March for Babies

The last 8 months since Andrew has been home from the hospital. I've wanted to give back something to someone, but didn't really know how. I've felt completely in debt to all the doctors, nurses, surgeons, medical staff, transport teams, the miracles of modern medicine, technology and years and years of education and research that in reality saved Andrew's life. Had our situation happened 20 or even 10 years ago, I hate to think of the outcome. With his birthday around the corner, I'd hoped we could do something a little extra special to celebrate. Growing up, my mom has always helped with the March of Dimes Foundation. She...along with many others lost a little baby boy, my brother, who was born too early among other things. After doing some research, it didn't take me too long to realize this is where I want to "Give Back" as well.
So this year Stephen and I will be walking in the 2012 March for Babies in memory of our Angel Ethan and in honor of Andrew.

We've set a goal to raise money that will help with research and awareness programs. The money raised will fund research that helps find answers to serious problems that preemies face. Which in turn gives hope to the millions of families with babies born too soon or too sick. In Andrew's case, we are grateful researchers have developed surfactant therapy. Being born so early with no warning, his lungs were immature, underdeveloped and struggled with breathing. The surfactant they gave him, is a protein that kept his small air sacs in his lungs from collapsing. Although Andrew had this surfactant, he was still on oxygen for the first 5 months of his life. Again from research, the lifesaving oxygen treatments he had can lead to retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), a leading cause of blindness in premature babies. Thankfully much research has been done on just how much oxygen triggers this cause of blindness and they are able to monitor this very closely until the eyes are fully developed. Saying I'm grateful for all the research and doctors that helped our boys is an understatement.

So we're asking if our family and friends would support us in reaching our goal. If you'd like to help, you can make an online donation in any amount. Even $5 or $10 would make a difference and help us reach our goal. Just go to www.marchforbabies.org/holdenboys
OR
You can join a team and walk in your area. There are thousands of chapters around the nation. You can find one close to you by clicking here

I'm thinking this will become a yearly tradition for us. Especially since they walk every spring/early summer, which is when our boys were born. This year we will be walking on April 28th and hope to have the money raised by then.
I'll be honest...I'm kind of nervous and never done anything like this before. So we'll see how it goes! Wish us luck!