Fourteen years ago, our family’s story changed forever. My daughter, Joy, entered the world at just 23 weeks gestation, weighing only 1 pound, 4 ounces, and measuring 11.5 inches long. She was impossibly tiny, with transparent skin and a body that had to fight for every breath, every ounce, and every day. Her beginning was filled with fear, uncertainty, machines, alarms, and medical words no parent ever wants to learn—PDA, sepsis, ROP, RDS, Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia, and so much more.
Her first 121 days were spent in the NICU, where she showed us what strength looks like in its smallest and most powerful form. She came home on oxygen and required around-the-clock care, home nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and feeding therapy. Over the years, her journey continued through many difficult seasons, including weeks in the PICU until she was 9 years old and surviving pneumonia eight times because of the lasting impact of BPD. But through it all, she kept fighting. She kept growing. She kept proving that miracles are not always sudden moments; sometimes they are built slowly, breath by breath, day by day.
Her birth was also the beginning of a long road for our entire family. During my pregnancy, I nearly died four times because of placenta percreta. During delivery, doctors had to surgically separate my bowels and bladder from the placenta, perform a hysterectomy to save my life, and give me 30 units of blood. I did not wake up or see my daughter for days. While she was fighting in the NICU, I was fighting to survive, too. It is difficult to put into words the trauma, gratitude, fear, and love that lived side by side during that time.
Our boys were only 3, 5, and 7 when their baby sister was born, and their childhood changed in ways they could not have understood at the time. Our whole family had to adapt to hospital life, medical routines, uncertainty, and a new kind of normal. We learned how to celebrate tiny victories, how to live with fear, and how to hold onto hope even when the path ahead was unclear. Her story is not only her story—it is our family’s story of love, resilience, sacrifice, and the unbreakable bond that carried us through.
Today, she is 14. Fourteen. A number that once felt impossible to imagine. And today, I do not want to focus only on what she survived, but on who she has become. She is here. She is growing. She is loved beyond measure. She has taught us courage, perspective, patience, and the sacred gift of never taking a single day for granted. Happy 14th birthday to my beautiful daughter. You are our miracle, our warrior, and one of the greatest blessings of my life.
