Cuddle Cots in Memory of Baby Mark

I had always dreamed of having a big family but I was definitely waiting for "Mr. Right." I was single for about 10 years just concentrating on work and church. After deciding to check out the dating scene I finally met him. We fell in love, and it was incredible. A fairy tale type of love that made everyone sick. From the beginning we knew we would be together forever and we talked often about the future. Ben has two kids so we didn't want to rush anything until our relationship was well established. But God had other plans and in June we became pregnant despite being on the pill. We didn't find out until we were 10 wks along, and we were so excited. I started planning and reading everything I could. We picked names and bought some stuff as we waited until we could find out the sex. It was finally revealed that we were having a boy. We named him Mark Benjamin after my dad and Ben. The pregnancy was easy, no sickness or problems except heartburn and hip pain. We could not wait to meet our little guy. Ben was great, he went to every appointment and all the birthing classes. Then the unthinkable happened. On February 18th we went in for our 38 week check up. It was routine but I immediately thought something was off. My weight was down and my belly was smaller, but the midwife did not mention anything. Right away she could not find his heartbeat. Again she showed no concern at all. After several tries and different methods, she brought in the Dr. and he looked and immediately said the words that still ring in our heads daily. "Here is the head, here is the vertebrae and here is the heart chamber and there is no heartbeat" We then were given the option to go in that night or wait till morning. We chose to wait and they induced me at 8 am the next day. Roughly 17 hours later the most beautiful little angel was born. We were able to spend some time with him. We dressed him in the outfit that Ben bought me for Christmas that we planned on bringing him home in, took tons of pictures and even had him baptized and blessed. But after about 3 hours we had to say goodbye because he was deteriorating rather quickly. I guess we were lucky though because I've read stories about families having less time. This is where we believe a cuddle cot is important, so that families can spend as much time as they would like with their babies. Cuddle cots cool the babies body temperature and keep it constant so that the rapid deterioration does not occur. I have read that 1 out of every 160 births is a baby born still and there are 26,000 stillbirths a year in the US. Unfortunately, however, there are roughly only 24 cuddle cots in all of the United States. We would like to make it a couple more by raising money to donate one to each of our local hospitals, Martha’s Vineyard, Falmouth, and Nantucket in honor of Mark Benjamin aka Baby Mark. (If we are successful in reaching our goal we would like to also raise funds to purchase one for Cape Cod Hospital as well and move our way through Massachusetts)

Think about all the moments you get with your children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews. Please join Ben and I help those families be able to spend as much time as they want with their little angels.