Trauma Mamas: Beyond the Bedside

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This week, I’m joined by Erin. She’s an involved and empathetic NICU mom who just gets it. We talk candidly about what it was like to live in the ICU, the weight of advocating for your child, the emotional whiplash of NICU life, and how those challenges don’t magically end after discharge.

Erin shares what it’s been like raising her funny, sweet son, born at just 24 weeks, and what life looks like now as a preteen. We talk about the ongoing obstacles he’s overcome, including BPD and restrictive airway disease. We talk about how NICU trauma can linger long after the monitors stop beeping.

Erin explains how that trauma can resurface years later, and how therapy, community, and finding your people—especially fellow medical moms who truly understand, can make all the difference. Erin has beautifully turned her pain into purpose through her nonprofit photography business, Capturing Courage, offering free sessions to NICU families in Columbus, Ohio. She also serves on the executive committee of the BPD Collaborative, working to improve outcomes and support for families of medically complex children.

This is as real and lighthearted as it gets in the world of Trauma-Mama-ing. Erin and her son have overcome so much, and her story is a testament to resilience, healing, and finding meaning in the mess.

Whether you’re in the thick of it or years past discharge—you’ll feel like we get you.

We’re a mess, you’re a mess, you know we’re a mess, and we all know it. 😆😉 And it’s going to be okay. 👍🏻

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This episode is an essential listen to learn more about bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD)—whether you’re a NICU parent, provider, therapist, nurse, respiratory therapist, or someone supporting a medically complex baby. I’m joined by Dr. Audrey Miller, neonatologist, educator, and chair of the advocacy committee at the BPD Collaborative, for a conversation that’s both informative and honest.

Dr. Audrey is a gifted and compassionate teacher, deeply committed to helping families and clinicians better understand this complex diagnosis. She explains how BPD exists on a spectrum—some babies may go home with low-flow oxygen and a nasal cannula, while others, like my son Donny, fall on the severe end, requiring a tracheostomy and ventilator. Our conversation focuses heavily on that severe side of BPD, because that’s the path we’ve lived—and I truly believe this information can change the trajectory for other families the way it did for ours.

Dr. Audrey said:

“If you’re the only family with a severe BPD patient at your hospital, you can feel very alone and maybe even feel like no one knows what BPD is. When in fact we do, and there’s a large group of people working to do the best things we can for your baby. So one of the ideas with starting the Parent Social Hour is that no matter where you are in the country, you can connect with other parents who have gone through this before—or are currently going through it.”

She reminds us that outcomes can be great in this population. The Collaborative is committed to improving care through research, education, and clinical guidance—not just in the NICU, but beyond, as these babies grow and go home.

We talk about the challenges that both parents and providers face—challenges the BPD Collaborative is actively working to address. These include the difficulty of developing standardized protocols, the mindset shifts still needed at many medical centers, and the reality that BPD is a disease of prematurity with many gray areas and no one-size-fits-all approach. While there’s still much to learn, there is also hope, meaningful progress, and real answers being offered.

I share what it was like to receive Donny’s severe diagnosis, and how frustrating it was to fight for BPD-specific care. Things finally started looking up when we found the continuity and guidance we had been searching for—help that changed everything for our son.

One of Dr. Audrey’s greatest passions is empowering parents to feel involved and confident in their child’s care. She believes strongly that parents aren’t just part of the care team—they’re essential to it.

If you need help advocating or need more answers for your child who’s received this diagnosis you can get in contact with the Collaborative here. (https://thebpdcollaborative.org/)

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When Sydney’s son Walker was born with diastrophic dysplasia, a rare form of skeletal dysplasia, she lost hope for what the future might hold. In this episode, Sydney shares the challenges of receiving a diagnosis that few people — even medical professionals — truly understand, and how devastating it can feel when answers are nearly impossible to find.

We talk about the role of timing, luck, and connection — how one chance encounter, whether through social media or in daily life, can completely change the trajectory for medically complex kids. For Walker, finding a specialized team across the country opened doors that once felt firmly closed. He was even able to “graduate” from hospice care, bringing new hope and possibilities for his future.

Sydney and I discuss the realities of raising a medically fragile child, the deep isolation that often comes with it, and the difficult decision for Walker to live at a medical facility to manage his critical airway due to grade 4 subglottic stenosis. Still, amidst the hard days, they continue to create joy — from simple movie days at home to family outings at the zoo — giving Walker a full and happy life. Now, on the other side of that initial hopelessness, Sydney is passionate about encouraging and guiding others navigating their own complex diagnoses.

