Hi! This is Avery. She was born in April 2025. Our journey with cystic fibrosis began two days after she was born when she had surgery to fix a meconium ileus. This is a blockage in the intestines commonly found in babies with CF. We spent two weeks in the NICU recovering from the surgery and went home and continued to work on weight gain and adjusting to life with two kids. She never quite gained weight appropriately like a new baby should so we followed up with a G.I. doctor per our pediatricians recommendations. He ran some tests and found that she had incredibly elevated liver numbers and sent us urgently to Children's Of Alabama in Birmingham to be evaluated for a liver transplant. He thought she might be suffering from a condition called biliary atresia which is a potentially life-threatening blockage of the bile duct. We went in expecting to get really bad news such as needing a liver transplant or a major surgery. As soon as the doctors at children's spoke to us, they found that all of this was most likely due to cystic fibrosis. Avery's newborn screen was normal and her CF diagnosis did not show up on that screening. She underwent testing for cystic fibrosis and it came back that that was the cause of all of her liver issues. We got her on the right medications and her numbers and her weight were improving before we ever left the hospital. We started adjusting to our new normal which includes enzymes with every feeding chest therapy twice a day or more often if she's sick and medicines that most babies don't have to take. She is continuing to gain weight like she should and doing all things a normal baby should be doing. She's a happy girl and we don't plan on letting her CF diagnosis limit the things that she can do. She was hospitalized in December with RSV, but with some antibiotics to treat pneumonia and some increased chest therapy she got over that relatively well. We want to thank everyone for their support for us during this last year and for donating to our team for the great strides walk! We look forward to seeing those of you who are walking with us and we thank you for walking along us in this journey.