Sunshine Fund: Cuddle Cot Donation in Honor of Maddox Lee

We are coming up on Maddox Lee's fourth birthday (November 22nd) - a day that always comes with heartache.

After much thought and prayer, Brody and I have decided how we’d like to honor Maddox for his birthday and would like to invite our family and friends to join us.

This is extremely near and dear to our hearts, as it’s a gift that will be given to other families who are experiencing the same devastating loss that we have. We’d like to give other bereaved parents the one thing we desperately wish we had with our son — the gift of time.

Most bereaved parents, like us, are completely blindsided when they find out their baby has died. In the midst of complete shock and heartbreak, we must attempt to fit a lifetime of love and memories into mere moments, shortly after giving birth. Meanwhile, parents have to watch their babies bodies change before their eyes.

After losing Maddox, we learned that there are options out there for grieving parents which allow them to spend as much time as they need with their babies. Families who are given adequate support, resources, and options will often spend a full 24 hours or even longer with their babies. Brody and I had 11 hours with Maddox, that’s it. Most of those hours were spent recovering from a traumatic birth, being interrupted by nurses and doctors, making decisions about funeral/burial arrangements, and trying to keep our family updated. Out of love and care for Maddox, we had to make the impossible decision to say goodbye to him sooner than we were ready to. Had we known these resources existed and had they been provided to us, the added pain of saying goodbye to him so soon would have been avoided. While no amount of time with Maddox would have been long enough to take away the devastating grief we’ve experienced, every minute counts. The memories made in that short window of time are all you get and they’re essential.

Three years ago, leading up to Maddox’s first birthday, we first shared about our Sunshine Fund and our hope to donate a Cuddle Cot. The cost of a cuddle cot is approximately $3,500. In just a few weeks, we exceeded our goal and received over $7,000 in donations, enough to donate not only one Cuddle Cot, but two (one to Kaiser Moreno Valley where I gave birth to Maddox, and one to Kaiser Riverside,) plus 20 hand and feet casting kits to add to bereaved families memory boxes. We were truly speechless and blown away by everyone’s generosity - we couldn’t have made the two cuddle cot donations without the help of our family, friends, and community.

Last year on Maddox’s third birthday, we visited the labor and delivery department at Kaiser MoVal. We met with kind nurses who wept with us, thanked us, and shared how much of an impact the cuddle cots are making on other families in their suffering. It truly meant the world to hear, knowing that this donation is still positively impacting bereaved families and will continue to years down the road.

Since then, I’ve received a few messages directly from people who benefited from those exact Cuddle Cots, thanking us for the donation which allowed them more time with their babies, and sharing that Maddox changed their lives.

Brody and I’ve decided that this is truly the best gift anyone could ever give us this time of year as we approach Maddox’s birthday, another year without our son here earthside. Helping other families, in honor of our son, blesses us in ways we can’t quite put into words --

For Maddox’s fourth birthday, we’d like to donate another Cuddle Cot (a special bassinet designed specifically for stillborn babies) to another hospital in need, in hopes that more families will have what we were not given — more time to rest, process, and grieve, more time to love on and make memories with their babies.

If you’d like to read more about what a Cuddle Cot is and why it’s so essential for grieving families, here’s the link to the website: https://flexmort.com/cuddle-cots/

We’d like to give others the opportunity to contribute towards this gift in honor of Maddox. If you'd like to donate towards this goal, I’ve created a GoFundMe or you can Venmo me directly at @madisonryleesorensen.

Our sweet boy has already left such an impact on others, and we know his legacy will just continue to help so many - specifically other bereaved families and their families.

While our hearts break imagining another birthday without him in our arms, we look forward to blessing more families in honor of our sweet son, Maddox Lee. We hope you can join us