For the first three years of her life, Ellia was “the kid who never got sick.” “We never worried about her,” says Jenna Yee, Ellia’s mom. “She was always very spunky and funny and had this incredibly dynamic personality. We knew from the start she was a fighter.” But when Ellia was 3 years old, […]
For many of us, the past year has been uniquely stressful. Have you felt especially exhausted, struggled to focus or been more irritable than usual? Maybe you’ve found yourself wondering why you can’t cope with the stress better. “There are very real, biological reasons why we’re finding it harder than usual to perform,” said Dr. […]
When Cassie Fannin was 19-weeks pregnant with her first baby, she couldn’t wait for the ultrasound that would reveal her child’s gender. During the appointment, she and her husband, Michael, were delighted as they watched their beautiful baby wiggling around on the ultrasound screen. Fannin asked the technician, “Is it a boy or girl?” But […]
On July 19, 2017, Kelli and Dennis Williams sat in a pre-op room at Seattle Children’s with their 22-month-old son, Isaac. Kelli hugged her little boy close. He was dressed in a yellow hospital gown, happily playing with the iPad Child Life had loaned him. Kelli and Dennis did their best to appear calm in […]
At 19, Faye was not planning for parenthood. She was a freshman at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. She spent her days thinking about majoring in French and dreaming of working with the United Nations Refugee Agency, not about whether she wanted to be a mother one day. But an unexpected diagnosis changed all that. […]
On May 7, 2018, Whitney Stohr slumped to the ground in the corner of her son’s room in Seattle Children’s Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. Her son Malachi, who was born with a severe form of spina bifida, had undergone a tracheostomy days before. When he woke up after the procedure, his pain was so intense […]
In the fall of 2013, Maggie and Andy Oberhofer watched their tiny, 8-month old daughter, Greta, fight for her life in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland, Oregon. Greta had just been through a bone marrow transplant to treat her highly aggressive leukemia. Shortly after, she took a turn […]
Parents are facing some high expectations right now. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a wave of uncertainty to our homes, impacting finances, food security, health and safety. And while that would have been plenty to worry about, many parents are also required to work from home while managing their child’s education at the kitchen table. […]
When Ken and Kathi Teasley learned their two oldest daughters were deaf, they feared it would hold them back. Instead, Seattle Children’s providers taught the girls to live without limits and use their experience as people who are deaf and hard of hearing to help others. Now in their 20s, all three of the Teasley […]
“You pay the price for having cancer over and over again.” Mai Nguyen’s words are loaded with sorrow as she speaks about her 17-year-old daughter, Taylor Tran, who is dealing with fertility concerns more than a decade after she survived late-stage cancer. It’s easy to understand the exasperation Nguyen feels: Her daughter was diagnosed with […]
