A heartbreaking choice (Hollie’s Story)

I would like to introduce Hollie Gilmore-Lindroth. This lovely lady and I went to high school together. We lost contact for a while after school ended until a couple of years ago when our eldest children were in the same class.

In the years we were disconnected, she was placed in a horrible scenario. She has kindly agreed to share her story. It is written in two parts. The first was written a week after she lost her daughter, Angelina, and Hollie shared this part on the bubhub.com website. The second part was written seven and half years later.

It’s not a nice story. The loss of a child never is. But we wanted to share so that the story can be seen by those going through a similar situation, and hopefully it can help them.

Bella 🙂

PART ONE:

Hi. I’m Hollie and I am going to share my story with you about my 3 children, particularly my 2nd little Girl Angelina May, born and died 7th September 2005.

It all began on the 16th of April 2005.
A new life began that night and was unknown to me for 2 weeks. My husband and I were overjoyed but a little bit afraid of how the pressure would affect me, as we had a 7 month old at the time( my daughter Casey, now 15 months). With me only just turning 20, I was and still am very young.

With the pregnancy came depression and all-day morning sickness. As we were in a bit of a financial hole we couldn’t afford to have the 12 week ultrasound and only opted to have the 20 week one. My belly grew big very fast and a lot of people joked that I was having twins(and secretly I thought I was too).

Then came the 20 week ultrasound, I was 19 weeks and 1 day. I was all excited sitting in the chair holding onto my hubby’s hand when they delivered the news….my baby had a severe case of spina bifida. I bawled and wondered why this had happened to us and what we could do for this baby.

We were rushed to Perth for extensive tests with the head of radiology for Western Australia. She told us that we had a baby girl but she will never be able to walk, go to the toilet by herself and possibly never have kids. That wasn’t even the half of it, we could probably handle the physical side of things (just). They said the fluid on the brain was borderline severe and was most likely to get worse, resulting in them having to drain the fluid before she was born which 90% results in death. Plus they couldn’t see the formation of the hemispheres of the brain through the fluid.

We were told we had to make a decision in less than a week. Being Christians, we didn’t want to take this life away, but we thought what sort of life would she have here?? We have a chance to take her future pain away and we would see her when we return to Heaven.

With much pain and emotion we decided to let her go and she was born on the 7th of September 2005 and surprised us and the doctors by surviving for 1 hour and 40 minutes. What a blessing!!

Her due date is the 23rd of January 2006 and it really hurts to know that I will never get to see my baby girl, ANGELINA MAY, grow up, but we know she is safe and happy in God’s arms.

If you are reading this, and you are pregnant, or are trying for a baby, please, please, please take the folate, and have all the tests because everyone is at risk.
To all the parents who have children with disabilities: I really admire you and the strong personality you need to be a parent of a child with special needs. Please don’t be angry at us for choosing to let her go. She was and always will be our daughter and a part of our lives.

PART TWO (7.5yrs later):

So within a year I watched my mum give birth to my baby sister late Nov 2005 (yes, we were pregnant at the same time). This was really hard but I was so thankful to be involved and my sister and I now have a very close connection.

Shortly after my sisters birth I went downhill, and ended up at the hospital for a few weeks and diagnosed me with Severe Post Natal Depression, Anxiety and Post Traumatic Stress. Needless to say my marriage started to falter and we separated not even a year after we lost our little girl. It was extremely hard on both of us as a young relationship, with a little girl to look after, whilst grieving for another took its toll.

My oldest daughter and I moved back down the South West of Australia to my hometown , so I could start fresh and get my life back on track. After a few years I met a man who I thought was amazing and be “The One” and we decided to get married, and he knew the hoops I needed to jump through to have a healthy baby and all of my emotions that will come with trying, conceiving and carrying another child after Angelina.

5 years after Angelina was born, I fell pregnant. Only 8 weeks into the pregnancy and a few months away from our wedding, he decided he did not want to be a husband or father, and left. We were heartbroken and the pregnancy that followed was horrific. I found out early that I had carried twins, sadly one died in the first few weeks.

After numerous scans and all the meds I needed to take to prevent Spina Bifida or a Neural Tube Defect, a specialised scan in Perth with the same Head of Radiology that scanned Angelina, performed the “Big Scan” at 16 weeks that told me I was having a healthy baby girl.

At 24 weeks I ended up getting severe Braxton Hicks contractions which rolled into early labour. It was stopped but happened again at 30 weeks and 35 weeks.

I was so scared but delivered my healthy baby girl into the world in April 2011.

There isn’t a day I don’t think about Angelina and when people ask “How many kids do you have?” I generally always reply “Three. Two here and one waiting for us in heaven.” If I didn’t have that hope that I will see her again, it would destroy me.

So far I have had a few scares with my oldest girl, now 8.5 years old and my youngest girl 2 years. But that’s another story…

 Hollie:)

65 Roses Day, 2012

25th May, 2012

It’s approaching that time of year again.

