As many of you know our beautiful daughter, Peyton Jean, was born into heaven at 25 weeks after over a month long battle with hydrops. We found out at 21 weeks how sick she was and that unless a miracle happened we wouldn’t be bringing her home.

We spent four and half weeks praying for a miracle, while also planning her funeral. Packing our hospital bags, while also getting second opinions and extra tests hoping there could be a treatment option. And now we are doing the same. We are deeply grieving the loss of our daughter and the loss of watching her grow up, while celebrating her life and letting the love we had for her reach out to help others.

If you feel called to help us raise money to help other parents in situations such as ours, here is how we are trying to help:

Heartbeat animals. We are donating stuffed animals to our maternal fetal medicine (high risk) office so that they can record a heart beat for parents that find out they will not be bringing their baby home. A very kind woman gave us a lamb with Peyton’s heartbeat, and we are forever grateful.

A book for Siblings. We Were Going to Have a Baby But We Had an Angel Instead .  This book was very helpful for us to have a way to explain to Luke (our three- year-old son) that we weren’t bringing his little sister home. 

A book for Dads.  From Father to Father Letters From Loss Dad to Loss Dad. Sometimes fathers get a little overlooked as a lot of focus is on Mom's health and well-being, but Dads have also lost their baby and experience grief.

A book for Moms. You Are the Mother of All Mothers was gifted to me after we lost our first baby. It spoke to the guilt, anger, and sadness that I was feeling at not being able to protect my baby. And it still rings true with Peyton.

Birth Certificate. In Indiana, babies who pass away before they are born do not receive a birth certificate.  As I still birthed our daughter it was important for me that she have a (unofficial) birth certificate, and another loss mom gave me a beautiful birth certificate that the nurses filled out for us.  

We have spoken to our Maternal Fetal Medicine office and Franciscan Health both located in Crown Point to make sure these are needed gifts.   All of the things above were gifted to us outside of what is normally done for loss families or was bought by us.  We hope to be able to support parents and families and provide them with a small amount of help and comfort in the storm.

Thank you for reading this and helping us honor Peyton.  

Love,
Andy and Kaitlyn