Giving Hope to Kids!
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Mae Josephine Best was born and died on December 28, 2016. It has been a hard year of mourning and grief. I will be running the Queen Bee Half Marathon in Cincinnati, Ohio in memory and celebration of our daughter. I’ll also be raising money for the StarShine Perinatal Hospice program at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.
The Queen Bee race is on October 7th, exactly one year from when we learned that the little girl I was pregnant with had many serious and likely fatal birth defects. My maternal fetal medicine doctor referred us to the Cincinnati Fetal Center to find out exactly what we were dealing with. The next week I received lots of additional testing and met with a pediatric surgeon, a Maternal Fetal Medicine doctor and a Neonatologist. They confirmed all of her birth defects and told us that our little girl would either be stillborn or die shortly after birth.
That week started what has been the hardest year of our lives. Through it all StarShine Hospice and their amazing caregivers have been by our side to help create memories and support us. From the beginning we met regularly at our home with the chaplain, social worker, and child life specialist. They listened to our hopes and fears and helped us create a plan for our time with our daughter during her short life. The child life specialist helped Griffin create items that will help us share Mae with him when he is older. A music therapist came to home; recorded Mae's heart beat, and made beautiful song with her heart beat in back ground. They gave us a gift basket that included a small stuffed lamb for Mae to give Griffin. It was the first stuffed animal that Griffin liked and he sleeps with it every night. They encouraged us to have Griffin come to the hospital and meet Mae, to take pictures and enjoy the time we had together as a family. These wonderful memories are what we think of when we think of Mae and many of them wouldn't have been possible without the help, support, and guidance from our StarShine team. Since Mae has died I have continued to meet with the StarShine bereavement coordinator to help process all that we have been through. I’ll never be able to put into words how much we have benefitted from this wonderful program.
Our time with Mae was as perfect as it could be and we owe all of that to our fantastic medical team and StarShine Hospice. We feel very fortunate we had the option of hospice and would like to help support the Perinatal StarShine Hospice program at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. They have given so much to us and now we would like to pay it forward in memory of our Mae Josephine, so that those that who are going through something similar can receive the great care that we did. Just like this last hard year of our lives, we can't do it alone; we need the help of our friends and family. Your donation will go towards operational costs, memory making supplies, bereavement care, bereavement camp for families, funeral assistance and support, and physician visits. My goal is to raise $1,000 for the Perinatal StarShine Hospice program to help others in similar situations!! Anything that you give will be greatly appreciated!!
9/8/19 UPDATE: We raised $1000 in less than 24 hours!! That's amazing! We are so grateful to those who have donated! We have a new goal of $2000!
Thank you for reading our story and helping us create a legacy for Mae!
-Deanna & Justin Best
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