March for Babies wrap-up

In case you can’t tell from the few pics below, we had a great time. I have a bunch more photos to share, I just need five minutes to get them off the camera.

The day started off cold…it was 43 degrees when we woke up!! But, the sun shone brightly and between the walking and the sunshine we were perfectly happy.

So, maybe I’m strange…. I decorated Olivia Moonpie’s stroller. It never would have occurred to me not to. She had purple and silver pinwheels on the front, purple and silver pompoms on the handles and a hot pink and white polka-dot ribbon with little dangly things along the edge of the canopy. I actually wanted to do more, but ran out of time. I expected to see tons of fancy strollers and wagons when we got there. Instead, we appeared to be the only one. Now, there were thousands of people there so I may have missed them, but you’d think I’d see at least one!

It was a bizarre juxtaposition of emotions at the walk. It has a definite festival feel to it, but then you start to read the backs of the t-shirts. There are tributes to babies born too soon, too tiny, too sick. There are the celebrations too: The little girl wearing the “Team Leader” t-shirt whose daddy carried her on his shoulders the entire 3.5 miles, followed by about a dozen family members in shirts with her stats on the back. Our own Olivia Moonpie who napped for close to 2 miles and either rode happily in her stroller or in her daddy’s arms. Reminders either way of why we were there, proof that the donations DO make a difference and proof that there is still a VERY long way to go.

We wore the same t-shirts that Mel and Josh wore when they walked for us in 2008, which just felt right. Olivia Moonpie had her very own team shirt, the first of many. I’m in the process of making shirts for Miss M’s Momom, Aunt Shelia and Cousin Hayley to wear when they do the second half of Team On The Road’s March for Babies in Franklin, Virginia next month. If you didn’t get a chance to donate or help out for the first half, you can still pitch in and support Team On The Road part II using the link in the sidebar.

I can’t wait for next year!

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WoooHooo!

I am thrilled to report that Team On The Road is just $250 shy of hitting our goal of $1000! It was a really ambitious goal, so I’m stunned to see us that close. Of course, Echo’s Momom, who is walking for us in Virginia in May has done a tremendous amount of fund raising on the east coast.

So, we have 11 days left before Shannon, Olivia Moonpie and I tie on our walking shoes and hit the pavement for our march. I’d really really like to have that goal met by then. If you haven’t picked your color yet, please check out the post below and help us out! And, if you have joined Team On The Road in one way or another….

 

THANK YOU!!!

 

 

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D’OH!!

So, I corrected the links to our fundraising page in the post below. I’ve had some choice words about how the backend pages are set up for the team managers these past couple of days. I had to really dig to find the URL that I was supposed to give to other people. Anyway, I apologize to all of you who may have clicked through and were confused when it asked you to log in. If you have any other problems, let me know so I can get them worked out.

This is the correct url to access Team On The Road’s fundraising page. http://www.marchforbabies.org/OurOwnCreation Please pass it on to others or click and donate any amount. Believe me, if everyone donated just $1 after reading this, we’d just about hit our goal.

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Countdown to April 19

 

Have you picked your color yet?

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Team On The Road

Shannon, Olivia Moonpie, and I are walking in the Fort Worth March of Dimes’ March for Babies on April 19th. As I said in my last post, we have resurrected Team On The Road to remember Lennox and Zoe while we celebrate Olivia Moonpie.

Every year, Tash from Awful But Functioning carries names of babies with her to a remembrance ceremony. She writes them on a list and puts it in her pocket as she goes to remember Maddalena. It’s that simple act of another person writing the name of the child no one got to know that helps keep them here. I’d like to do something similar when we walk this April. I’d like to carry two lists with us, because we are walking for two groups – those babies who aren’t here but should have been and those babies who are here despite everything they went through. Remembrance and Celebration. If you would like your child/children’s name to go on the March with us, email me at ourowncreation@gmail.com. It would be my honor to have them walk with us. I’d like to have a list of the names of those who “join” us here on the blog, so please let me know in your email if you would prefer not to be on that list. And, I’m ok with nicknames or real names. It’s about honoring the babies, not making you uncomfortable.

Now, Team On The Road is trying to raise $1000. That seems like a huge goal to me, but I decided to think BIG with this. It does mean that I need your help. There are a variety of ways you can help Team On The Road out. I’ve listed some groups below, each one with a different way to help us out. The nice thing is, you can join as many as you like!

Red Group: Be our cheerleaders! Use the comment section to show your support for Team On The Road.

Orange Group: Donate. I mean, it is a fundraiser after all. If everyone who reads this blog every day donated a couple of dollars, we’d exceed our goal! There’s a reason they called it the March of Dimes…every little bit adds up and means so very much.

Yellow Group:Write a post on your blog (or tweet/post it at your church/update your facebook status/tell your mommies’ group/you’ve got the idea) about Team On The Road with a link to either this post or to our fund raising page at http://www.marchforbabies.org/OurOwnCreation.

Green Group: Put a badge on your blog’s sidebar. I’ve put a couple here. Let me know if you need help with them.

Blue Group: Join Team On The Road and walk with us. If you are in Fort Worth and want to walk with us in April, we’d love to have the company. I assume you can join Team On The Road and walk in your local March for Babies, too.

Purple Group: Send out an email about Team On The Road to friends/family/coworkers with a link to this post or our fundraising page at http://www.marchforbabies.org/OurOwnCreation.

Rainbow Group: Multi-colored! Do any combination of the above. Seriously, I’ve personally benefitted from the amazing power of the internet in the past (I still haven’t forgotten how everyone came together to help me out). I know we can do this!

So, to recap: Join a group and help Team On The Road (and feel free to post in the comments what part of the rainbow you are. You deserve some recognition for helping out) and send me names of babies to join us as we walk, honor, and remember.

And, thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

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Let’s Do This

Before I overthink it and psych myself out of it.

After the twins arrived and left so suddenly, Shannon and I found ourselves the focus of this amazing outpouring of support from the internet. People we will probably never meet wrote to tell us how much Lennox and Zoe had touched them. Complete strangers donated money to the memorial fund we set up at Cooks Children’s Hospital as well as to the March of Dimes. It was overwhelming and was a tremendous source of comfort to us in an incredibly difficult time.

Then it was spring and the March of Dimes’ March for Babies was on. We were still too deep in our grief to find the strength to participate. That’s when Mel and Josh and their twins picked up part of our burden for us. They created Team On The Road and walked for Lennox and Zoe. I still have the t-shirts Mel made to wear that day.

That was three years ago.

Tonight, I have resurrected Team On The Road. Shannon, Olivia Moonpie, and I will be walking in the Fort Worth March for Babies on April 19. We will walk for the babies who aren’t here and should be and for the babies who got here too early and face the challenges that brings.

If you are in the DFW area and would like to join our team and walk with us, we would love to have you. Even if you can’t walk with us, there are other ways to help out. I’ll have a post in a day or two on ways you can be a part of Team on the Road without having to lace up your shoes.

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Testing the waters

So, it’s almost time for the local March of Dimes March for Babies.

When the twins died, the March of Dimes became one of my pet charities because of the work they do to try to prevent premature birth. We donate in Lennox and Zoe’s names in the hope that some day in the not to distant future, another family won’t have to go through what we did.

I’ve wanted to participate in the March for Babies the past two years but there was always something to prevent it, whether the obstacle was mental or physical. This year though, we have no obstacles (so far, knocking on wood, crossing fingers, lighting candles, dancing naked in the backyard…) and I think I’d really really like to do it. We even still have the t-shirts that Mel and Josh wore when they walked in 2008. It just feels right for me and Shannon and Olivia Moonpie to try to raise some money to help the fight against premature birth.

I have no idea how many local readers I have, but I thought I’d just toss this out there. Any DFW area people who would be interested in joining our team for the walk in Fort Worth on April 19?

This won’t affect my decision to walk, so don’t worry about that. I’ve never done this sort of thing before, so I’m trying to get an idea of how high to set my fund raising goal. More walkers, higher goal. And if people are interested I’ll do something a little more formal for signing up.

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Really?

Breastfeeding forums are scary places! Who knew you could commit yourself to pumping every three hours a day for almost four months to ensure that your preemie gets only breastmilk, spend countless hours working with lactation consultants to maintain your supply and help develop her latch, dedicate to doing everything possible to help your preemie learn to nurse at the breast after being bottle and tube fed her entire life, then go to a breastfeeding forum to ask a simple question about the best way to fit pumping into a new schedule that has alternating breast and bottle feedings and be told that you aren’t doing it “right”????

Seriously? Based on two paragraphs of a quickly written summary you are going to presume to tell me to stop giving my child the supplement (which is 1.25 teaspoons per 100ml of milk, btw….not like I’m pumping her full of the EEEEEEVIL formula :eyeroll: ) or give up bottle feeding immediately or get an SNS if I absolutely must supplement. Oh, and not answer my question about how to work pumping in so that it offers the least interference with breastfeeding. Then get uppity when I thank them for their input but point out that I didn’t actually ask about how to change what I’m currently doing, since that system works very well for us and meets the guidelines established by the doctors who have, y’know actually treated her and then restate my question more clearly. Obviously, I’m just not as perfect a breastfeeding advocate as they are and I certainly must not love my daughter that much because I’m not interested in hearing about how giving her a bottle has caused irrevocable nipple confusion. Riiight. You come watch the hungry dinosaur latch on and tell me how confused she is. Let’s create a holier-than-thou hostile environment so we can lament the fact that more mothers don’t breastfeed because they claim they can’t find any support.

Between this and the fact that Subway thinks calling a sandwich a BLT doesn’t mean that the sandwich comes with lettuce and tomato by default, I’ve had a day of stupid.

I’m taking the Moonpie and going back to bed. Wake me up when the world is smarter.

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We gave!

*I’ve made the post sticky so it stays at the top of the blog for a little while. I’d like it to be a place for anyone who decides to donate blood to be able to get a little recognition. New posts will be just below this one.*

So, if you took me up on my request and donated blood, whether for the first time or the fiftieth, feel free to post here! You deserve the recognition and you have my thanks. I hope neither Olivia Moonpie nor I will ever need blood products, but someone out there will, so it’s a very good thing that you do and we both are thankful for it.

And, trust me, I don’t hold it against anyone who doesn’t give! I have to have an anesthesiology nurse put in my IVs, my pulse rate was so high the last time I went to donate they turned me down, and I have passed out while donating before. I promise, I’m not gonna be hurt if you don’t want someone to put a needle in your arm and take a pint or if you can’t do it now. 🙂 It was just the first thing that popped into my head when people started asking what they could do to help me out.

(On a completely unrelated note… if you stare at the word “gave” for any length of time, it really stops looking and sounding like a word.)

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Thank you!

You all raised somewhere between $250 and $300 for the March of Dimes on behalf of Lennox, yesterday. I’d be more exact but, um, I forgot to write down how much had been donated to his band previously … I think it had $350 already on it.

Anyway, that’s a fantastic amount for one day on short notice! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

And we also thank you for remembering with us, for holding our Lennox in your hearts. That is as important as any donation.

The link to the bands is always in the sidebar, should you ever find yourself just sitting around wondering, “Where could I make a worthwhile donation today?” 😉 I’m just sayin’!

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