“The one thing I want people to know is that skeletal dysplasia is not a death sentence. Yes, there are health challenges and they’ll be smaller than everyone else, but they can still do everything — just a little differently.”

Thank you so much, Sydney, for sharing your remarkable story and experiences with us.

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When your child is critically ill, one of the hardest things to accept is how little control you have. Many people go their whole lives without facing that kind of powerlessness. For medical parents, it’s reality. So how do you begin to accept that and still move forward?

In this episode, I talk with Molly Trexler—a pediatric nurse practitioner, medical mom, and founder of Heartstrings, a coaching practice for parents navigating complex medical journeys. Molly helps families find clarity, confidence, and peace in the chaos by blending her clinical and lived experience with compassionate emotional support.

Together, we discuss:

      • How to communicate effectively with      your child’s medical team, even when emotions run high

• Why preparation brings peace—and how to let go of the rest
• The everyday stressors that pile up (insurance, finances, siblings, logistics) and how coaching can help lighten the load
• The importance of accepting help and building a trusted circle of support
• The Four Ps that guide Molly’s work: Pardon, Power, Peace, and Purpose

“This is a time in your life where you have permission to say, ‘I need help,’ and ‘thank you.’ And that’s it.”

 I truly believe so many of us medical parents can benefit from this kind of thoughtful and informed support.

👉 To learn more about Molly’s coaching services, visit her Instagram https://www.instagram.com/mollytrexlercoaching?igsh=cTd2ajQ2cWNzcnk3 or her website mollytrexler.com, where you can watch testimonials from other parents who’ve completed her 9-step program.

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“You don’t even understand the gravity of what it means to have a premature baby. Then you have to explain to people that it’s not just a super small baby—it means they’re born with underdeveloped lungs, brain, everything.”

In this episode, Paige tells us what it was like having two high-risk pregnancies, and how we’ve adjusted to life as stay-at-home medical moms. We both had IUGR pregnancies, and we explain the challenges that come with that diagnosis—comparing our experiences, what we knew (or didn’t know), and how unprepared we felt when our babies were born.

Paige shares her son Graham’s story in detail, from his complex airway issues to the emotional rollercoaster of caring for a micropreemie with severe BPD and unexplained respiratory distress. Graham has undergone around 23 airway reconstruction surgeries, and Paige walks us through what that journey has looked like for their family.

She’s so down to earth, and her love for Graham shines through as she talks about how far he’s come. He’s been through so much—pulse ox 24/7, a ventilator, oxygen support—but now, he hasn’t needed any of it for almost two years, except when he’s asleep. She says he amazes them every single day.

We also talk about the line we walk as complex care parents—the constant balance of being grateful things didn’t turn out worse, while still grieving the more typical experiences we imagined. If you’ve ever felt caught between gratitude and grief, or alone in your journey, this conversation will absolutely resonate.

And if you hear us laughing at slightly inappropriate times… we had our youngest guests join us during this episode—Graham and Nora! 😆

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I could not have picked two better people to help me with this conversation—Kim, a mental health professional, and Sammie, a medical professional who walks beside families in their hardest moments.

Kim has a master’s in counseling and a bachelor’s in psychology. She worked in the school system for 10 years, including in the Sandy Hook district, where she developed a deep understanding of PTSD and secondary trauma. She also brings powerful lived experience—spending a year in the hospital with her daughter Quinn, and surviving the loss of both Quinn and her twin sister Amelia due to complications from prematurity and BPD. Now, Kim is a certified life coach for children and adults and has started kindmindscoaching 

She says, “I’m a lifelong learner. I love learning about the brain, mental health, coping, resiliency, and emotional intelligence.”

Nurse Sammie is a pediatric ICU nurse who has witnessed trauma daily and is trained in therapeutic crisis intervention (TCI). She shares what it’s like to navigate traumatic events on the job, and how mental health awareness and connection with families is essential to her role.

This episode is about the emotional aftermath of long hospital stays with your child, ICU life, and child loss. When the alarms stop and the chaos fades, many parents are left carrying trauma they weren’t expecting and are unequipped for.

When you’ve spent months watching monitors more than sleeping, your nervous system doesn’t just bounce back. Anxiety, anger, numbness, hypervigilance..it’s more common than people think, and for many of us, it hits after going home, when the world assumes we’re “okay now.”

We talk about the power of real connection. Of being seen. Of tiny moments of validation, and how mental health care needs to rise to meet the weight of what ICU parents carry.

We also explore the frustration of not being listened to as a parent—and how impossible it feels when someone asks, “What do you need?” and you honestly don’t know. We talk about what trauma looks like after survival and what healing can look like, too.

