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Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Why We Walk Wednesday



The March for Babies is approaching quickly and we are ready to walk! I will be exactly 35 weeks at the march and hoping to enjoy a beautiful day with my family of 5 before we become a family of 6!

So for anyone who doesn't know why we march, I wanted to share our story again of why the March of Dimes has come to mean so much to us.

I was literally told I had nothing to worry about and my twins weren't being born any time soon. The twins were healthy, I was healthy, there were absolutely no indications of anything going wrong mere hours before everything DID go wrong. Preterm labor isn't something anyone expects. You think people have babies early because they had complications, were on bed rest, had health issues or their baby had health issues and that's simply not the case. Preterm labor can start with anyone in a matter of minutes and if not handled quickly, can lead to preterm birth. When my water broke at just 26 weeks pregnant, I had no idea what was happening. Good doctors and nurses managed to keep things under control but when I got an infection, I had to give birth extremely prematurely. The twins missed the "micropreemie" category but 1-2oz a piece. Their combined weight at birth was almost 3lbs less than Ben's birth weight...and newsflash, Ben was far from a big baby at only 6lbs 14oz.

After they were born and we came home from the hospital, I signed up to walk in the March for Babies in Los Angeles. I met some great moms in a moms of preemies group and we raised over $1000 that year for the March of Dimes. We didn't have to march or raise money. We were busy enough with newborn preemie twins. Jackson did his first walk still on oxygen for sleeping and with an O2 canister/pulsox and breathing meds in the car "just in case". We were raising money between going to therapy and doctors appointments, in the thick of the preemie challenges, but for another family to not have to go through what we were going through, that is why we did it.

 We could have stayed home and rested and taken a day off from our crazy lives, but the March of Dimes was important to us and we wanted to walk.

And we've continued to walk since then. We haven't missed a year, no matter what state we were in. We've participated in the March for Babies in California and Pennsylvania and this year, we're adding Ohio to the list!

The kids have grown. Many of their preemie "complications" have resolved. Some are still lingering. But it still means so much to us to see the hundreds of people marching for their babies, friends' babies, neighbors' babies, family members' babies, future babies that aren't born yet, all to make sure they are born full term and healthy.

So when people ask us why we walk, all I can do is show you these faces.



These faces, that might not be here without the help of therapies developed from research funded by the March of Dimes. These faces are worth a few dollars and a few hours of a Saturday morning. These face are why we walk.

 

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