March for babies.

I'm going to be real with you for a moment. Having Liam shifted my perspective immensely. I try to no longer fuss about small stuff. Yes, from time to time, I fail on that because of my mood, but I try to keep my perspective.

Having a preemie is not easy. It has, like everything else in life, pros and cons. Our son was tiny, but a miracle. We loved him, but it was stressful to love him. I say stressful because when you think of babies, you think about holding them to show that love. With a preemie, it could be days before you get to hold your baby. Or in some cases, weeks and months. You get my drift. It was agony not being able to be with either of my sons, one separated from us by miles and one separated from us by meres slivers of plexiglass. 

Anyway, one of the cons of having a preemie baby is the money. It's much more expensive to take care of a baby who born before a gestation age that they can thrive without tubes and wires, medicines and intervention. I know, I've been there. It's hotel bills, gas and food. That's just the physical costs either. I can't tell you the hours of slept lost or the inability to focus on anything but your baby right there in front of you. The awe that such a tiny person could exist as well as he is outside of where he should be existing. Okay I seriously went down a rabbit trail. Focus, I say to myself. We received a paper statement of all what I believe is all the treatments Liam received in his short life. Over $138,000. That's enough to buy a house. In just 23 days, the treatments for our son was enough to buy a house. 

I don't know about you readers, but I personally would love to have that kind of money. Yes, the financial aspect of a preemie is the second worse thing about having a preemie. (The first is not being able to hold your child right away!) Which brings me to why I am writing this post.

Show of hands, how many of you have heard of the March Of Dimes foundation?

MOD (as I shall refer to it henceforth) was founded by FDR in 1938 to combat polio. You see he had polio and if you have something, you're likely to be more passionate about that something. (I had a preemie, I want to be an advocate for preemie families.) Anyway, MOD has since taken up the mantle of providing information to women who are pregnant or can become pregnant about how to take care of themselves and their unborn children. It's a not for profit organization and 76 cents of every dollar that is given to MOD is put towards research and programs to help babies be born as healthy as possible, as you can see here . 

(The MOD website is a tremendous source. I haven't even read all that they have posted there yet, but what I have read is phenomenal. I encourage you to take a few minutes to visit and explore.)

As usual, I have rabbit trailed a bit. MOD's largest fundraising effort is the March For Babies. It began in 1970 as WalkAmerica and since the first walk, MOD has raised 2.3 billion dollars that they use to research prematurity, birth defects and a whole host of other issues that arise during a woman's pregnancy. This year, MOD expects over 3 million people to walk throughout the year to raise money.

I decided to become one of those people.

The closest March For Babies event I could find was in Jacksonville for September 12, 2015. My personal goal is $250.00 and the overall goal for this particular walk is $63,000.00

I'm asking you, my readers, to consider donating to my MOD walk in September, join a walk in YOUR area, donate directly to MOD, or join me when I walk in September. You can help me out at this link
This is something I am passionate about and I would appreciate the support for this great organization through whatever you can do. I don't want other families, moms specifically, to be in the situation we are in. Yes, we have grown so much in this difficult time, but we serve a great God who strengthened us when we needed it most. Not every family who faces prematurity serve such a great God.