Lisa Kugler has a Master’s of Arts in General Psychology from the University of North Florida and has worked in the education field most of her professional career. She is mother to Evangeline Grace, who was born with spina bifida in September of 2011. Lisa knows first hand the challenges a new parent encounters when receiving “the diagnosis.” Together with her husband, William, they face these challenges as a family, embracing the unexpected victories spina bifida brings to their lives. The Kuglers live in Fernandina Beach , Fl with a small but active herd of cats and dogs.
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Two days after my daughter was born- every mom waits so long for the moment she can hold and feed her child. Moms whose babies have spina bifida may have to wait a bit longer, but the waiting makes it so much sweeter. For me it was like holding heaven. She and I had a long chat that day. Well, I did the chatting (and it was mostly baby talk gibberish) and she mostly grunted and rooted around for her bottle. But I found it to be a conversation worthy of the great scholars. It solved so many problems and soothed my heart so!
Now that NICU is long behind us, we have lots of fun adventures. Here we went to the zoo with daddy and fed some giraffes. These were by FAR the strangest looking puppies baby girl had ever seen.
And here we are at the beach... it takes LOTS of concentration to properly dig in the sand and find all the little shell surprises. In fact, baby girl spent so much time at the beach this summer that she feels cheated when we put her in her sandbox with the "ordinary" sand. We end up burying things for her to find. Toys and strings of beads. Our little pirate baby!
I believe with all my heart that every mom in that first picture- frightened of accidently hurting the child she holds so gently, so carefully- needs to know that brighter days are on the way. That there will be adventures and laughter and fun she cannot imagine. Pregnancy and NICU are a battlefield. And there may be hard days after- but the victories- Oh! the victories make every dark day worth it.
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