Day Eight of 30 Days of Project Sweet Peas Giveaway ( Plus a little something extra)

Before I start Day Eight of 30 Days of Project Sweet Peas I have to share a poem that my husband wrote:

At the time of the tulips

By William Skaggs III

At the time of the tulips

and at the time of spring,

the grief of a parent has been lifted just so high.

Just high enough for the grieving parent to lay in the warmth of an upcoming summer day.

The fog was thick, not letting in light,

no plants to grow.

Then out of the blue with time on his side his mood had changed

washing the fog away.

The grief of a parent for their child will rumble like the unsettling weather of the spring storms, but with each passing day the storms seem to be manageable and not as fierce as before.

The grief will always last but the love and memories will always outlast all.

As I have written about so many times before, one of the things that I do to remember and honor my son is donate care packages to families that have a baby in the NICU. I am able to do this through the help and support of Project Sweet Peas, which is a group of families just like mine, who have been in the NICU and know how hard it is. There are twelve local project spread out across the country that deliver these care packages. I am honored to be a part of this organization. And we need your help!!!

We have applied for a grant through the Pepsi Refresh Project, and have been selected as a finalist to win a $25,000 grant!! So here is how you can help us: vote once a day, every day for Project Sweet Peas to win. We need to be in the top ten at the end of the month to win. And to entice you to help us out and vote every day, I am doing a 30 Days of Project Sweet Peas giveaway! Everyday in the month of April I will be writing about the amazing things going on in Project Sweet Peas. And if you leave a comment that you voted each day, I will randomly pick one of these comments to win an Awareness Braceletof your choice! I make awareness bracelets of all colors, and I have a Pregnancy and Infant Loss Charm Bracelet featured right now. 

**Please note that you must leave a comment each day to qualify for the giveaway for that day. **

Welcome to Day Eight of 30 Days of Project Sweet Peas! We are still holding strong at Number Seventeen, and we still really need your votes so we can move up to number Sixteen and beyond! Please don't forget to vote so that you may help us out! Drake's Doodlebugs donates care packages to Ochsner Medical Center and Saint Tammany Hospital in Louisiana. For more information on Drake's Doodlebugs, please email Christy at christy@projectsweetpeas.com This is Drake's Story . . . 

Burt and Christy Michel were having trouble getting pregnant. After an appointment with the fertility specialist they found out that they had to start fertility medicine. After an ectopic pregnancy ,a miscarriage and many failed attempts, they found out they were expecting with an EDD of March 3 2008. At their 20 week ultrasound, they found out they were expecting a boy !! They also found out that he had a Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia. It is a birth defect that occurs when the diaphragm does not fully form, allowing organs to enter the chest cavity preventing lung growth. CDH strikes 1 in every 2500 babies, no matter the race, religious background, or financial status .No matter how well the prenatal care! 

  Drake Alexander Michel was born on February 18, 2008. After 6 major surgeries ,and 7 weeks in the NICU, He passed away in his mommy's arms on April 6, 2008. No mother should ever get to hold her baby for the first time and have to say goodbye at the same time.

  Drakes Doodlebugs is a local project started to give a little comfort to families of babies in the NICU. Having someone show that you are not alone through this stressful time is priceless.  

Day Seven of 30 Days of Project Sweet Peas!

As I have written about so many times before, one of the things that I do to remember and honor my son is donate care packages to families that have a baby in the NICU. I am able to do this through the help and support of Project Sweet Peas, which is a group of families just like mine, who have been in the NICU and know how hard it is. There are twelve local project spread out across the country that deliver these care packages. I am honored to be a part of this organization. And we need your help!!!

We have applied for a grant through the Pepsi Refresh Project, and have been selected as a finalist to win a $25,000 grant!! So here is how you can help us: vote once a day, every day for Project Sweet Peas to win. We need to be in the top ten at the end of the month to win. And to entice you to help us out and vote every day, I am doing a 30 Days of Project Sweet Peas giveaway! Everyday in the month of April I will be writing about the amazing things going on in Project Sweet Peas. And if you leave a comment that you voted each day, I will randomly pick one of these comments to win an Awareness Braceletof your choice! I make awareness bracelets of all colors, and I have a Pregnancy and Infant Loss Charm Bracelet featured right now. 

And the winner from Day Five Giveaway is (chosen with help from Random.org) . . . . . Jennifer Tenney! Jennifer, please send me an email at megan@projectsweetpeas.com and let me know which Awareness Bracelet that you would like. Check out Bracelets for Awareness for idea, you can pick any bracelet with any amount of charms! Please note that you must leave a comment EVERY DAY in order to qualify for the giveaway. Basically, each day starts new.

**Please note that you must leave a comment each day to qualify for the giveaway for that day. **

Welcome to Day Seven of 30 Days of Project Sweet Peas!! I am so happy to announce that we have moved up one spot into 17!! Now we are only 17 spots away from the TOP TEN! So close we are almost there, so PLEASE PLEASE, KEEP VOTING!!  The project that I will be highlighting donates bags to Kootenai Medical Center NICU/PICU in Idaho/Washington area. This is the story of Ayda's Blessing (for more information, please contact Shanell at shanell@projectseetpeas.com). . . . .

