Usually the mere mention of the words 'Service Project' has me heading for the hills. They were my original thoughts when the Relief Society Presidency told us as the Relief Society Activity Board Leaders that we had to come up with a Service Project idea that could be done in conjunction with another ward and then in the summer time the whole stake is going to get together and do some big thing. I had nothing. I missed the meeting where an idea had been discussed that was then later approved by the Stake Presidency.
When I heard that our service project was going to be for something called
Angel Babies, I was more than happy to help out. This was coming at a time when I was still thinking heavily about my miscarriage and I was very newly pregnant and was worried I was going to lose this baby too. (A fear I still have somedays). So, I knew this was a perfect project for me, if not everyone else.
One of my friends found out at her 18 week ultrasound that her baby had hydrocephalus. At 30 weeks "Holoprosencephaly (HPE) was diagnosed via MRI, along with Agenesis of the corpus callosum, absent septum pellucidum, and fused fornices." Her and her husband were told to prepare for the worst. The doctors weren't sure he'd make it to term, if he did they weren't sure he'd make it through labor. If he did somehow make it through delivery, they didn't know how long he'd be alive.
So my friend and her husband started preparing for the death of this child. In doing so she found Angel Babies and she was the one who recommended we use this group for our service project. Luckily for my friend her baby has survived and has defied all the odds and has met all of his milestones and I think he is 2 years older or closer to 3.
Anyway, so it was decided that Angel Babies was our group. We were able to find a pattern for the cutest little blankets and decided to do that. They would require lots of sewing and we as an activity board were praying we'd get lots of help since only a few actually knew what they were doing.
The night came and we had a great turnout and lots of ladies brought their sewing machines and their skill. The blanket instructions were difficult to understand, so we had one lady telling us how to do it. I really don't sew and relied on my good friend, Yvonne, to do all of the sewing while I pinned it all together. It worked out fairly nicely.
I will say I did sew a simple blanket. You know the kind where you stick the sides together, sew it and turn it right side out and complete the stitching? Super simple and I still didn't sew it all that great, so I hope whomever gets it doesn't look at it too closely.
In all we completed 37 blankets that night. It was amazing and I'm glad I was able to be a part of it.
