Angel babies

CASSELLA - Two local women and a network of volunteers are turning formal dresses into gowns, blankets and other supplies for families who have lost children to miscarriages, stillbirths or fatal diagnoses.

Angel Baby Creations has donated between 60 and 80 packages with supplies for child loss to five area hospitals, including IU Health Jay Hospital in Portland, Indiana; Mercer County Community Hospital in Coldwater; Joint Township District Memorial Hospital in St. Marys; Wayne Healthcare Hospital in Greenville; and Wilson Memorial Hospital in Sidney.

The nonprofit group creates packages for just about every child, from fetus to full-term, to accommodate as many families as possible. Pointing out different packages stacked on her kitchen table, co-organizer Joan Alexander noted the different supplies that go into the packages, such as hats, booties and gowns, are all unique and lovingly handmade by the organization's volunteers.

In this way, Alexander, her partner Kerri Schlater and all others involved in Angel Baby Creations hope to give families the opportunity to properly mourn and remember in a special, personalized way the children they've lost. More importantly, they also want family members to know that even in their darkest hour, they are not alone.

Both Alexander and Schlater have experienced losses, and both had wanted something that would feel more special than a mass-produced outfit in which to bury their loved ones.

Schlater had been given a terminal diagnosis for her daughter Gracelyn while she was 12 weeks pregnant. Though given the option to abort, Schlater and her husband decided to continue the pregnancy. God had given them Gracelyn for a reason, Schlater said, and if they had ended the pregnancy, they would never have known that reason.

Gracelyn was born after a full-term pregnancy and spent the first two months of her life at home with her family before passing away. When it was time to say goodbye, Schlater didn't want to bury Gracelyn in something that could be found at any local store - she didn't want to see someone else's child wearing something in which she had just buried hers.

She managed to find a gown for her daughter, but she thought other families going through child loss deserved special gowns as well. She had been discussing the idea with an acquaintance when she was told about Alexander, a woman from Cassella with a similar idea.

Alexander had lost two grandsons, Landon and Jack. She'd lost one in 2005 after the family had received a fatal diagnosis. The boy was born prematurely at 7 months, took two breaths and died. In 2015, another grandson died after 6 months in utero, and when the family was preparing to baptize the child and say their goodbyes, the hospital didn't have an outfit for him.

Eventually, nurses found a small outfit that worked, but the size wasn't entirely suitable.

"At that time it hit me: boy, it'd be nice to have outfits for anybody that lost (their children)," Alexander said.

Alexander learned about Schlater from an acquaintance. Only hours after having met each other, the two decided to form Angel Baby Creations.

Now after roughly a year in operation, the group has 63 volunteers who help create packages full of supplies for families who have lost a young child, and they design individual gowns for the babies to wear.

Alexander and Schlater accept donated wedding, bridesmaid and prom dresses of any color and clean them. From there, "rippers" take the dresses apart, removing parts such as lace and buttons and separating them for later use. Alexander gets back the materials and sends them to cutters, who cut patterns out of the dress material and work closely with seamstresses and designers to create the gowns.

Every package has two hats, one crocheted and one sewn; a unique gown; a blanket; a heart-shaped ornament, made by someone who had a miscarriage; and a rose, made by a woman who'd lost a full-term baby she'd named Rose.

"We find a lot of people that make these had losses themselves and this is also a way for them to heal, because back then they were told to get over it. It's not a big deal. Move on," Schlater said.

When people first get pregnant, they don't realize everything that can happen, she said. Whenever there's a loss, families can feel very isolated at first because people don't usually talk about the subject. But when word gets out that someone has lost a child, people can start coming out of the woodwork to reveal that they have also experienced the loss of a child.

"We kind of want to break that stigma of 'let's not talk about it.' Nobody's helping each other out if they're keeping quiet about it," Schlater said.

Along with the packages they send out, the organization has been able to donate two Cuddle Cots to Community Hospital and Wilson Memorial. The $3,000 device wraps around a deceased baby and cools the body, giving parents more time to be with the baby and allowing other family members more time to make it to the hospital and meet the child and say goodbye.

After roughly a year in operation, Alexander said she's amazed at what the group has managed to accomplish, how much they've donated and how many families they've been able to help. Though she and Schlater helped set things into motion, it's the network of volunteers and donors who deserve credit for all Angel Baby Creations has been able to do, she said.

"Without all these other 63 people, we wouldn't have this. … Our experiences are what brought this about, but all the other people's what made it happen. Without all these volunteers and donations, it would have just been our grief."