The "Why?" with Kelli Redfoot

Entering into my seventh year at Haven, I continue to work towards a certification and specialization in maternal mental health and attachment.  I began at Haven with a desire to help children and their families; not prepared for what the next seven years would bring for me that would shape my life personally and professionally.

These years were full of medical complexities, loss, infertility, hospitals, and surgeries that shook my family and myself to the core.  After five years of infertility treatments, we were pregnant with twins.  This pregnancy quickly turned into a high risk pregnancy that landed us in the NICU with two very tiny, premature babies.  I spent 40 hours separated from them after birth and when I was able to see them, I could only hold them upon approval for a few minutes.  There was no skin-to-skin, no kissing them, there was no feeding, no changing their diapers, no dressing them in their first outfits, no taking a birth announcement photo, and we actually weren’t all together for ten days.  Instead these days were filled with diagnoses, fear, sadness, worry, machines, wires, and trauma.  I found myself drowning in isolation and unprepared for what all of this would bring in the coming weeks postpartum.

At a year old, our daughter had heart surgery and soon after this time, I realized that my call to serve others was being refined.  At this time, Haven was also going through its own challenges that were shaping it to fill its mission as well.  I knew I needed to stand in the gap where so many mothers get lost and normalize postpartum care.  Nothing felt normal in our experience and it greatly impacted me; I never want another woman to experience that alone.  So this is my hope entering into my seventh year at Haven… educate professionals, families, support systems, parents, and children of the importance of postpartum recovery and with the proper support, healthy attachments will develop that shape families and communities to live in freedom and health.  Our story rarely plays out how we envision and there is loads of grief that comes with that, but with the right support, our story can become

something beautiful.