Thank you

To all who helped us get our son home and/or hold ourselves together in the process:

As most of you know, Tiegan came home exactly on his original due date, May 5, 2008. While the risks associated with having a preemie are not completely behind us (typical painful preemie reflux is our current issue), in most respects we’re now just dealing with the trials that all parents of a newborn second child experience. One of those trials is acute sleep deprivation, two of the symptoms of which are the blurring of time and the impairment of memory. Karen no longer tells me anything less than three times, which is fine because I generally forget what she tells me by the time she repeats herself. (We’re only aware of this phenomenon because Moorea pointed it out.) Our intellectual capacities are clearly on a steep downward trend. Which makes completing this letter a matter of some urgency. We want to take our shot at this while we still have some memory of the past few months and the cognitive ability to compose a comprehensible message. So, here goes what will inevitably be a grossly inadequate thank you to the many people that have helped us through the most stressful time that our young family has been through.

While we like the idea of a collective thank-you letter because it allows everyone who reads it a glimpse of some of the contributions of people who they would otherwise likely not have been aware of, and the amazing scope of the support we have received, it will necessarily leave out specific mention of all of the people who helped us through. We regret that, and want everyone to know how deeply we appreciate the flowers, food, gifts, thoughts, prayers, emails, text messages, calls, blog comments, and general well-wishes. We are humbled and amazed by the breadth and depth of the safety net that carried us through this time, and we are profoundly grateful to everyone who formed it.

In rough chronological order, thanks to:

Joe’s parents and Karen’s mom, who for the past three months have fully subordinated their own lives to supporting us. They have been back and forth from Vermont and Atlanta to our home almost continuously since Karen went into the hospital, and without them, we don’t know how we would have managed. Their sole focus has been making things easier for us and Moorea. They have shown us, yet again, what loving a child is all about. Thank you Great-Grandpa Bud, Tiegan looks forward to meeting you this summer.

Sarah Hletko Donahue, our guardian angel and a friend of Karen’s since kindergarten. Sarah is a doctor in the neo-natal unit at Prentice (Northwestern’s Women’s Hospital), and in addition to raising her own family and working a demanding job, Sarah immediately assumed the role of Chief Tiegan Strategist. She provided us constant access to expert medical advice through the lens of a dear friend, an invaluable gift in such a dynamic, overwhelming and confusing situation. Tiegan’s priority level as a patient (HIGH) at Children’s Memorial Hospital and at Prentice, which was due in large part to Sarah’s strong advocacy, would have been totally embarrassing in a less life-threatening context. Every day we knew we had Tiegan’s team of doctors working on him and Sarah to help the two of us make sense of the numbers, the tests, the terminology and what was to come next. Sarah made us more educated parents and more effective advocates for Tiegan’s care. Sarah is forever a part of our family. We will never be able to repay her.

All of Karen’s female friends, including the Moms: Betsy, Kelly, Melanie, Dawn, Cecilia, Jen, Lisa, Tami, Cindy, Eva, and Vivianne. Also the Wiggleworms playgroup moms and Rachel, Liz, and Jill. You have all continuously amazed us. They have kept us nourished (literally and emotionally) for the past few months and provided emergency childcare, shoulders to cry on, visits to Karen and Tiegan in the hospital, rides when Karen wasn’t allowed to drive, answers to unanswerable questions, presents to make Moorea think this whole experience was fun and general support on a regular basis. Then a baby shower to welcome Tiegan home! Unbelievable. In addition to being the central distributor of our family’s information, Betsy Guzina has been regularly hosting Moorea, including for Moorea’s first co-ed sleepover (Joe has mixed feelings about this). Cooking and eating have not been high on our priority lists this year, but thanks to these caring, compassionate, generous women and their families, we’ve never eaten better. For Karen's friends coast-to-coast and far away, thank you, especially to my amazingly present and supportive bridesmaids, merci et gros bisous mes amis, Efcharisto Allison, and danke schon Miriam. Your emails and messages from all time zones were loved.

Sue and Rodney Watt, our wonderful, selfless cousins, for emergency childcare, emergency breast-pump rental, emergency car borrowing, and all manner of miscellaneous helpfulness. We are so lucky to have them close.

