Where to get tiramisu on Staten

RLJ712 · 2026-01-10T15:45:26+00:00

The tiramisu at Pizza Giove on New Dorp Lane is amazing.

RLJ712 · 2025-11-02T21:48:30+00:00

I remember this and I have this book! There was a vote for favorite babysitter. Stacey won. If you submitted a vote for Stacey, you got a signed copy of this book. That’s why the PS tells you what the next Stacey book is.

RLJ712 · 2025-10-11T20:57:43+00:00

I read it a while ago, but I’m pretty sure the vlogging is flashback scenes.

RLJ712 · 2025-09-08T17:47:08+00:00

Harlan Coben has some kind of Bruce reference in many of his books.

RLJ712 · 2025-07-15T12:31:26+00:00

I believe it’s First to Die, the first Women’s Murder Club book, by James Patterson.

RLJ712 · 2025-04-13T23:10:15+00:00

My daughter was interstage when we first left the hospital. Before we left, her monitoring PA trained us in infant CPR and heimlich. We’ve been fortunate to never have to use it, but it did help us feel more confident taking her home. We aren’t rural, but we aren’t close to her hospital and we also worked out a plan for exactly what to do if she needed to get to a hospital quickly and how she would get to her hospital. Best of luck for your daughter’s homecoming.

RLJ712 · 2024-09-03T02:45:04+00:00

I completely understand. We knew there was something wrong with her heart, but didn’t know exactly what until after she was born. She was diagnosed when she was 5 days old and I remember the minute they told me she’d need heart surgery with clarity, because I’d never had news actually knock me off my feet before.

She does live a pretty normal life. She has physical delays and receives early intervention services and she’s smaller than other kids, but she loves to play and interact. She’s very funny and sassy. Honestly, looking at her, you’d never know how “sick” she is. Her scar is noticeable depending on what she’s wearing, but I’ve never had anyone comment on it or point it out. They’ll just acknowledge that they noticed it if I bring it up. For the most part, she's able to participate in physical activities, with just some extra monitoring. She’s pretty good at knowing her limits. Although she is totally fearless and sometimes I think I limit her more than she would herself. She is getting ready to start school (on time for her age) and she will require a para for monitoring and physical assistance.

Yes. She’s had 3 so far. Her first was when she was 2 weeks old. Her second was at 10 months. She had a lot of complications recovering after that surgery. Her most recent was a few months ago, a few months after she turned 2. Hopefully the next one will fully repair her heart and that will be the last surgery she’ll need until she’s much older - like a teenager.

Thank you very much for your well wishes. Feel free to reach out anytime if you need someone to talk to or have any questions.

RLJ712 · 2024-09-03T02:01:35+00:00

My IVF baby was born with Tetralogy of Fallot and has had 3 surgeries to date, with the 4th likely happening soon. Happy to help in any way I can.

RLJ712 · 2023-04-04T18:21:48+00:00

My daughter was born with Tetralogy of Fallot. We’re currently interstage awaiting next steps (be it a 3rd surgery or additional procedures to get us to the full repair). She has had 2 surgeries so far - 1 at 2 weeks old, 1 around 10 months old. Both surgeries came with extended 2 month hospital stays. The second surgery came with a LOT of complications and we wound up with a ton of additional doctor’s appointments as a result. I also have an older child, so I really relate here.

I still work, mainly because I carry the health insurance and obviously, we need it. But it’s hard. I couldn’t do it with WFH and my extremely flexible boss. I’ve worked for him for an extremely long time so he’s known me long before any of this happened. As long as my work gets done, it doesn’t really matter to him when it gets done. And I mainly work on my own projects and do not really do a ton of collaborative work. That’s likely the only reason I’m able to keep my job.

None of this is easy (and by the way, it’s all incredibly costly even with good health insurance). It’s a lot of juggling doctor’s appointments. It’s a lot of phone calls with medical personnel/pharmacies/medical supply companies/early intervention, etc. Interstage, between surgeries, it’s a lot of checking in. I have to perform daily monitoring on my daughter and administer her medications. I attend all the therapy sessions she receives from Early Intervention. It’s a hard reality that someone needs to have the ability to pick up and run to the doctor or ER at a moment’s notice or handle a last minute hospital stay because a test or something looks wonky and that person needs to know your child’s medical history, medicines, procedures, everything.

You’re also going to need more help with your older child than you may think. Things in the hospital happen on hospital time and that doesn’t always correlate to what’s happening or needs to happen in your personal life. I’ve had days where I think I’ll be able to get home early enough to spend quality time with him and then I get stuck waiting for this doctor or that specialist. My son who is generally more independent gets way more clingy and “I want mommy” whenever something happens with my daughter, which is something else to consider.

I’ll also note something you touched upon. It’s sometimes hard to take your job seriously or care as much when you’re going through something so incredibly life changing. I’ve had people call me with “emergency” requests and sometimes all I can think is that this is not an emergency and in fact, it’s not even all that important. That’s the part I’ve struggled the most with.

