
To begin with, I suffered from intrauterine growth delay in my mother’s womb. That was supposed to kill me (spoiler: it didn’t). When the surprise birth occurred, I weighed in at a whopping 3 pounds, and surprised everyone again by living through the night. From there, I spent the first five months of my life in ICU, with doctors saying I’d be mentally and physically disabled if I survived.
They were mostly wrong. I made it out alive, but not unscathed: I had a submucous cleft palate, a condition which prevented me speaking or hearing well.