Emery's Journey Home

Friends and Family,

We were beyond excited when we discovered that Katie was pregnant this past winter, because we knew this was the right time for our family to grow. That excitement continued to build throughout the pregnancy, sprinkled with brief moments of panic when pondering what life would be like parenting another Mosher boy, who will undoubtedly be just as troublesome as his father. However, without warning Katie was hospitalized early morning on April 15th due to severe complications to her pregnancy. We were told that Katie would not be leaving the hospital until she gives birth and with being just 24 weeks along, the baby had a low chance of survival and a high chance of significant disabilities if he did survive.

The doctor's were sure that Katie would be going into labor within 24 - 48 hours. A day later that turned into 72 hours, then a week, and then two weeks. Each day, Katie defied the odds and persevered through transitions to multiple hospitals, nearly a dozen hospital rooms, induction preparations, days without food, a revolving door of medical staff and enough shots, IVs, blood draws and biopsies for her to overcome her fear of needles in a heartbeat.

Katie finally arrived back to her care team at Kaiser, but the baby's condition began to decline and we were informed that delivering the baby as soon as possible would be the safest thing for both Katie and the baby. Within minutes we found ourselves in the operating room, Katie was fearless as always while Mike was trying his best to not knock anything over. After nearly 3 weeks in the hospital and 26 1/2 weeks of pregnancy, Katie gave birth to our beautiful and stubborn little boy, Emery Benjamin Mosher, on May 2nd at 12.42 PM.

Emery came into the world wide awake, crying, breathing on his own and weighing 1 pound 3.4 ounces. Emery had a strong start to life, but has already faced many challenges in the NICU including multiple ventilations and blood transfusions and it will be months before he can be cleared to come home. Emery has already proven to be a fighter within his first few weeks of life and he knows that he's got his mom, dad and the absolutely amazing Kaiser NICU team in his corner. We are all very hopeful that he will make it out of this unscathed and will be terrorizing his parents in no time.

Many of you have shared your love and support and continue to ask how you can help. Creating a GoFundMe has been suggested so many times now that we thought we would give it a shot. Because Emery was born three months prematurely, he will spend at least the first three months of his life in the hospital's NICU. Daily parental involvement in the NICU is absolutely essential to ensure that babies continue to develop and grow successfully and for parents to gain the necessary education to properly care for their child after discharge. Katie's lengthly hospitalization and Emery's NICU duration combined will be over what medical and parental leave will allow. All donations will go towards helping us stay in Emery's corner for as long as possible as he continues fighting for his life with hopes of being able to spend time together as a family when he comes home.

"Even the smallest person can change the course of history." - JRR Tolkien

With love,

Katie, Mike and Emery Mosher