Ever since we lost Grace in 2019, I have been on a mission to raise awareness about stillbirth and support other families facing this horrendous loss. This year, we'll be coming together as a family and community to raise funds for Star Legacy Foundation. Please join our team - we're looking for participants, event sponsors, and donors. Whether you join Gracie's team and walk in her honor, or just support the event at large, we appreciate any contribution you are able to make.
Here is Gracie's story....
It was February 8, 2019. I was 3 days out from a scheduled c-section. I had just hit 39 weeks pregnant. I had started to feel sicker and sicker in the days leading up to this point. The night before, I was too weak and sick to even leave the couch, so that’s where I slept.
10:30 Friday morning I began to feel contractions. The next thing I knew, my water broke. It was time to get to the hospital. By this point, I was so weak I could barely walk and now I was in excruciating pain because of the labor. Brendan helped me to the car, and drove like Mario Andretti down to the hospital.
We arrived to the hospital at 12:30pm. I couldn’t even walk in to the hospital; Brendan had to get me a wheelchair. While in triage, I was in so much pain that I was begging the doctors to get me some pain meds, which is uncharacteristic of me. Usually I would hold out as long as I could. But this pain was unfathomable. They finally got us in to the room and began taking my vitals, and pulled out the doppler to check baby’s heartbeat. Nothing. They tried again. Nothing again. We started to suspect something was wrong. That’s when they said it. “I’m sorry, we can’t find the heartbeat.”
But we still had to deliver the baby...
They wheeled me in to labor & delivery and things went from bad to worse. We soon found out that I was extremely sick. My kidney and liver were showing signs of organ failure, my blood was acidic and would not clot, and my blood sugar was at a critically low 26. My body was in the process of shutting down, and I needed to deliver the baby "ASAP" so they could get me to the ICU. Because of the condition of my body and my blood, they couldn't do a c-section, and they couldn't give me an epidural. We'd just have to do this the old fashioned way.
It was during delivery that our OB confirmed we would be having a girl; we had kept the gender a surprise until now. That's when we named her “Grace”, after my Grandma Dorothy “Grace” Rabska. After 10 hours of natural labor, our beautiful baby girl “Grace” was born. She was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. We hugged her. We kissed her. We held her. We got her footprints, and took a couple photos. And then we said goodbye. 30 minutes later, they took her away, and they wheeled me to the ICU. I spent the next 10 days in the hospital, still trying to process what just happened.
In the aftermath of our loss, Star Legacy Foundation was one of the organizations that really helped my healing process. From support groups to resources, and even getting involved with all the wonderful people in the organization, it gave me purpose and it gave me hope, that we might be able to prevent something like this from happening to other families. This organization is close to my heart and I'm so happy to be supporting them in this event.
So please join us, as we raise money in Grace’s honor - and all the other babies too soon. ? ❤️
#LiveWithGrace