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This week, Kami shares her journey as a medical mom to her son Landry, a 28-week micropreemie born after a pregnancy complicated by preeclampsia. Landry has severe BPD and is trach, vent, and G-tube dependent. But none of that defines who he is—he’s been a fighter since day one, and his mom and dad have been right beside him every step of the way.

Kami opens up about the chaos of those early NICU days, including transferring hospitals when Landry was just 3 days old, the devastation of reintubation, and sitting through palliative care discussions. She also shares about the moment she decided to move forward with tough medical decisions:

“It was devastating to have to reintubate him. I saw a part of my kid I’d never seen before with the CPAP mask. I got to hold him and love on him. So when his doctor asked if I had ever thought about him getting a trach, I said, ‘Let’s do it. I’m ready to hold him.’”

Her love for Landry shines through in every part of this conversation. She reminds me so much of so many of our past co-hosts—all of us parents with one shared goal: getting our kids better.

We talk about what it was like to move her son from Florida to Ohio to receive specialized care, and the stress of advocating for your child when everything feels urgent and you’re desperate for answers. We also reflect on the beauty of holding our preemies for the first time, the emotions that come with making high-stakes medical decisions, and how difficult it can be to advocate for your child when they need you the most.

Kami is an honest, tough, and loving mom. And she’s a reminder of how resilient medical moms are—and how far we’ll go to give our kids a fighting chance.

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This episode is all about bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) — not from a medical textbook, but from two moms who’ve been living it for over two years. Tori and I share how we’ve come to understand our sons’ diagnoses of severe BPD: what it is, how it shows up, what treatments our kids have needed, and what we’ve learned from being in the trenches of the ICU for almost 2 years. 

We explain things in the way they were explained to us, in layman’s terms. From symptoms and types of mechanical ventilation, to why we both hate blood gases and what we’d advocate for or against, this episode is for parents trying to wrap their heads around this complex diagnosis.

Just because your child receives a BPD diagnosis doesn’t mean they’ll end up trached and vented — there is a wide range of severity, and every child’s path looks different. What we do want to share is hope: our boys both had severe BPD, and we’re so grateful they’ve made it through hospitalization. The good news? These kids can grow out of this disease with time, lung development, and the right support.

We also talk about the importance of individualized care, how to advocate for your child, when to consider transferring hospitals for higher-level care, and what we learned from being at a specialized BPD unit. This isn’t the medical deep-dive — we hope to bring you that in the future — but it is a real and practical conversation from two moms who’ve walked this path.

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When your child is hospitalized—especially far from home—everything changes. Whether your stay is just a few days or nearly 700, you need more than a bed. You need care, consistency, and people who understand what you’re going through. That’s exactly what Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Ohio provides.

In this episode, I sit down with Kate, Chief Program Officer, and Abby, House Manager, at the largest Ronald McDonald House in the world, located right across the street from Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

There are 265 Ronald McDonald Houses in the U.S. and over 385 worldwide. These homes are typically located next to children’s hospitals and exist to keep families close to the care their children need. RMHC of Central Ohio offers much more than housing: meals, laundry, therapy dogs, sibling spaces, art rooms, community events, and even salon services—entire systems of support for both short- and long-term stays.

All of this care is made possible entirely through donations and volunteers. The Columbus community has built something remarkable—and people like Kate and Abby are carrying out a powerful mission every single day.

We talk about what families can expect during a stay, how RMHC helps relieve the mental and financial stress of having a hospitalized child, and the deep impact this support has on caregivers. We also highlight the heart behind the work—why the smallest milestones matter and how celebrating families is part of the healing, too.

This episode is about what it looks like to witness a positive, compassionate charity in action—even in the hardest moments.

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This week, I’m joined by Nicole from The Daily Vent Podcast! We talk hurricane prep, hospital life, in-home nursing, and why we started sharing our stories online. This is a laid back conversation about so many things. 

Our sons have similar diagnoses—BPD and Tracheomalacia—so we discuss what life looks like post-discharge and the ups and downs of parenting trach babies.

Nicole, a “trach-fluencer,” shares how social media became her lifeline—and now, she’s doing the same for others. It’s an honest, lighthearted, and supportive conversation you won’t want to miss. 💞

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/traumamamaspodcast?igsh=YW1pbXpvbDdlenZh&utm_source=qr

The Daily Vent Podcast: 

https://open.spotify.com/show/7wsaIIM3lgZsiDXsp39lJf?si=O4NMIQnnQFS8NOQqqlL0VQ