VIVA SARAH PRESS

My youngest son was born with a brain bleed. He was also born prematurely. He lost his heart beat in utero. He turned blue almost immediately after an emergency C-section and had to be resuscitated. He was born with a PFO (hole in his heart). But it was the brain bleed that most worried the medical staff. The doctors tried to explain his brain bleed. They warned about possible long-term complications. They entered him into a three-year neurological study. He had a MRI within

“There’s a war,” my son’s teacher says, pointing to the sky as we hear Israel Air Force jets overhead. We’re meeting outside in the shade, at a picnic table in the school’s courtyard for our parent-teacher interview. It becomes a weird scenario as we are here to talk about my second-grader’s progress but we both know that while we’re safe and able to sit outside at a Tel Aviv school, elsewhere in Israel not all is quiet. A barrage of mortar shells hit Israel’s southern commun