Danielle Fishel has opened up about the heartbreaking “nightmare” she’s been experiencing since the birth of her first child last week.
An Instagram post on Monday by the 38-year-old actress, best known for her role as Topanga on the sitcom “Boy Meets World” and it’s Disney Channel reboot “Girl Meets World,” Fishel said she gave birth to son Adler Lawrence Karp on June 24 ― almost a month earlier than the due date. Fishel wrote that she feels “helpess [sic] and powerless and useless” because her son has been in a hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit since she gave birth.
Her husband, Jensen Karp, also posted about the birth of their son and echoed many of his wife’s sentiments, writing, “Our ensuing rollercoaster ride of emotion, terror, vulnerability and unadulterated sadness has been one we did not expect.”
FIshel’s post — which includes a photo of Adler’s unused nursey — detailed some of what she’s endured.
“… After doing an ultrasound, our amazing OB discovered fluid in [Adler’s] lungs that was not there during our last appointment only 10 days earlier – and thus we entered a nightmare we’ll never forget,” Fishel wrote.
“We still don’t have Adler home with us because the deeply good doctors and nurses in the NICU are working diligently to find out why the fluid is there and determine the best way to get it out.”
Fishel said this has been “the most trying week and a half of mine” and her husband’s lives. But during the difficult time, they’ve found love and support from their friends and families who “have shown up for us in unexpected ways.”
Fishel said the experience has also strengthened her bond with Karp.
“Jensen and I have also become closer than we ever thought possible,” she wrote. “And the love between us has grown exponentially as we have leaned on each other during both our highest highs and our lowest lows.”
She did offer some sweet details about Adler, saying “he has the cutest sneezes I’ve ever heard.”
And she acknowledged that talking publicly about her family’s trials “opens us up to prying eyes,” adding that paparazzi “staked outside our house” several times during her pregnancy.
Fishel asked for privacy “as we navigate these next few weeks.”
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