This year our family is joining the Earlham College team to participate in the March of Dimes March for Babies fundraising walk. The funds raised by this event support March of Dimes research to prevent birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality. Every year, half a million babies in the U.S. are born prematurely. Premature birth is the leading cause of newborn death and many life long disabilities.
As you all know by now, both of our children were born prematurely. Sam was born 16 weeks early on July 12, 2009, weighing 1 lb 8 oz and measuring only 13 inches long. He was airlifted to Riley Children's Hospital in Indianapolis a few hours after he was born and spent 8 days fighting for his life in the Riley NICU. Unfortunately, Sam was just too small and too sick to survive. He died in our arms on July 21, 2009.
After losing Sam, we didn′t want to take any chances with our second pregnancy. In spite of seeing a maternal-fetal medicine specialist from the very beginning, Catie was born 11 weeks early this May. She weighed 3 lbs 2 oz at birth and quickly dropped to 2 lbs 8 oz. After spending 70 days in the Indiana University Special Care Nursery, we brought home our beautiful baby girl on July 14, 2010. Because of the excellent care she received at IU and a whole lot of TLC, today she is thriving.
So far no one has been able to figure out why our babies came so early. I had two healthy, low risk pregnancies and yet went into preterm labor with no warning signs with both children. It is our hope that research funded by the March of Dimes will help reduce the risk of premature birth and prevent other families from experiencing the pain that ours endured. We hope you will support our walk by joining us on September 18th at Glenn Miller Park or by sponsoring our walk at http://www.marchforbabies.org/catiemoore. Even though it is too late for our family, please help us give all babies a fighting chance!
Thanks and we hope to see you there!
Shannon, Andy, & Catie
