Today we made our first donation to St. Mary’s hospital.  We donated 12 Angel memory boxes, 20 NICU care packages, 66 books, and 28 gowns with matching booties and hats!!  And of course, to thank the amazing nurses who work at St. Mary’s we made them strawberry cupcakes.  It just barely fit in the back of our car.

We met Chantel Schneeberg, who is the bereavement coordinator at St. Mary’s and also one of our nurses, to deliver the items.  Another nurse who has been instrumental in coordinating the NICU care packages, Laura Ziebarth, was there as well.  We’ve spent the last couple of weeks tying up loose ends and getting the finishing touches on the project, so it’s been fun to see it all come together.

We loaded up the carts and brought the donation items to the Family Care Suites.   There were several nurses and other staff from St. Mary’s that were present to see the donation and hear about the items we were donating.  We were able to share a little bit about our story and how Mikayla’s Grace got started.  It was great to get feedback from them, and see their excitement for being able to give these items to the families.

It felt good to finally drop the items off at the hospital, but the work is not done.  Now, we start preparing for the next round of donations.  Initially the NICU care packages are going to be given to NICU babies born before 29 weeks and there are ~40 of these babies admitted a year just at St. Mary’s!  Our hope is that someday we will be able to provide care packages for all of those babies and even the babies born at later gestations as well.  There are also many more families that experience the death of an infant at the hospital too.  We’ll be working towards another donation of Angel Memory Boxes and NICU Care Packages for sometime this fall, hopefully near Mikayla’s due date, September 28, or Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day, October 15th.