Samara’s 2nd Birthday

Today 2 years ago, our lives changed forever!  Not that any parent can’t make that claim after the birth of their child.  This day for us was wonderful and frightening all at the same time. At just a few minutes old, they whisked Samara away to the NICU.  Excitement that she was here, but frightening because she had problems so quickly.  That day, we could have never, in our wildest thoughts, guessed we would be spending the better part of the next six months in the hospital with our little angel.  BUT…. now we know how blessed we were to spend those 6 1/2 months with the strongest little girl I have ever known.

We are changed individuals.  All of us are after going through the journey with Samara.  For me, I’d had very little loss of loved ones, prior to losing my precious baby.  I lost a very special grandmother after a long fight with cancer several years before we had Samara, but we had been blessed to have most of our loved ones still living.

This year it all changed for our family.  Almost one year after losing Samara, we lost another grandmother (my father’s mother.)  She had been very sick for a long time.  Her death was not a shock, but it was another loss.  It was just a few weeks later that my Dad was admitted into the hospital and was diagnosed with colon cancer.  We lost him 8 days later.   Going through all of this caused me to think about our journey with Samara a lot.  I reflected on those days we spent with her in the hospital fighting to live.  I reflected on last year (2012) trying to heal after losing her.  I will be sharing some of those reflections in the near future.  A friend said that maybe there is someone that needs to hear this story, so I will be posting more in coming weeks.

Today, I want to focus on more positive things.  From today until November 17th to honor Samara’s 206 days of life, we will be receiving donations for the families in the PCICU and for Ronald McDonald House of Nashville.  Please be in prayer about what you can donate, or if you have a group that is willing to help out with our donations.

For the Ronald McDonald House we will continue collecting the can tabs as we have done for many months.  It is easy to get groups to bring in soda or soup can tabs to help.  Maybe a sunday school group, girl scout troup, or just friends at work can use clean, empty, gallon jugs for collecting can tabs.  This is such a easy way to donate.  They collected around $10,000 at the RMH of Nashville in 2011 just from pull tabs.

My second goal is a biggie!  We stayed at RMH for over 5 months total.  Each month it takes $420 to provide a room for the families at the RMH.  I would like to get $2100 donated in Samara’s memory.  If you would like to get a group to donate or would like to donate yourself, message me or leave a comment on this post that your group is donating toward this goal.  You can post pledges that you will donate during the next fews months even if you cannot right now.  I will update to let everyone know how we are progressing toward that $2100 goal.  If you want to keep it private then contact one of our family members directly.  Every little donation helps and of course, RMH donations are certainly tax deductible.

Maybe you cannot donate money.  You might feel more drawn to help with my third goal. This goal is to collect items for the families of children in the PCICU.  We will be collecting gas cards, food gift cards (to to Taco Bell, Subway, or Dominos Pizza), baby lotion, travel size sewing kits, adult sleep masks,  reusable coffee cups or drinking cups (must have lids,) fleece blankets for parents, writing journals, and baby blankets.

I would love to find several that can make blankets for these babies.  I know we have so many talented individuals that can make blankets for them.  Having bright, happy colors in a room that is so full of medical equipment is uplifting.  It took me a while to discover this.  Maybe you have a group that loves to sew, you could truly bless the families going through their difficult journey.  Please message me or one of our family members that you have a group that would like to donate blankets to these families.  We would like them to be bright, pretty colors.  (Nothing blue or purple for heart babies, please.  It makes them look more blue than they already do.)  Heart babies are also very sensitive to overheating.  The blankets need to be thin like a receiving blanket not like a big thick fleece.  You can use your gifts to bless these families.  If you or maybe a church group can help with this, message me that you plan to donate to the babies in the PCICU.

I have chosen to turn our loss into something good.  I want to bless those that are walking the path we were on 2 years ago.  It is a very hard journey and the smallest of things like a food gift card or reusable coffee cup or a beautiful blanket around your baby can make such difference in the day to day struggles of having your baby fighting in the hospital.  Without all the blessings and prayers that we received, we could never have made it through our journey.  Thanks to  everyone again for all you have done and for all who are going to help us collect again.

Knowing we can do something positive in Samara’s memory helps us all to heal and helps those forced to walk the journey with their child now.  We can keep Samara’s memory alive in a great way by helping those that need it so much.

Thank you for helping us keep her memory alive!

1 comment April 25, 2013