When I was 17, me and my boyfriend, now my husband found out that we were expecting. We went through the normal pregnancy stuff, doctors, planning the room, until May 9, 2007. We went into the doctors to see if we were having a girl or a boy. We found out that we were having a girl, but we also found out that she was diagnosed with a birth defect called a congenital diaphragmatic hernia. We had no idea what a congenital diaphragmatic hernia was. In Ayda, our daughters cause, we found out that early in gestation, her diaphragm didn’t completely form, and there was a hole on her left side of the diaphragm. Her stomach and her intestines moved their way up through the hole and placed themselves where the heart was supposed to be, causing the heart to be where the lungs are supposed to be, causing her lungs to not form completely due to the very small amount of room in her chest. They told us that 1 out of every 2,000 babies are born with CDH. The survival rate is only 50%

Ever since that day, our lives were forever changed. I couldn't finish school because all of the distractions and doctors appointments were a little more important. All I wanted to focu on was my daughter and what was going to happen once she was born.

Late in August, I went into preterm labor and was admitted into the Sacred Heart Birth Place Antepartum. They placed me on bed rest and I was having about 4 medications to try and keep me from giving birth. They told me that if I gave birth to Ayda right now, she wouldn't survive since she only weighed 5lbs at the time. I was in Antepartum a month before Ayda was born. I couldn't go home, the hospital was about 2 hours away from my house. The hospital was my new home.

On September 20, 2007, Ayda Rose Browand was born at 4:42pm, weighing 7lbs 11oz. I couldn't hold her. They took her over to the bed and cleaned her up as they put her on oxygen. I looked around. My hospital room was full of stress. I had my husband, mother in law, mom, grandma, two Antepartum nurses, 2 OBGYNs, 2 NICU doctors, and 4 NICU nurses. It was so stressful! They wouldn't let Ayda cry because they didn't want more organs to get sucked up into the chest cavity and cause even more of a problem. They started to wheel Ayda up to the NICU. Sam followed them and kept on calling me with updates.

Once I was able to go upstairs to see her, I was in shock. the room was full with nurses and doctors, alarms were going off saying that her oxygen was too low and her heart rate was too high. they would shoot some medicine into her arm. The sound of the ventilator hummed in the background. I wheeled myself over to my precious baby just to see her eyes closed, her chest moving not from her breathing, but from the ventilators breathing, and not seeing her wiggle her toes. They had to put her on some special medications that would make her not be able to move because she was trying to spit out the ventilator when she was born. All I could do was pray and stare. I couldn't help her, she couldn't help herself. We were both helpless.

The next couple of weeks were like riding a roller coaster. She would do really good, and then she would drop back down. "45% oxygen", I would stare at the monitor every second, just to make sure she was being a good girl. They said my eyes were glued to that thing. I would send Sam up to check on our daughter and the first thing I would ask was "how are her oxygen saturations?". She became so unstable they started to talk to us about "the last resort", ECMO. We decided to say no. We didn't want her to suffer any more than she already was. The rest of that night, I was scared that we just let our baby pass, I was up about every 3 hours making sure she was okay, calling the nurses over and over. Praying was the main time I spent while at the NICU.

The morning after our decision about ECMO, they told us that Ayda was now stable enough to have surgery. They scheduled it for October 1st, Sams sisters birthday. We were so relieved. Finally, we were moving our way through the tunnel. Her surgery went well. A couple of weeks later, she re-herniated and a second surgery went through. They had to put mesh in to patch the hole. After her surgery, they slowly began bringing down the settings of her ventilator, oxygen, and all the other wires and tubes she was hooked up on. When she was off of the ventilator she was able to eat. At the beginning of November, they moved us up to the NICU step-down unit. That meant we were on our way to going home!

On November 30th, we were able to go home!!!

After she came home, Ayda had 2 other surgeries and 2 other small procedures from the time we came home until about a month after she turned a year old. Currently Ayda is growing like a "normal baby". She has hearing loss and has to wear hearing aids, and she has a very weak immune system and gets sick very often, but we have been able to keep her as healthy as we can. Even though we went through a hard time in the NICU, I would never change anything about the journey we went through. That is why I am here. It is my passion to help other parents that are in the same situation that my husband and I were in during the time our daughter was in the NICU.

Day Six of 30 Days of Project Sweet Peas Giveaway!

As I have written about so many times before, one of the things that I do to remember and honor my son is donate care packages to families that have a baby in the NICU. I am able to do this through the help and support of Project Sweet Peas, which is a group of families just like mine, who have been in the NICU and know how hard it is. There are twelve local project spread out across the country that deliver these care packages. I am honored to be a part of this organization. And we need your help!!!

