A Little Extra Momming

What if the bravest decisions aren’t the ones made without fear… but the ones made while trembling? In this deeply personal episode, A Little Extra Momming - a podcast from the Extra Care Collective - dives into the raw and complicated story behind the decision to have baby #3 while raising a medically complex child. In the middle of PICU admissions, life supports, sleepless nights, and constant u...

We weren’t thinking in years. We were thinking in days. In stability. In “nothing went wrong today.” And then, in a post-op appointment right around Christmas, a surgeon said something that quietly cracked everything open: “Make sure you bring her by the clinic around her first birthday. We love to celebrate those.” Just like that—someone spoke a future into the room we hadn’t allowed ourselves to...

When your third child rewrites everything you thought you knew about medical parenting. In this episode, I talk with Lindsey White—mom of three navigating complex GI conditions, including Food Protein-Induced Enterocolitis Syndrome (FPIES) —and what happens when experience doesn’t transfer - doesn't prepare you for what comes next. We get into feeding tubes, hospital life, doctor searches, and the...

Show Notes In this episode, I’m sharing a layered look at what it actually means to parent a medically complex child—through 12+ hospital stays, ICU admissions, and the process of building a “home ICU” system over time. This isn’t a linear story. It’s a real one. We talk about those early days of bringing a medically fragile child home with no roadmap… the exhaustion, the uncertainty, and the mome...

When traveling with a medically complex and disabled child, there is a constant tension between what’s possible and what’s safe. This episode lives right in that space. From a cross-country road trip on hospice to a Make-A-Wish trip that nearly unraveled, it’s an honest look at the beauty, fear, and split-second decisions families like ours carry. Not every yes is right for every family—but this i...

In Episode 3, I sit down with my friend Lindsey Waibl to talk about her journey as a medical mama to her 11-year-old daughter, Dylan, who has Trisomy 18. Lindsey shares how not knowing Dylan’s diagnosis before birth unexpectedly worked in their favor, how a series of life-changing procedures helped shape Dylan’s path, and how she gradually found her voice as Dylan’s fiercest advocate. We also talk...

Episode 1: After the Diagnosis If your child has just received a serious medical diagnosis, it can feel like the ground has disappeared beneath you. Fear, grief, and uncertainty can be overwhelming — but you are not alone. In this episode of A Little Extra Momming , we talk about the first moments after a life-changing diagnosis, the mix of hope and fear that comes with it, and the reassurance tha...

After Ellie’s diagnosis, life felt like it split into a “before” and “after.” In this episode of A Little Extra Momming, Mandi shares the deeper story of those early days: the phone call, the fear, the grief, the support that carried them, and the slow beginning of finding hope again. If you’ve ever wondered how to keep going after devastating news, this episode is for you. You are not alone—and y...