Trauma Mamas: Beyond the Bedside

Send us Fan Mail We finally made it to the day we had been dreaming about for years… homecoming day. 🏡🤍 In this episode, we’re sharing what our homecoming days actually looked like.. the emotions, the people who showed up for us, the help we received, and the moments we will never forget. We talk about the car ride home after years of living inside hospital walls and how completely unreal it fel...

Send us Fan Mail One of the hardest and most overwhelming moments in having a critically ill child is also the most hoped-for… bringing your baby home for the first time. This first part of our 3-part series is for the parents in that in-between space… still in the ICU, but starting to prepare for the homecoming. Our hope is that this episode helps you feel a little less alone, and a little more c...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Trauma Mamas: Beyond the Bedside, Alison and new cohost Danielle Sullivan introduce this new chapter of the podcast and share what “beyond the bedside” truly means in their everyday lives as moms raising medically complex children. In this special intro episode, Danielle gives listeners a glimpse into the logistics of life at home with Cora — from the routines and rea...

Send us Fan Mail Danielle and I sit down for a fun Q+A so you can get to know us a little better. We asked each other questions about motherhood, life outside the hospital, and the experiences that shaped us and this podcast — things like, “What’s the most medical mom thing you’ve ever done?”, “What does this podcast mean to you?”, and "When did you start to feel like yourself again?" Th...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we sit down with Danielle Sullivan to talk about what it really looks like to survive the NICU — not just physically being there, but mentally and emotionally enduring the unknown. After a long and difficult fertility journey, Danielle welcomed her daughter, Cora, at 24 weeks. What followed was a 477-day NICU stay, a diagnosis of severe chronic lung disease (BPD),...

Send us Fan Mail In this week’s episode, I’m joined by Bobbi Kline — a fellow BPD mom who just gets it. We talk about the honest realities of raising boys with bronchopulmonary dysplasia, the kind of medical mom banter that doesn’t require explanation, and what it looks like now that our kids are growing up and doing better than we ever imagined. From sending them to preschool to learning how to l...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I’m joined by NICU mom and advocate Essie Weiss, founder of The Cuddle Foundation—a nonprofit dedicated to ensuring NICU babies are held when families can’t always be at the bedside. Essie shares how her own NICU experience inspired a mission to bring trained volunteer cuddlers into hospitals across the country. We talk about why physical touch and kangaroo care a...

Send us Fan Mail This episode is the most special one to me. And I'm happy to be back!! You’ve heard pieces of our story throughout the last 21 episodes, but for the first time, I’m not helping someone else tell theirs..we’re telling ours. And for the first time, I’m bringing on our first dad: my husband, David!  Our son was born at 28 weeks due to complications from IUGR and was later diagno...

Send us Fan Mail It feels so good to be back behind the mic! In this bonus episode, Alison is joined by co-host Tori for a laid-back but much-needed conversation about life with our trach/vent-dependent toddlers — and what the holidays look like when they happen inside the hospital instead of at home. We know the weight of spending the holidays in the ICU: the grief, the guilt, the exhaustion, the...

Send us Fan Mail 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 wh...

Send us Fan Mail 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 an...

Send us Fan Mail 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 ti...

Send us Fan Mail 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 Heartst...

Send us Fan Mail “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 IUG...

Send us Fan Mail 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 understan...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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 Abb...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail In this special episode, we’re wrapping up the first 10 episodes of Trauma Mamas: Stories from the ICU and Having Medically Complex Kids . I’ll be taking a short break from posting new episodes until April 15, during this time I’ll be working behind the scenes on new content and spending time with my family. Here’s a HUGE thank you to all of our amazing co-hosts and listeners! I’l...

Send us Fan Mail Wow!! Episode 10! I had just met Leslie for the first time doing this episode. She is just so easy to talk to and get to know. After discovering our podcast through Tori, Leslie reached out, excited about the community we’re building—a community she wished was there during her own uncertain and difficult times with her son, Nick, back in 1995. Leslie tells what it was like to have...

Send us Fan Mail When Ariana learned at 20 weeks pregnant that her son Hudson had severe kidney issues, her world changed. With one kidney non-functional and the other working at only 10%, Ariana faced a challenging journey of managing Hudson’s care — including  peritoneal dialysis at home — before her husband Grant became Hudson’s kidney donor. In this episode, Ariana shares her experience naviga...

Send us Fan Mail Kim shares her experience of having periviable preemie twins at just 22 weeks. She tells the story of her daughters: Amelia, who was stillborn, and Quinn, who was a fighter from the start, letting out a scream at birth, something almost unheard of at that gestational age. In this episode, we discuss the realities of NICU life, bagging, codes, ventilation and things that might soun...

Send us Fan Mail When you’re expecting a baby, you don't think you’ll become an expert in congenital heart defects (CHDs). But for Kaylee Berner, that became her reality when her son, Bennett, was born with Tricuspid Atresia, Transposed Great Arteries, and Pulmonary Vein Stenosis. His heart may be one of a kind, and in this episode, Kaylee breaks down his complex condition in a way that makes...

Send us Fan Mail I’m joined by ICU nurse Sammie, who made a lasting impact while caring for my son. We discuss how parents and medical teams can work together in the high-stress ICU environment, focusing on communication, mutual trust, and making tough decisions. Sammie shares advice for parents on navigating hard truths, accepting the emotional toll, and finding clarity while addressing the commu...