No Foot Too Small: Celebrating Peyton and Patrick

Good afternoon Iowa City moms!

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Robin Boudreau…and I too am an Iowa City Mom.  In addition to being a medical sales rep for Medtronic and a hobby photographer, I am also the founder of No Foot Too Small.  My husband Ryan and I are the parents of 2 beautiful children, Bella + Ben…and one angel.  It is to honor our angel Beau, that we founded No Foot Too Small in 2014.

nfts robinAs Ryan and I continue to share our journey, we are hopeful that others who have walked a similar path (or may do so in the future), find peace, strength, and encouragement.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with our story, you can find it here:  http://livetoindulge.com/2013/01/12/our-sweet-beau-boudreau/

As some of you may remember, over the last two years, we’ve hosted two annual No Foot Too Small Benefits.  In our 2014 inaugural year, we celebrated 15 babies that lost their lives far too soon…a majority of those babies were YOURS.  In 2015, we honored another 8 angels.  And this year, we are already preparing to celebrate 12 more.  What a bittersweet blessing to be joining with families across the Corridor to draw awareness to infant loss while celebrating angels.  In each event, we’ve shared Beau’s story, recognized a Feature Family, held a silent auction, enjoyed live music, and came together as a special community – a community of families who’ve experienced an unimaginable loss.  The loss of a pregnancy, infant, child.  In 2 years, we’d raised over $40,000 – all of which was donated to the March of Dimes.

We are proud to announce that we are hosting our 3rd Annual No Foot Too Small Benefit on September 9th on the rooftop of hotelVetro in downtown Iowa City, IA.   This year, we will be honoring a very special No Foot Too Small Feature Family.  We are honored to have chosen Brett + Katie Stedman from Cedar Falls to share their journey – Peyton + Patrick’s story.  Katie has written her story below for all of you to read.  Sadly, I imagine some of you have shared a similar experience.  It is my hope that sharing these stories brings healing and allows for a bond among mom’s who’ve been there.  Please, take a moment to read about Peyton + Patrick.  They are two very precious angels!

Brett & Katie Stedman

Celebrating Peyton + Patrick

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 Our Story…Our Love.
Brett and I have known each other since we were young children. We had always considered ourselves great family friends. My freshman year in college we extended our relationship further than “great family friends”; we fell in love. We fell in love hard and fast! I knew from my second date with Brett that he was the man that I was going to marry! After four years, a lot of college classes, Iowa sporting events, beers, trips, and laughs – we did just that! Naturally first comes love, then comes marriage, next comes the baby in the baby carriage. Brett and I could not wait for this chapter in our lives.

 

Peyton Rose

Coming from a large family of five siblings, I always knew that was exactly what I wanted to do, have a lot of babies. When you’re ready to have a baby, you’re ready. It is the most intense impatience of all of life’s impatient moments. No one expects to be “that person” that struggles with infertility. When we found ourselves unable to naturally get pregnant it was heart breaking. After over a year of trying to conceive, several medications, and lots of tests we were ecstatic when we saw the little plus sign on the pregnancy test! I will never forget that morning at about 6:30 am when we had a positive result. Instantly the tears of joy flowed down both of our cheeks! I was finally going to be a member of the mommy club!!! I cruised right through the first trimester with not one single bump in the road. My sister was also pregnant at this time, so it was fun to be pregnant together. At 20 weeks we had our ultrasound to find a healthy and perfect baby in there! We did not find out the sex of our baby, we wanted to wait for the big surprise in December when this little miracle was due. When I was 22 weeks pregnant we went to bed like any other night. Nothing out of the ordinary. I awoke in the middle of the night to use the restroom, per usual for a pregnant momma with a baby sitting on her bladder, to find blood everywhere. Instant panic. I am a labor and delivery nurse and with my knowledge base I knew this was bad. Very bad. We rushed into the hospital to find that I was dilated and was in very, very, early and detrimental labor. Babies are not considered viable until 24 weeks, however some hospitals will deliver babies as early as 21 weeks gestation. I remember sitting in the triage room and hearing the doctor say there’s nothing she could do. I thought how could this be? I am listening to my baby’s perfect heartbeat!!?? How can there be nothing we can do?! We transferred to the UIHC in hopes of bedrest and to buy our baby more time in-utero, but ultimately delivered at 22 6/7 weeks gestation.

