‘When words cannot express how much you are missed, let our actions show it…’

February 11, 2006 will ‘officially-officially’ mark the start of our not-for-profit venture in this world. Officially we did obtain status from New York State on August 16, 2005; and shortly thereafter we obtained federal tax-exempt status.

We are saying 2.11.06 is our official start date because we picked this date last March 2005 as a tentative start date--and we are so surprised to actually be meeting this timeline! We never really thought we could get everything together in time, and indeed we have much work ahead of us to get out there in full capacity. But, everything is in place and we are all practicing our duties beyond our expectations…

With the start and opening of our venture we dedicate this lifework to all babies and the importance of them in the family unit. All babies will be honored with our work; whether they are born alive or not; if they are born 5 weeks into a pregnancy or 40; if they live for 5 minutes in NICU or 5 months at home; weather they are born perfect or imperfect…

We will concentrate mainly on our lost babies since this area in particularly is lacking in our society today. We will do our best to raise the awareness of our plight and to show the world that our babies deserve the same respect and honor as any other baby--and in fact we will accept no less. This starts with our memory making of our babies, thus validating there short lives. It continues with our remembrances of them and the honoring of them through special rituals. It is ongoing for the families lifetime in the respect of their wishes by the rest of society.

This work that we do is dedicated to all my children: Zachary Eric/1990, Tressa Erin/1998, Cailin Erin 2.11.2003, our little ‘Baby Gift’/7.14.2003, and Erin Faith/2004. The specifics of our daily activities within this organization although are dedicated to our lost babies. The time I spend on this work is to symbolize the time I do not get to spend with them every day.

Our Cailin Erin was lost at 39 weeks and 4 days; she was perfect in all ways and looked just like her sisters. We spent months planning Cailin’s pregnancy, 39+ weeks during her pregnancy dreaming of her, and 27 hours after her delivery making memories of her within our family to last a lifetime…every day since her birth we have held her in our hearts and tried to honor her in the best way we can.

Five short months later I lost another baby at 10 weeks gestation; this baby I have affectionately thought of in my mind as my ‘Baby Gift’. After we lost Cailin we were very unsure of the possibility of another baby; I specifically was not sure that I wanted to risk heartbreak again…

From the start this pregnancy was not stable and on July 14, 2003 our Baby Gift was taken away to early miscarriage. I have not changed the name of this baby in my head since we never did find out if this was a boy or girl baby.

Every year since her birth I have made candles/Cailin’s Candles & found poems for each of our lost babies. I have tried to be a poet myself, have tried to compose the perfect poem…but I always come up with nothing adequate & I end up looking elsewhere--in books, online, etc. This year with the start of our venture we are symbolically lighting Cailin’s perpetual candle on our website for all to share and remember mine, yours, or anybody’s lost babies…