On January 19th, Jared and I welcomed our sweet Shia into the world! New parenthood quickly proved to be as challenging as all of the cliches say between sleep deprivation, processing my birth experience, learning to breastfeed, and postpartum healing, but we were working on figuring it all out while soaking in every minute with our perfect babe. 
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<div>Unfortunately, when Shia was just three days old, we ran into some unforseen challenges with my health. I woke up on the 22nd with the left half of my face drooping. Since my blood pressure had been running a bit high throughout the end of my pregnancy, we were told to head into the ER out of concern of pre-eclampsia and stroke. My milk had just come in that morning, so I fed Shia, sobbing, wondering how we were going to get him his next feed since we didn't want to risk bringing a three-day-old into an ER. When we arrived at the hospital, we decided that Jared would stay in the car with him while I went in alone (we had a good friend meet me there later). Getting out of the car and walking away from both my husband and brand new baby in that moment, not knowing when or in what state I'd see them next, felt impossible.
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<div><span style="letter-spacing:0.0085px;">After many hours of monitoring and tests and utalizing a hospital pump to send bottles of milk out to the car, I was diagnosed with Bell's Palsy, a rare form of facial paralysis which is known to affect pregnant and postpartum people at a greater rate than the general population. Though it can be painful and difficult to cope with, it usually resolves within a few weeks to months. Luckily, my blood pressure was not high enough to be admitted, but I was diagnosed with postpartum hypertension and was told I would need to monitor my blood pressure and other symptoms closely for the next several weeks in order to make sure postpartum pre-elampsia wouldn't develop. The anxiety of the possibility of my blood pressure suddenly spiking to dangerous levels kept me from getting the sleep I so desperately needed in those next many nights, until thankfully my readings started to stabilize over the course of the next week.</span>
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<div>All of this to say, we are so grateful that I will likely be fine in the long-term, but these unforseen challenges on top of trying to get the hang of being new parents have thrown a wrench into our plans to return to our jobs.
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<div><span style="letter-spacing:0.0085px;">Jared has some paid paternity leave but has decided to take extra unpaid time to help support me and Shia while I recover. Unfortunately, I do not receive any paid maternity leave through my job as an online tutor, and I don't qualify for FMLA since I haven't been an employee at the company for a full year. Taking unpaid maternity leave was already going to be difficult for our finances, but now that I am needing to take more than planned for my mental and physical health, we have decided to reach out to our community for help.</span>
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<div>Though we hate to have to ask, especially at a time which is financially difficult for so many, we are hoping that if you are able to make this stressful time a bit easier on us, you might consider providing even a small amount of assistance. Any bit would help us to pay our bills while we take this time for the health of our family.
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<div><span style="letter-spacing:0.0085px;">Thank you to our friends and family</span><span style="letter-spacing:0.0085px;"> who have given support and/or reached out to check in and have sent well-wishes our way. We are lucky to have so much love in our lives!</span>
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Kari Thompson

Michael Bruell

Lauren Haskins

Anonymous

Eleuterio Lucca

David Grover

Diana Leader

Rachel Toy

Jaime Travers

Karen Dresser

David and Adinah Feder, Miller

natasha dean

Amelia Gonzalez

Andrea Teitman

Hannah's Postpartum Recovery and Maternity Leave

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