I Hope as you read the title you kinda sang it too.....LOL
As a mom I have found that I have a few "FAVORITES" that help me tremendously with motherhood. As my life of motherhood has changed since Emma was born 2 years ago my "FAVORITES" have changed along with that. Being a special needs mom has made me realize how much I count on other special needs parents to help me when Drs can't. With Emma's diagnosis being so rare, 1 in 100,000, I am constantly turning to other amazing parents for help. Well, today I am going to try and help some other mothers and not just special needs mothers by letting you in on my "FAVORITE" things that as a mother I have come to realize I can not live without......
#1: OWLET BABY MONITOR:
This favorite actually gets me a little emotional for a couple reasons....first of all I truly believe this monitor has saved Emma's life on more than one occasion. Second it gives me piece of mind knowing that it's ok for me to fall asleep at night because I know she is being monitored and if something goes wrong with her breathing I will know immediately. Lastly, this company and their customer service has been more than amazing to me. Below I am going to go into detail on how it has saved her and how customer service has treated us.  |
| my first post about the Owlet 2015 |
*Emma started wearing this monitor immediately after we returned home from the hospital at about 2 weeks old (after receiving the news of her rare diagnosis of Lissencephaly which is 1 in 100, 000 as mentioned above). Emma was diagnosed at 5 days old after experiencing over 20 seizures at 4 days old. This monitor was a shot in the dark, hoping to help us better monitor Emma while she was at home because her oxygen would drop after seizures and if she has one in the night we wanted to make sure her oxygen would return to normal range in a fast amount of time. Honestly, the first year of Emma's life we didn't have a lot of notifications but it helped so much with the transition to her own room. At around 2 years old Emma's monitor became even more important to us because her seizures returned and were very, very powerful up to 20 a day again. We started new meds and even started a new diet. During this time her monitor started to go off nightly and not after a seizure just randomly at night. We would pick her up, rub her chest and whatever else we could do to stimulate her breathing again. We mentioned this to our pediatrician who said lets double check with an at home oxygen test. Which showed results exactly like what the Owlet was showing us. Emma was below a safe range of oxygen at night for over 2 hours and 35 mins. For a typical person the limit to be safe is about 5 mins. This pointed Emma right to a pulmologist who started her on some meds for her lungs (which are severely damaged due to aspiration, from the increased saliva from her new medication for her seizures), scheduled a sleep study, and put her on oxygen while she is sleeping. We would have never known that Emma was having these breathing issues without the Owlet. I fear the day that her feet actually grow lol the owlet typically only goes to 18 months 24 if you're luckily. But Emma's feet are incredibly small she is currently in a size 3 sock and we have a size 4 left (only style sock wish they had it in the new style, staying hopeful they will before she gets to a size 4). I am not paid by Owlet nor do I get any perks by sharing this story with you. I am just truly a huge fan of Owlet and I owe my daughters life to them. So thank you Owlet. I pray this story makes it to you and your employees.
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| IT ARRIVED!!!! |
*Which now leads me to employees and customer service........When we first received our Owlet we were struggling to get it hooked up to our internet. We tried to 2 days before I decided to chat in on the app and ask for help. Which directed me to one of the head people of the company who offered to come out to my house and help set it up (luckily we got it figured out over the phone) but seriously it warmed my heart to know they cared enough to help us get is set up ASAP that they would drive to out house (Owlet is a Utah based company about a 40 min drive from our house). A while later I noticed that the monitor would no longer connect to the base station for some reason it wouldn't even turn on. I chatted in and within 5 min they trouble shooted with me and decided we just needed a new part, which was then shipped, overnighted and on my porch in hours. Our Owlet was one of the firsts to be sold they actually went on backorder for a while so ours is the first version and still working out some kinks and stuff. Which leads me to July 26, 2017 at 11:00 PM as I am leaning against my bed holding the owlet monitor and sock in hand (that I had been working with for 2 hours) as tears stream down my face because I can not get it to charge. I would plug it in and it would say completely charged but then I would put it on Emma and it would say battery low less than 20%. What was I going to do I need this monitor, I wont sleep without it I can't. So again I decided to chat in and talked with someone named A (yes slight humor for those Pretty Little Liar fans LOL), who was amazing to help me and we were able to get it to work that night. But when we ended the conversation she said if you have any other issues chat in and ask for me. I felt comforted knowing if I needed help again I wouldn't have to explain it all again. I received my email of my chat transcript (which I love because it helps me to remember our conversation and keep important info etc.) Over the next week I fought nightly to get the Owlet to charge most nights it would go off at 2-3 AM saying it had 20% left but it was fully charged (supposedly) when I put her to bed. I was getting frustrated so another night as I stressed about Emma being monitored Brandon said just chat in again on the app and talk with A again. So I did and she was so helpful making it easy to get it replaced as it was under warranty and she overnighted it! So today when it was delivered to my porch it was like Christmas Morning knowing my sweet angel will once again be watched over and I can hopefully get some sleep again. So thank you Owlet and Thank you A! I am sure at this point you are wondering how you can get one so I will make it easy for you just simply click HERE!
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| Post from January 2017: She can sleep in her own room |
This video monitor has also been a huge part of us getting Emma to sleep in her own bed. We are able to watch her right from our cell phones. We can see the temperature in the room as well as the humidity in the room. But most importantly it records motion. We have been able to capture some seizure activity on the monitor and send it to her Neurologist, I am also able to go back through the videos to check if i missed one through out the night . We have also caught some pretty sweet moments between sisters who love each other more than you could even imagine. Here are some videos and pictures that we have captured using the iBaby video Monitor. Warning the video is a seizure video if you don't want to watch then I suggest you skip the video and enjoy the pictures instead.
SEIZURE WARNING
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| SISTERS <3 |
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| Sleep tight love bug |
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| These items help me sleep at night (this picture of the owlet sock is the old version see the new toeless version above, it's amazing) |
I hope that you have enjoyed reading about my favorite must haves as a mom and a special needs mom. I also hope that you too are able to experience the amazing benefits that I have by using these 2 products. I would also like to mention that both of these companies also donated their product for us to place under our tree at the Utah Festival of Trees 2016, which helps to raise money for Primary Children's Hospital and they were very happy to be able to donate. I felt blessed knowing that I loved the product but that the company behind the product is just as amazing as the product itself.
Hope you are all EMBRACING LIFE TO THE FULLEST!
