When a Family Story Raises a Medical Question: The Silence Between Two Heartbeats and the HIE Care Gap
How lived family experience can help shape questions about post-discharge neurological care and future HIE research.
Read article →A true story of a father and daughter
Love did not end
when the world
fell silent.
Between one heartbeat and the next, love learns to wait.
The Silence Between Two Heartbeats by A T M Haidar KhanMemoir · Narrative Nonfiction
Synopsis
A memoir carried by love, uncertainty, and the stories families tell to survive.
Beginning with a child’s difficult arrival into the world and moving through the events that reshaped her family’s life, The Silence Between Two Heartbeats follows a father through hospital corridors, sleepless nights, whispered prayers, and the moments when love is the only certainty left.
The memoir moves between lived experience and literary fable, making room for both the reality of fear and the imaginative language a family creates when ordinary words are no longer enough.
Featured Research Question
From lived experience to a question for future HIE care.
The Silence Between Two Heartbeats documents a caregiver's lived experience of suspected seizure activity following NICU discharge for HIE, highlighting a potential gap in the caregiver's ability to objectively document concerning neurological events at home. This concern warrants further research into safe, clinically validated methods that could help caregivers recognize and record such events, provide clinicians with more objective information, and ultimately support more timely, precise, and standardized care for high-risk infants.
Featured Blog
Stories, research questions, and resources from lived experience.
“They Will Be Fine, Don’t Worry” — What No One Tells NICU Parents
A reflection on fear, reassurance, presence, and what NICU parents actually need while living through uncertainty.
Read article →A Father’s Guide to Fighting for a Child with HIE
Reflections on NICU care, parental vigilance, neonatal seizures, feeding, courage, and life after an HIE diagnosis.
Read article →Why it matters
A lived experience that can open serious conversations.
NICU and HIE family perspective
A lived-experience account for thoughtful discussion about uncertainty, communication, family-centered care, and hope after a traumatic birth.
Literature and narrative ethics
A memoir that moves between testimony and fable, inviting close reading of memory, voice, silence, faith, and the limits of ordinary language.
Academic and professional use
Secure evaluation materials for English, literature, medical humanities, nursing, social work, disability studies, and related fields.
Reviews & Recognition
A documented record of institutional engagement.
Confirmed collection decision
Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine
Harvard Library Catalog · Harvard Medical School · United States
CATALOGED · 2026 — The Silence Between Two Heartbeats is cataloged as a Countway Medicine holding in the Harvard Library catalog · HOLLIS No. 99162437178003941.
Confirmed collection decision
Biblioteca Nacional del Perú
National Library of Peru · Peru
SELECTED FOR NATIONAL LIBRARY COLLECTION · 2026 — The Biblioteca Nacional del Perú selected the book for inclusion in its collection.
Confirmed collection decision
Hale Family Center for Families
Boston Children’s Hospital · Boston, United States
ADDED TO FAMILY LENDING LIBRARY · 2026 — The book has been added to the Family Lending Library at the Hale Family Center for Families.
Confirmed collection decision
Children’s Medical Center Dallas — Krissi Holman Family Resource Library
Children’s Medical Center Dallas · Dallas, United States
ADDED TO FAMILY RESOURCE LIBRARY · 2026 — The book has been added to the Krissi Holman Family Resource Library.
Collection inclusion is reported as the institution described it; it is not presented as course adoption, clinical endorsement, or a professional review.
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