On August 13, 2012, our first child, a baby girl, Peyton Rose, was born into heaven.   The devastation our heart’s felt upon leaving the hospital empty handed, to a childless home in the days and months following Peyton’s birth was indescribable. Everyone wants to be there for you, but truthfully there is only a small fraction of people who know how you are feeling. Only a very small fraction of people experience this devastating event of losing a child. I remember reading a quote once, “When a woman loses her husband, she is called a widow. When a man loses his wife, he is called a widower. When a child loses their parents, they are called an orphan. There is no word for a parent that loses a child.” It is so true. The feelings of despair are so sad, so hurtful, so dark, so low that it is very hard to find the words to describe it.

Miscarriage
Eventually our hearts healed and we felt we were ready to conceive again. About 8 months later WE did just that! I was pregnant!!! Overjoyed and excited to have another healthy baby we couldn’t contain our excitement. Our happiness came crashing down on us a few weeks later when I started having some spotting at work and ultimately had a miscarriage. On Mother’s Day. I questioned God so hard in the days and weeks to come. Was I not meant to be a Mother? This seemed like a pretty blatant and harsh sign that this was not meant to be. I mean, another unsuccessful pregnancy thrown upon us, and the timing of Mother’s Day seemed to speak volumes from the man upstairs. My faith suffered but my marriage did not. When I wanted to quit, be mad, feel bitter, Brett simply would not let me. Brett would not let me give up hope.  He always remained so hopeful and sure of our future and plans for our family.  It’s true, when you’re in this dark place it appears as everyone is easily pregnant, having flawless, quick, and easy pregnancies. Why was this not the case for me!!?? Why couldn’t it for once be my turn?? I deserve this!! I am married, insured, attend church every Sunday, have a lot of love in my heart to give a baby. I struggled with these thoughts taking over my mind constantly. It is so hard to understand God’s plan. It is so hard to let go of control. A baby is the one thing in life that you cannot just have. No amount of money or hard work or effort can just get you one. It’s all in God hands.

William Russell
I took one month off of “trying” after our miscarriage to clear my mind and heart. Have fun, take a trip, get a martini with the girls, forget about all the scheduling and planning that takes all the “fun” away from trying to have a baby. After a month off, we half-heartedly tried and to my surprise….boom, another positive on the pregnancy test! YES! We were pregnant!! Although we were both jumping for joy on the inside, my heart remained VERY guarded. I did not want to talk about the pregnancy, it was hard for me to announce to people that we were expecting for fear of losing yet another baby.  I didn’t want to buy or receive any gifts for the baby until I knew he/she was alright in there.  Brett told me he didn’t download the week by week pregnancy app on his phone because he didn’t want to jinx us. For our previous pregnancies he would get so excited learning how big the baby was growing and what he was doing on the inside. All the simplicity and innocence of a happy pregnancy was stolen from us as we white knuckled week by week through our pregnancy. We made it through our first trimester and I thought my heart would feel at ease, but it wasn’t. My next goal was 24 weeks, when a baby is considered “viable”. We blew past that milestone and my heart still was in a state of unrest. We made it to our next milestones of 28 weeks, then again at 32 weeks.  At 34 weeks we were lying in bed and my eyes welled up with tears as I turned to Brett and said, “Do you think this is going to really happen for us?” He replied, “Is what going to happen for us?” I said, “You think we are really going to have a baby?” He looked puzzled, “Yes, Katie!!! Any week, any day now, we WILL have a baby! I promise you!” I always believed there come a moment when I would be able to relax. A milestone I would meet that I could stop holding my breath and just enjoy being pregnant. I realized then, that that moment would not come until I was physically holding my crying, breathing, healthy baby in my arms. This moment came for us on February 23, 2014.

