Trigger warnings: abortion, miscarriage, NICU and infant medical emergency, pediatric surgery, chronic pain, vision loss, panic attacks and alcohol use, parental infidelity and anger, family estrangement.

Bree was born visually impaired. By the time she was five, she'd had six or seven eye surgeries. For twenty-two years, nobody could explain why her body worked the way it did: the cataracts, the glaucoma, the hole in her heart, the dental problems dentists had never seen before, and the daily pain she assumed everyone had.

At 22, genetic testing finally gave her a name for it: oculofaciocardiodental (OFCD) syndrome, a rare genetic disorder she could pass on to her children. For someone whose biggest dream was to be a mom, the answer didn't feel like relief. It felt like one more thing to grieve.

Bree talks about growing up with a mom who fought for her at every turn and a dad who mostly wasn't there, the losses that came before her daughter, a NICU stay nobody could fully explain, and what it's like to sit on the other side of the exam table now, advocating for a little girl who shares her diagnosis.

For The Hayters is a podcast that normalizes hard conversations. Listener discretion is advised.

Interview, narration, and editing by Becky Hayter, with post-production, scripting, and sound design by Emily Nadal.

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