65 Roses Day will be on the 25th May, 2012. This year, we are aiming for bigger and better!’

Last year’s efforts raised around $1,100. This year I am aiming for around $2,000-$2,500.

We are going to hold a barbecue at Woolworths (ok, once I actually book it, that is!) which hopefully go better than our previous effort of a sausage sizzle. Thank goodness we had the raffle running as well, as that is where 95% of our donations came in! Woolworths have said that they will set everything up for us at no cost (including gloves and hairnets) then sell all the produce to us at cost price.

We are going to hold the raffle again, with many donations already lined up. I am hoping to have given businesses a lot more notice this year, hopefully more local businesses will be able to donate. So we should be able to make that bigger and better as well.

I will keep you updated with our organising process. But for now, you can already help out. I have started a webpage where you can donate online. Every penny will help a CF family living with the disease. Follow this link to donate:

http://www.everydayhero.com.au/belinda_giovanazzi

 

Please dig deep!

Bella xx 🙂

City to Surf fun run

Sorry you all haven’t heard much from me the last couple of weeks. Work has been very busy lately, my husband injured his foot and the kids have been sick.

65 Roses Day is over for this year, and it went relatively well…but I will explain how our day went later.

This post is to advertise another Cystic Fibrosis fundraiser.

 During our own fundraising appeal, I met a few people from the local CF community. One lady has a 23 year-old son who has CF. Amazingly, he has never been hospitalised! Well done to all their hard efforts to keep him so healthy! It’s really encouraging to hear that.

Anyway… this lady’s daughter, Sasha, is doing the Chevron City to Surf run to raise money and awareness in honour of her brother. Donate online here to help her cause.  She has recently increased her goal from $1000 to $2000….surely everyone can help out a little?

Good luck Sasha!! Have fun and we are all cheering you on!!

Bella 🙂

Fundraising and awareness

One aspect of being a CF parent that I have noticed is very common, and I can completely agree with, is that for the first twelve months or so, you aren’t interested in anyone else but your own little family.

Being members of CFWA, they give you the opportunity to get in contact with other CF families. As it turned out, we actually knew someone whose son has cystic fibrosis, and is only about a year or two older than our son. We always knew that he was sick, but we didn’t know until after our own diagnosis that it was because of CF. So having someone there who understood has been great.

But in those first twelve months, I think the shock (and I guess, trauma) is still raw, and you honestly don’t feel like meeting anyone else. You are so tied up in your own little world.

Once that period is over, you have routines in place, you are confident with what you have to do and deal with. Now, I am one of those people who want to raise awareness of life with cystic fibrosis.

27th May is 65 Roses Day, named after the story where a child couldn’t pronounce the name of the disease.It is the day where we raise money for CFA and awareness of cystic fibrosis. There is a song called “65 Roses” by the Wolverines (I hadn’t heard of it until my son’s diagnosis…actually, I still havent listened to it, but all the older members of the family knew of it.) I will put the lyrics to the song at the end of this post.

This is the first year that my family and I are going to get involved. I have always wanted to do something, but never really knew what to do.

As my parents own a retail store, they are throwing a big barbeque out the front on the day. I am approaching local businesses to see if they can donate produce or services that can be used in a raffle, and I am going to approach some florists to see if they will donate some roses for us to sell. The paper is going to run a story about our son, and advertise the fundraising we are trying to do.

So, if you are in Albany on the 27th May, 2011, head down to Western Workwear and Safety, on Chesterpass Road, join in on the fun, grab a bargain, and help us to raise money toward families dealing with cystic fibrosis

“65 Roses” by the Wolverines

When I was just a small child, my mum and daddy came to me,
They sat me down and told me of the flowers my sister received.
Sixty-five roses with yellow and red,
Made her so tired she had to stay in bed.
I just couldn’t believe the flowers my sister received,
Made it so hard for her to breathe.
Why did she have sixty-five roses?
Must be her birthday today.
She must have been good to get sixty-five roses,
What can’t she come out play?

Sixty-five roses, with yellow and red,
Made her so tired she had to stay in bed.
I looked all around, but I couldn’t find,
The sixty-five roses were all in my mind.
I’ve thrown up and I see that,
The only one thinking of roses was me.
And the reason that the sixty-five roses came,
Was because I was too young to understand the name.

Sixty-five roses, cystic fibrosis,
Made her so tired, she had to stay in bed.
Sixty-five roses, cystic fibrosis,
I wish she had roses instead.
Sixty-five roses, cystic fibrosis,
I wish that she could come out to play.
Life, one supposes, is no bed of roses,
I wish she had roses instead.

Wish she had roses instead,
(Sixty-five roses, sixty-five roses,
Sixty-five roses, sixty-five roses).
Wish she had roses instead,
(Sixty-five roses, sixty-five roses,
Sixty-five roses, sixty-five roses).
Wish she had roses instead,
(Sixty-five roses, sixty-five roses,
Sixty-five roses, sixty-five roses).