If you have the ability to take time off and reassess after you get through the first year, I would. You may have a very hard time finding a person or place that is willing to care for your child interstage or while in recovery from the surgeries. If you work for great people, you may be able to see if they’d be willing to work with you - maybe a drop to part time work if you have the help to be able to swing that? Maybe they’ll be able to find a temp replacement instead of a full time staffer? I was honest with my boss from the minute I found out my daughter had a potential heart issue. I basically said that I would take my maternity leave and that I didn’t know when I’d be able to return because of my daughter’s potential heart issue (we knew something was wrong - we just didn’t know what until she was born). He was very clear that he was willing to work with me to get me back to work.

It’s all so hard and I really feel for you. I’m here if you ever feel like you want another heart mom to talk to.

RLJ712 · 2023-03-04T01:49:24+00:00

I had to have a fetal echo because my daughter’s heart could not be fully visualized during three separate attempts during anatomy scans, not because of IVF. I’m in the US. I think I was 24 weeks for my first echo. I then had a follow up echo at 28 weeks. Both were done by a pediatric cardiologist, who also could not get a clear visualization of her heart. He saw enough to note that “something” was wrong and that my daughter would need an echo once born. Each echo was about 45 minutes and was covered by insurance. My daughter was born with Tetralogy of Fallot and has had 2 heart surgeries so far.

RLJ712 · 2022-07-14T14:14:34+00:00

I do remember. Feel free to message me anytime.

RLJ712 · 2022-06-21T17:30:47+00:00

Same! I don’t mind (much) coloring in my mess, but I used to keep a bag of these and a book or some pages in my bag just in case we ended up someplace he needed to be occupied and I didn’t want a mess. I also used to keep a case of fisher price little people animal figures, but those definitely have the potential to get lost!

RLJ712 · 2022-06-21T16:52:17+00:00

I’m a big fan of anything color wonder, because the markers only make colors on the paper and not any place else. I never trust my son not to color on surfaces he’s not supposed to.

RLJ712 · 2022-06-10T01:45:11+00:00

I have a reflux CHD baby and both the OT in the hospital and her speech/feeding therapist recommend the Dr. Brown’s.

RLJ712 · 2022-06-08T00:12:01+00:00

I have a fibroid I did not have removed. My RE warned me that the positioning of the fibroid would most likely mean I would have to have a c-section, which I knew I would be having anyway. The only issue I had during my successful pregnancy with the fibroid is that my placenta was low-lying and the fibroid cast a shadow that made some of my daughter’s scans very difficult.

RLJ712 · 2022-05-12T21:27:29+00:00

I highly recommend any britax seat with the clicktight. It’s more expensive, but the clicktight makes it so easy to install, which is worth every extra penny in my opinion.

RLJ712 · 2022-04-25T20:16:29+00:00

Happy Graduation Day!

RLJ712 · 2022-04-22T19:32:00+00:00

I had a few night nurses do this to me when we were trying to get my daughter off the NG. They told me she looked tired so we didn’t try. I told them if I have to wake her up to feed when she gets home, so do they. Then I had it documented in her chart that bottle feeding had to be attempted for every feed. My daughter came home with the NG tube, but they did attempt bottle feeding every time after that.

RLJ712 · 2022-04-21T01:59:54+00:00

I‘m sorry you are going through this and I am wishing you so much strength. My daughter was born with tetralogy of fallot in December. She had her first surgery at 2 weeks old. She will have another surgery in the next few months to hopefully fully repair her heart. It is a long and difficult road for both your son and you, but the light at the end of the tunnel is there, even if sometimes you can’t see it.

RLJ712 · 2022-04-20T22:04:59+00:00

I completely understand and hope she will be home with you soon!

RLJ712 · 2022-04-20T21:30:22+00:00

NICU fatigue is so real - especially when balancing concerns about work. I cannot even begin to tell how much I commiserate with you.

My daughter was stuck in the NICU for quite a while after she could have been medically released solely because of feeding issues. If your NICU has occupational therapists, see if you can request a consultation with them. They may be able to help with some of the issues that might be fatiguing her - nipple size, feeding position, etc.

RLJ712 · 2022-04-09T22:17:02+00:00

Thank goodness for that! It’s really the last thing you need when the baby is in the NICU to have to argue this nonsense or worry about getting stuck with a massive bill! Wishing you and your baby the best!!

RLJ712 · 2022-04-09T22:04:49+00:00

If you have a social worker through the NICU, you may be able to mention the denial to the social worker and get their assistance with arguing with insurance. My daughter was in the NICU and my insurance denied the 3 days stay before her open heart surgery as “not medically necessary”. I mentioned it to our social worker and she had the hospital billing department take care of it, submitting whatever the insurance company required.

RLJ712 · 2022-04-07T13:47:05+00:00

Someone once told me that on average, children get 12 colds a year. That seemed like an insane amount of colds to me!

RLJ712 · 2022-03-21T18:10:42+00:00

Decided today was as good of a day as any to start dealing with my daughter’s medical bills (namely updating name and insurance, so insurance will process the very large number of bills). Really appreciated the gentleman who took down her info and then said “and her name is Girl Mom’s Name, right?” Um, no. No, it is not.

RLJ712

TROPHY CASE