We greatly appreciate any amount that you are able to give.

Thank you for taking the time to read a little bit about our story and for considering a donation. If you want to follow miss Aria's journey in the NICU, feel free to follow my account kayla.krieter on Instagram. I post highlights of her almost daily, and I may be biased, but she's pretty precious to look at too. :)