Meet Hannah Haro

Hey guys! (That’s a midwestern “guys”, not guys as in men… although I have learned to use y’all, I’m still a little partial to my native tongue.) 

I’m Hannah Haro, Doctor of physical therapy, wife, mom, Christian, renovator. I’ll discuss each of those  a little in this post. 

Let’s begin with “mom” – the reason I’m able to write for this blog! Mina was born in November 2018 following 52 hours of labor. You read that correctly. My husband and I took Bradley Birth method classes, planning to have a completely intervention-free birth. Of course, plans rarely go as… planned, and  although I did need some help to get there, we finally had our 9 lb 5 oz Cabbage Patch doll… er, baby girl, in our arms. She is a champion at breastfeeding, has mostly been great at sleeping, and smiles best for her dad, of course.  

Speaking of her dad, my husband Daniel is a Chicago-born, Aguascalientes, Mexico-raised man I met while he was studying abroad at my undergraduate university in Houghton, MI (look it up, it’s further north than most of the population of Canada). We were engaged at the end of MY study abroad at HIS university in  Aguascalientes, married in June 2013 on a beach in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and have lived in Harlingen and Austin, TX. 

We moved to Austin in 2014 because I couldn’t give up my dream of becoming a physical therapist. In undergrad I initially was studying biomedical engineering with the idea of going into prosthetics & orthotics, but after a medical mission trip to Kenya where I met a little boy with cerebral palsy and got to do exercises with him, I knew I wanted to become a PT. Really, I had known it since I went through PT myself in high school following knee injuries while downhill ski racing, but I convinced myself otherwise for a short while. Anyway, I studied here in Austin and became a doctor of physical therapy in April 2017. I first worked as a home health pediatric PT, which I loved except having to drive all over Austin… and last March found the perfect job at a clinic in Bastrop, where I just returned to work after maternity leave. I even get to take my 2 month old with me, as we have babysitters on site! Outside of this job I also help run Sunshine Soccer, a clinic for kids with disabilities. 

My love of physical therapy doesn’t only come from my love of exercise. My grandmother, who helped raise me, instilled in me a love of volunteerism from the age of 3; and as she aged, I helped take care of her. I learned that helping others, especially those with physical ailments, is one of my callings in life, something I really believe was given me by God. I became a Christian at the age of 14, and although I’ve often fought it, believing myself not good enough, poor choices or my inability to be a “perfect Christian”, I’ve always known the love of Jesus is the center of my life. In this love I find my passion for bringing new life to something dead or broken. 

Which leads me to something I mention in my bio – rehabilitation of homes. My husband and I are currently living in a duplex in Southeast Austin that we renovated ourselves, doing so not with the idea of making it so expensive as to change the makeup of the neighborhood, but rather to help bring new life to a building that previously was unsafe, unclean, and generally not fit for living. This is why we choose to renovate houses. 

Besides all that, I also love coffee and anything chocolate (birthday gift ideas, in case you’re looking), reading almost anything but especially sci-fi, fantasy and historical fiction, and exercise in nearly any form (but especially hiking, HIIT, and chasing children at Sunshine Soccer).