All of the nurses and doctors at Prentice who took care of Karen for the two and a half weeks she was in the hospital before Tiegan was born. We could not have been more well-supported or better cared-for. In addition to the excellent care, we appreciate the tolerance of our endless attempts to precisely quantify the risks associated with an unquantifiable situation. Moorea still talks about Nurses Gina and Amy.

Karen’s entire OB group (Northwestern Memorial Physicians Group www.nmpg.com), each member of which was a great source of information and support. Special, heartfelt, enduring thanks to Dr. Catherine Chen, who went way beyond the ordinary bounds of a doctor/patient relationship. She treated Karen as though she were a family member, including regular cell-phone consultations every single day (even days off!) and specially arranging childcare on a weekend so that she could come perform Karen’s delivery! Special thanks as well to Dr. Robbie McNair, whose kindness matched her expertise and who was a constant source of emotional and medical support for Karen in the days leading up to, and the day of, delivery. The conversations with Dr. Garvey, Dr. Auger and Dr. Foley always brightened Karen’s days. We would refer any of our closest friends to this amazing practice.

Dr. Bielski and Dr. Marcus, Karen’s anesthesiologists, whose excellent senses of humor helped both of us through the delivery. Their ability to put people at ease even under enormous stress is a unique gift. And congratulations to Dr. Bielski, whose child was due shortly after Tiegan was born.

The doctors and nurses at Children’s Memorial Hospital. Apart from being among the best in the world at what they do, this group understands what families are going through when their child is in the hospital. Eternal gratitude to the head of the NICU, Dr. Jimmy Collins, who took a special interest in Tiegan and us, and went out of his way to make sure that we were as well-informed and as comfortable as possible. By the end of our three weeks at Children’s, we felt as though Jimmy was a life-long friend, and he will be. In addition to being an excellent doctor and team leader, he is as good a person as they come. Special thanks also to our primary nurse, Aileen Compernolle. Aileen cared for Tiegan as though he was hers, and her advice and emotional support of us were equally valuable. Aileen comforted Karen when she cried, but she also told her when to “not borrow trouble”. By the end of Tiegan’s first week at Children’s, Aileen could tell which information from the doctors’ morning rounds was going to cause Karen to call Sarah Donahue with questions and Aileen helped Karen to clarify the numbers and information with her own questions. We are also deeply grateful to Dr. Julia Lloyd for her combination of compassion and exceptional medical care. We cannot forget to thank the team of pediatric surgeons who monitored Tiegan daily at Children’s, particularly Dr. Erin Rowell, who understood the importance of giving us as much information as we wanted, regardless of whether we could understand all of it, and Dr. Reynolds, who finally gave Tiegan his first try at eating orally!

The doctors and nurses in the Prentice NICU. Nurse Kim Ladd was part of the team that brought Tiegan into this world, and when we returned for our second go-round at Prentice, became his primary nurse. We so appreciate her sage advice, as well as her grounding effect on a sometimes overwrought Mama. During the days when Tiegan was at Prentice, Karen spent more time with Kim than anyone else in our world, and Karen found solace in Kim’s experience and laughter in the humor of her stories and her perspective. We are also deeply indebted to Dr. Ruth Deddish, the head of the Prentice NICU, for her wise oversight of Tiegan’s case from his birth through his homecoming and her care as Tiegan’s attending doctor for three of his weeks at Prentice. Tiegan’s second attending physician for three weeks, Dr. Catachon kept us grounded and answered all of our questions as Tiegan grew closer to his ever-changing discharge date. Dr. Robin Steinhorn, the head of Neonatology deserves a special thanks as well.

Thank you to all of you, too. We would be remiss if we did not mention thanks also to our employers Ventas, Inc., Alternatives, Inc. and Crunch Fitness who have been so flexible and supportive during this period.

We find ourselves with an impossibly deep karmic deficit. We will never have the opportunity to directly repay all of the kindness from which we have benefited. We will endeavor to make up a bit of ground indirectly when the opportunities arise, but the best we can do for the moment is to try to let everyone know what a tremendous effect you have had on our lives, and pay it forward.