We have applied for a grant through the Pepsi Refresh Project, and have been selected as a finalist to win a $25,000 grant!! So here is how you can help us: vote once a day, every day for Project Sweet Peas to win. We need to be in the top ten at the end of the month to win. And to entice you to help us out and vote every day, I am doing a 30 Days of Project Sweet Peas giveaway! Everyday in the month of April I will be writing about the amazing things going on in Project Sweet Peas. And if you leave a comment that you voted each day, I will randomly pick one of these comments to win an Awareness Braceletof your choice! I make awareness bracelets of all colors, and I have a Pregnancy and Infant Loss Charm Bracelet featured right now. 

And the winner from Day Five Giveaway is . . . . . Tina from Living without Sophia and Ellie Tina, please send me an email at megan@projectsweetpeas.com and let me know which Awareness Bracelet that you would like. Check out Bracelets for Awareness for idea, you can pick any bracelet with any amount of charms! Please note that you must leave a comment EVERY DAY in order to qualify for the giveaway. Basically, each day starts new.

**Please note that you must leave a comment each day to qualify for the giveaway for that day. **

Welcome to Day Six of 30 Days of Project Sweet Peas!!! Currently we are in 18th Place!! That's one higher then yesterday at this time! But for some reason, we can't seem to break that number 18 mark - so please, I am begging everyone, KEEP VOTING!! Today's project that I will be highlighting is Kiernan's Kindness. Kiernan's Kindness donate bags to Phoenix Children's - NICU St. Josephs - NyICU Los Ninos -  and NICU Scottsdale Shea - PICU in Arizona. For more information on Kiernan's Kindness, please contact Julie at julie@projectsweetpeas.com Here is Kiernan's Story . . . .

Kiernan was born at 36 weeks and immediately taken to the NyICU (nursery icu) which we knew was going to happen. We had toured it only 2 days before his birth and thought we would actually have at least 2 more weeks to prepare but medication was no longer stopping contractions. At 32 weeks inutero Kiernan was diagnosed with CDH and a chromosomal defect called klinefelters syndrome and the long road began. Trips twice a week for NST and amnio counts which was nice to see my baby all the time but did get old and he began to hate it as well. Once he was born it was about 14 hours before i got to see him in person for the first time and i could not hold him yet. He was on all kinds of IV's and an oscolator  plus all the monitors. We quickly learned how to read them and what went where and why.. The first night nurse made him a sign with his name on it and decorated it. In fact each child in there had a personalized hand made sign with there names. It was a small but thoughtful thing and it was heart warming. It really gave us the sense that these nurses were special. St.Joes where he was born was actually our 3rd hospital. We started at one hospital that thoguth they were going to have to deliver a 31 week preemie that only had a level 2 nicu and went to a hospital with a level3 nicu and once the cdh was found we were transfered to St. Joes since they were the ONLY hospital in the valley that could deliver babies and do ECMO if needed. Only 1 other hospital can do ecmo and they only take transfers and dont deliver. Kiernan was intubated the second he was delivered and it was a c-section for 2 reasons 1 the cdh and 2 i had already had 2 prior c-sections. My wonderful husband took a picture of him and  brought it over to me so i could see him since he was taken right away to Nyicu. He was born not breathing anyway but they had already planned on intubating so they were prepared. The hardest thing i ever had to do was go in there the first time after he was born and see him hooked up to everything and sedated and know that I couldn't pick him up and hold him. The nurses were so nice and answered all of our questions and comforted us in whatever way they could. Kiernans first night was rough and he had to be put on heart medicines and needed the oscalator and it was just so hard. The surgeon came the next day and did there x-rays and ultrasounds and stuff they needed and started to prepare for whne he might have surgery to repair the cdh. They set goals and my little guy started to hit them ALL. To the amazement of the staff and docs he was switched over to regular ventilator 2 days later and then surgery was set for the next day. I got to hold him for the first time the day before surgery. I begged them to let me hold him. I did not know what was going to happen but wanted to at least hold him once while he was alive in case he didnt make it. I wanted him to know his mommys touch. He was still on all the stuff and it took about 15 minutes for them to get him ready so i could hold him but it was awesome yet very sad at the same time. He had surgery the next day and did great. I ended up staying an extra day due to spinal headaches from not resting enough  after the c-section. It was so hard to leave without him. We went back to see him only hours later I couldn't stay away. Within a week he was off the ventilator completly and getting closer to starting feeds. He was about a week old before we could hold him anytime and put clothes on him and then at 2 weeks old we got to feed him. He was moved to intermediate care right around two weeks when he was down to just the picc line and almost up to full feeds. A couple days in there and then i got to breast feed him. The most wonderful thing in the world and he was a champion feeder. He was born August 20, 2008 and went home as healthy as a cdh baby could be on Sept. 10, 2008 -- His originally scheduled c-section date. Our experience with the Nyicu was great and i just want to be able to give support to other parents going through what we did. We love St. Joes and it is still a second home in a way seeing as we still go there for follow ups and specialist at least every other week. I hope other parents can have a positive experience like we did at such a trying time in there lives.