WOW – An Interview with Women On Writing

Here is my latest interview.

I absolutely LOVED the questions Robyn Chausse from Women On Writing (WOW) asked!

Hope you do, too…

When was the last time you cried all the way through a book—out of compassion, out of   joy, out of awe, or because you were laughing? Preemie: Lessons in Love, Life and Motherhood is that kind of book. It’s an emotional feast everyone will enjoy. 

Kasey Mathews poured her heart and soul into recounting the experience of birthing her second child at just twenty-five weeks. Her horror, her fears, the tribulations of raising Andie, and her own journey of finding inner strength, the willingness to be open to new experience, and the power of hope. Her memoir is on a five-star streak . . . we just knew you’d like to meet her!

WOW: Hi Kasey, welcome to The Muffin. We know you’ve been on a whirlwind tour filled with radio and television interviews; thank you for taking the time to share with us today. 

Having your daughter at just twenty-five weeks was a terrifying experience; in your book you mentioned wishing you had another preemie mom to sit and talk with you. But in Preemie you go beyond the hospital experience and into the whole “life” experience of raising a preemie. The final result is a book that does more than address the preemie issue, but is actually about life—our choices, our strengths, our self-doubts. How did this book develop?

Kasey: I knew right from the outset that Preemie had a much broader message to share with a much wider audience than just preemie parents. Once I began healing from my daughter’s birth (which took years and writing a book!), I began to see that her premature arrival was really just a catalyst for a much larger personal transformation. Essentially, her birth was my awakening. For others, it may be a medical diagnosis or an accident, the death of a loved one, a divorce, a move, a job change, even the birth of a healthy child. But the book is really about that moment in time when we find ourselves no longer standing in the same set of shoes, or looking at the world through the same set of eyes, and how we choose to respond and move forward.

WOW: I really enjoyed seeing the organic unfolding of your strengths and the trusting of your own intuition. It is as if Andie’s arrival opened up a whole new path for you. How has your personal connection to “self” changed through these past twelve years?

Kasey: There were so many amazing “gifts” that accompanied Andie’s birth, but one of the greatest would have to be my realization that we’ve all been put here on earth to learn and grow and broaden as human beings. I’ve come to see that every moment of life, from holding a newborn baby to a trip to the grocery store, is a learning experience. Because I’m always on the look out for these “life-lessons” I guess I’ve become very self-aware and tuned into how I react and respond to everything and everyone around me.

To read the rest of the interview, please click the link below!

http://muffin.wow-womenonwriting.com/2012/10/interview-with-kasey-mathews-author-of.html

Happy Halloween!  

Also…

A HUGE APOLOGY to anyone who was kind enough to contact me through the “Contact Kasey” form on the website and did not hear back from me.  I AM SO SORRY!  The form looked like spam in my inbox and I just discovered several unopened messages.  I fear many others may have been deleted.  I am utterly grateful to anyone who takes the time to write to me!  If you did write to me and did not hear back, please try again and I promise, this time, you’ll hear back ASAP!!!!!  XXXXXOOOOO

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Photo Friday

In a perfect world, both kids would have been on the cover of the book!

 

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The Hardest Part…

There are so many aspects of my book Preemie that were incredibly difficult to write; the first time I saw Andie, not wanting to return to the NICU to see her, my breakdown before her last surgery.  But by far the most difficult piece then (and now) is when Andie contracted the dreaded Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV).

She was two years old and we’d finally let down our guard.  I can still hear that cocky ER doctor’s voice casually saying, “It will be up to her whether she chooses to fight this.”

Andie on her 2nd birthday.

Yet as difficult as it is to talk about that time in our lives, I know others can learn so much from our story.

So I wrote about it, again.

This time it was for a guest post on the wonderful blog, PreemieBabies101.

“This is still the hardest part of the story to tell.  The story of my girl born way-too-soon, weighing way-too-little.  Because this is the point in the story where we let our guard down.  Where we actually let ourselves believe that our girl’s prematurity was behind her; that we were in the clear.  It’s the hardest part of the story to tell because we finally met that other shoe that I’d kept waiting to drop ever since we left the NICU.  And it’s even harder to tell because I don’t want to scare you.  I want you to understand that this is our story; our path.  That it was what was supposed to happen to us, not you…”

To continue reading please click the following link:

http://www.preemiebabies101.com/2012/10/my-story-my-voice/

Thanks again for all your support.

 

 

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