The day my son Blake was born, I didn’t get to hold him.

I didn’t get to touch his tiny hands or count his tiny toes. I didn’t get the moment every parent dreams of — that first skin-to-skin hug, that first real breath of relief.

 

Instead, I got a brief glimpse of him from afar. He was inside a clear box covered in tubes and wires… and then he was gone.

Flown by helicopter to Nemours Children's Hospital, where doctors were waiting to fight for his life. In that instant, the world became very small. Everything else disappeared. All that mattered was whether my baby would make it.

His odds felt like a coin toss.

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For the next three days, I lay in my own hospital bed without him. Three days without hearing his cries, without feeling his weight in my arms, without knowing what the next phone call might bring. I was recovering physically, but emotionally, I was in a place I never knew existed — a place where fear and love live right next to each other.

And the only thing I had… was faith.

Faith that I would see him again.
Faith that one day I would get to hold him.
Faith that one day we would bring him home.

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My pregnancy had been normal. I wasn’t labeled high-risk. Nothing prepared me for how sudden and dramatic the beginning of Blake’s life would be. And that’s the thing about these moments — they don’t come with warnings. They don’t ask permission. They just happen. You are thrown into a reality you never imagined, and in those moments, the rest of the world falls away.

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When I was finally able to leave the hospital and drive to Nemours, where Blake was, I stopped at a café along the way to use the restroom. On the wall was a sign that read:

“Life doesn’t happen to you, it happens for you.”

I stood there and cried.

It wasn’t just a quote — it felt like a message. A reminder exactly when I needed it. A moment of clarity in the middle of everything I couldn’t control. Instead of letting my mind spiral into “Why us?” and “Why did this happen?” I felt something shift inside me. I began to feel immense gratitude — In that moment, I knew that everything would be okay, and  I thought.

Thank God my baby is here.
Thank God we have doctors fighting for him.
Thank God he’s still breathing.
Thank God he’s getting stronger day by day.

That faith carried me through.

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During those two weeks in the NICU, we witnessed miracles. But we also witnessed heartbreak. We saw parents holding onto hope the same way we were — praying for just one thing: to bring their baby home. Yet, we saw the kind of pain no parent should ever have to endure. There are screams you never forget, losses that shift the air in the room, moments that stay with you forever. The NICU is a place where life is incredibly fragile… but also incredibly strong.

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And in that place, I learned something I’ll never stop believing:

Families going through this need more than medical care — they need support.

They need someone to make the weight lighter.
To help with the bills that come after.
To ease the little everyday burdens when their whole heart is focused on surviving.
To help them keep showing up for their baby — with strength, love, and hope — without feeling like they’re drowning.

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That’s why the Blake Orlando Foundation was created.

Our mission is to support NICU infants in critical care and their families by helping relieve the burden of medical bills, providing comfort and care during long hospital stays, and supporting neonatal research so more babies can have a fighting chance. Because every baby deserves that chance — and every family deserves to feel seen, supported, and never alone.

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What started as one family’s story has grown into a purpose bigger than us. A purpose rooted in faith, in love, and in the belief that even in the hardest moments, hope still lives here.

Because sometimes the smallest miracles become the biggest reasons to keep going.