FullSizeRender (10)My miracle, my sweet, sweet son William Russell was here and healthy! The whole world felt like it made sense again. THIS baby was handpicked for us.  Had I not experienced the struggles I would not be able to experience the joys of life with my little Wil. As hard as it is to look at the situation we went through I found comfort in knowing that this baby had a beautiful guardian angel in heaven and one huge cheering section to watch over us. We always joked when we decided on his name, William- ‘Where there’s a WIL there’s a way’! Finally I felt as if I was a true member of “the mommy club”.  My life was complete.

Patrick David

When Wil was about 16 months old, we started thinking about promoting him to Big Brother. Knowing the past struggles we had with conceiving we decided to give it a go. BAM! First month, we’re pregnant! Here we go. It started as another flawless pregnancy, we sailed right through the first few weeks. We had multiple ultrasounds and everything looked great. At 18 weeks we went in for our anatomy scan. We could not wait to find out girl or boy. That morning I woke up and felt a little nervous, it was Friday the 13th of November. While I was secretly hoping for a girl and anxious to find out what we were having, all of a sudden it hit me like a ton of bricks. I don’t care WHAT we are having as long as we have a HEALTHY baby. We went in for our ultrasound, meanwhile my mom was busy at home preparing the food and decorations for our gender reveal party to be held later that night. As the ultrasound tech scanned my pregnant belly, I was very hyper sensitive and in tuned to all of the non-verbal communication and vibes I was feeling in the room. I asked her several times, “Is everything alright? Does the baby look ok?” She flatly responded with, “We’re seeing everything we need to see.” Ultrasound techs are not allowed to diagnose or tell you any of the readings of the ultrasound. My excitement instantly turned into panic as I had a pit in my stomach that everything, indeed, was not alright. It seemed like hours as we waited for the doctor to come into the room, praying she would tell us everything was ok. When the doctor came into the room holding our charts with three ultrasound pictures and a look of devastation on her face I instantly knew something was wrong. The next hours we would learn how severely fragile our baby’s life was. Being a nurse, I have heard of neural tube defects but my knowledge base was very small. No one ever thinks that their perfect child they conceived would ever be affected by such horrible and devastating things.

November 17, 2015 our son, Patrick David was born into heaven. I could not wrap my head around this. Why me again, God? What is your plan for me????? In the weeks and months following Patrick’s birth, it was as if God came down and wrapped me in his arms.  My relationship with God felt as strong as it ever had. This, I believe is what has carried me through.

Hope Unswervingly

Today we remain hopeful that our parenthood journey is not over…that this chapter is not yet complete…that one day we will be in the delivery room holding a crying, breathing, healthy baby. Although we have had many hardships and experienced the worst things life has to offer, we have also experienced the best life has, with our William. We are living life with our rambunctious toddler who makes us laugh every day. Our lives are forever changed by our sweet children, Peyton, William, and Patrick. There is indeed No Foot Too Small That It Cannot Leave an Imprint on This World. Our lives have been forever imprinted by all of our babies.

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Sara
Sara and her husband Matt (sweethearts since they were just 16) got married in 2007, and since then have welcomed four beautiful children (Sam in 2008, Cooper in 2010, Nora in 2012, and Adam James in December 2015). A born-and-raised Iowan, Sara received both her Bachelor's and Master's Degrees (in Spanish Literature) from the University of Iowa. She's still teaching Spanish wherever and whenever she can, but her true passion is owning Iowa City Moms and building this community alongside her amazing team. Sara is also the Community Engagement Coordinator for City Mom Collective, and the owner of Cowork Collective downtown Iowa City. Common denominator in all of these jobs: community, community, community.

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