“NICU mom → bilingual special needs parent → HR pro → 42 and finally choosing herself. I talk about all of it, unfiltered.”
I became a mom for the first time in the NICU. No birth plan prepares you for that. What it gave me was a crash course in fighting for my son, when the world isn't set up for him and I've been doing it ever since.
My son has autism. I'm a bilingual, Colombian-American mom navigating special needs parenting largely without a roadmap (therapies, school, doctors appointments, all of it). I've sat in IEP meetings, learned to translate systems that weren't designed for families like mine, and figured out how to advocate loudly in spaces that expected me to be quiet.
I also have 15 years in HR. So I bring that same plain-language, no-nonsense lens to workplace rights especially for women and working parents who don't know what they're entitled to.
At 42, I'm finally doing the thing I kept putting off: building something of my own. I create content as ChelleSinFiltro, honest, unfiltered, bilingual, about special needs motherhood, reclaiming yourself after years of giving everything away, and the HR stuff nobody explains to you in plain language. At 42, I am finally taking charge of my life and my health.
I'm not an expert with a perfectly packaged story. I'm still in it. And that's exactly what makes the conversation real.
