Baby Rosalize Faye Nichols Cremation Memorial Fund

Hello, I'm Travis Nichols and my wife is Beatrice Nichols. Some pretext to this unfortunately sad story. My wife and I have been together for 16 years. We've always wanted to start a family, but we knew we wanted to have a life without children first and then begin a family. We've accomplished so many things: I served in the Marine Corps, Beatrice became a physician in psychiatry and family medicine, saw the world, but we wanted to grow our family. After Bea graduated from her medical residency at UC Davis, we quickly became pregnant. We were ecstatic, to the moon, absolutely excited for our little one. Then we were hit with some devastating news. Rosalize Faye Nichols, our beautiful daughter, was diagnosed with Trisomy-18, or Edward's Syndrome. Trisomy-18 is a chromosomal anomaly that can be very life-limiting. Most babies don't make it to a full term of pregnancy with it, and if they do make it to term, it's a VERY rough life outside of the womb necessitating multiple medical interventions. We received that news in December. Since then, we grieved in anticipation of the possibility that we'd never get to meet our little "Rozzie." Week in and week out, we kept fighting for her since she was fighting for us. Hearing her heartbeat, watching her kick, and feeling so lively in the womb had immense impacts on my wife and me.

Now this is where things will be hard to read.

Rozzie started to develop some potential high-risk things, with the main thing being a VSD, or a hole in the heart for those not medically inclined like myself, hooked hands, super small weight/size, and potentially omphalocele. This kick-started us getting involved with medical interventions when we finally made it to week 37. Just prior to week 29, the doctors noticed the blood flow from the placenta to Rosalize was possibly reversing, which is bad. We continued to monitor the situation but felt safe since her heart rate didn't seem to be affected by this. Boy, were we wrong. Cut to week 34's appointment, and her blood flow completely reversed going to the placenta. Knowing this, we had very few options as to what to do. We were admitted that night and planned for a C-section in the coming days. The following morning (05/15/25), we pulled the trigger and decided to go for it to reduce the likelihood of an emergency C-section. Everything started off well (as do most things), but quickly spiraled. There were complications getting her out of the uterus. As you can imagine, Beatrice and I were filled with anxiety as Beatrice was strapped to the table, and we could only watch as this unfolded. Minutes felt like hours as they were working to get Rozzie out. They finally got her out and immediately began life-preserving actions. I had to leave Beatrice on the operating table and be with Rozzie. Watching our daughter fight for every ounce of her life for 18 minutes was absolutely gut-wrenching for me. After 18 grueling minutes that felt like an eternity, unfortunately, the doctors had to call it. No heartbeat. No pulse. No cries for food. Nothing. Our baby girl came to this world, and she ultimately wasn't ready for it.

So, now we're here without Rozzie. With this giant hole in our hearts, our souls, our bodies that was supposed to be Rozzie.

We're making this GoFundMe in the hopes to cover Rozzie's cremation/memorial services. While by no means should anyone feel obligated to donate funds, any and all donations will be greatly appreciated. If any funds are left over from covering the cremation costs, we will be donating them to SOFT (Support Organization for Trisomy) for the care and support of other families with Trisomy children.

We thank you all for the ongoing love, outreach, and support.

With Love,

Bea and Travis Nichols