Sloane is turning one! Sloane Margaret Bunch was born at 12:29am on July 12, 2023, via emergency C-section at Texas Children's Hospital Pavillion for Women, at 35 weeks' gestation. Sloane was immediately wheeled to another connected Texas Children's building, the Level IV NICU. She had an immediate procedure to set up the silo for her gastroschisis (born with small intestine outside of body) and a subsequent gastroschisis repair and closure surgery on July 14th. She then spent 30 days at the Level IV NICU, building her feeding tolerance. She had her first bottle on July 23rd and we nursed for the first time on August 5th. 

Mother and baby received care from Texas Children's after being referred there for the gastroschisis, diagnosed at 20 weeks' gestation at our anatomy scan. We are so grateful to the OBGYNs, surgeons, nurse practitioners, nurses, child life specialists, Women's Place therapists, lactation consultants, and many other talented professionals. In an emergency delivery situation (mother with pre-eclampsia, baby with gastroschisis) that was extremely eventful (fluid in my lungs/breathing troubles, baby intolerance of labor, epidural not working, hemorrhaging after delivery, etc.), I never even realized how difficult the experience was, with the staff keeping us going and keeping us calm. ​
Sloane is by all accounts "normal," now and very much thriving. We made it to 6 months exclusively on breastmilk and are still going strong on nursing at 12 months. We are somewhere around the 30-40% for height and weight (NOT adjusted for being premature). She walked at 11 months and says many words including "Dada", "Roro", "Aiden", "walk" and "duck" (but only "Mama" when she's in severe distress). She also does an infuriating grabby hand motion to indicate that she wants (everything). Besides visiting her surgeon ever year (who she alarmed with her intense eye contact at 6 months), she will likely never have a clue about her gastroschisis. 

I plan to do this fundraiser (and contributions instead of some amount of gifts) every year for her birthday, partially as a way to relay to her the phenomenal circumstances of her birth and all who helped us. Thank you for your generous support.