Full Circle Associates

Liza Cooper, a March of Dimes neonatal intensive care support angel (I started to say "professional" and it was not the right word) has gone to Louisiana to try and offer direct support to families with babies in the NICUs, pregnant women in shelters at risk for preterm birth and families torn from their babies. She started blogging last night. You have to read this - I'm quoting wide swaths, but check it out. Subscribe. Stories of compassion fuel us. MARCH OF DIMES SUPPORTING NEW ORLEANS NICU FAMILIES

"I have been in Baton Rouge for several days now and am trying very hard to make a difference. There is much work to do, many thousands of folks here, and a great deal of losses to contend with. The grief here is very layered, and includes the loss of the perfect birth experience, sometimes the loss of a child, the loss of family, friends, and the loss of all that makes up a person's concept of 'home'.

Working closely with the dedicated staff of the March of Dimes Baton Rouge Chapter - Capi! - and our brand new March of Dimes NICU Family Support Specialist, Ingrid, to bring comfort, supplies, necessities and a caring voice to families affected by Hurricane Katrina. I have worked as a NICU Social Worker providing Parent Care Kit materials to families in the NICU, telephoning multitudes of parents who are displaced and separated from their precious newborns in the NICU by tremendous distance and economic obstacles. As you can all imagine this is incredibly difficult for parents and we will be trying to alleviate some of the distress this causes by emailing/providing beautiful photographic keepsakes to families who are too far away to be able to sit with and hold their babies. The hospital we are working with, Woman's in Baton Rouge, is offering money to help fund trips to BR to runite families with their infants in the NICU.

Today we brought bags and bags of donated maternity clothes, children's and baby clothes, diapers and other necessities to shelters around Baton Rouge. We were shocked to find beautiful, comfortable, resourced small shelters in churches that had very few residents staying there. Caring, enthusiastic staff desperately want referrals. Instead we found the largest shelter in Baton Rouge with almost 6000 people, teeming with soldiers for security purposes, crowding, children everywhere, sleeping side by side in cots.

It is there that we linked up with some of the prenatal doctors providing healthcare services to the pregnant women here. As you can imagine, we are deeply concerned about the pregnant women here, with multiple risk factors, and under terrible stress and difficult conditions and circumstances. We know they are at high risk for pre-term labor and would like to get them educational infomation, comfortable, clean and new maternity clothes (donated generously by Motherhood Maternity!), caring support, and hopefully facilitation of referral to more nurturing, small and gentle shelters. This will be how we will spend much of our day tomorrow, in addition to time in the NICU and contact with displaced NICU families.

Tonight we returned to the NICU, where we gave families beautiful photographic keepsakes of their newborns. Its a busy time, and it would be easy to devote oneself to this process. A physician told me today that the children in the shelter are so bored and could use volunteers who spend time with them. Guess where Liza will be tomorrow? Definitely spending some time with the kids too, because to me that would just be a treasured experience and the kids are everywhere.

SHARE Care Kits have started to come in to the chapter and we are going to be giving those out too. Thank you for your gracious care. It is so appreciated by us, but will be appreciated by the New Orleans families no end. You are a wonderful 'health care team'.

Its an unbelievable circumstance here in Louisiana (and in Mississippi), and it is strange that the sun still comes out into a perfect blue sky. Flowers and trees are abundant in Baton Rouge and in some moments it is truly hard to believe the tremendous tragedy, sorrow and suffering that happened and is still unfolding only an hour from here.

Life can bring such sadness and injustice, but one thing that gives all of us helping, and all of the families affected, is these bright spots of sunshine - these little babies, tender, sweet, small, sick, or well - bringing to all of us an incredible amount of hope. "

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