Recovery & Support for the Nicolaou Family

GoFundMe - Our Story

Thank you to our friends, followers & customers for your enduring support over a challenging year full of loss. As many of you are aware, we had to limit our operations a few weeks ago as we navigated an emergency with our pregnancy. We’d like to share our story with you.

After a small 4mm mass was spotted at a 26-week ultrasound, we were referred to a team at Mount Sinai in Toronto at a 28-week checkup with our midwives. By 29 weeks, the small mass had grown to a 15cmx12cmx10cm tumor enveloping the baby's face, head and neck. What followed has been a whirlwind. Over the next 3 weeks, we put our lives & business on hold as we took countless trips to Toronto, endless tests and discussions with teams of doctors from Sinai and Sick Kids - the world's best in prenatal care, pediatrics, hematology, plastic surgery and genetics, to try to monitor and diagnose baby beek as best as we could. Keri was put on an extremely expensive trial drug to attempt to halt the growth of the tumor, which was very hard on her physically.

Two weeks ago, Keri went into pre-term labor, and we ended up admitted to Mount Sinai Nov 20th at 32 weeks pregnant. After nearly 72 hours of attempting unsuccessfully to stall labor, Linden Beckett Nicolaou was stillborn at 2:37 am on Wednesday Nov 23rd. We came home alone, heartbroken, last Friday after fighting for weeks that felt like an eternity.

This has been an incredibly difficult situation to navigate. Small business can be so volatile, especially given the effects of covid-19 and inflation rippling through our communities this year. Unfortunately, our business was already feeling these pressures this year, and our time off for November & now December has greatly impacted our family. This is normally our most crucial 2 months of the year as we make a majority of our income to sustain us through winter months, and to invest in the farm for spring and summer, at the holidays. We have taken a full step back from our business, cancelled our most profitable markets, closed our farm store and stepped back from socials (and by extension, marketing). The added burden of gas, hotel stays, medications and food costs in the city has strained us further. We are now faced with decisions we never thought we'd face, planning a funeral for our little boy.

We have received an outpour of love and support like we could not have imagined. The power and love in this community has seen us through the most challenging month we’ve ever experienced, but we have a long way to go.

It is not in our nature to ask for help, but many of you have asked how you can support us. If you feel called to donate, we will be so thankful. Your donation will allow us to focus on processing the last few traumatic weeks, heal, and plan for the future.

More specifically, your donations will go toward:

⁃ funeral/cremation costs for Linden

⁃ planning of a burial or a memorial for Linden

⁃ sustaining the farm/our bills as we grieve

As always, we are thankful to our community, and the teams at Mount Sinai and Sick Kids who treated us with such attention and care over the last month.