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Arizona premies who survived are now thriving, helping others

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Published  June 6, 2024 8:09am MST
Community Cares
FOX 10 Phoenix

Helping families heal l Community Cares

In an average week in Arizona, 148 babies are born preterm, according to the March of Dimes. A group of premies in the Valley, who not only survived, are thriving, and helping others heal. FOX 10's Anita Roman reports.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - The tasks assigned to these young students are not easy, but they are, unfortunately, necessary.

"I'm thinking about how this is the littlest we can do," said Karis Wales. "I couldn't even imagine what these mothers are thinking about, what a difficult experience it is for them, and to think I can't do much, but I can do this, it's anyway I can help. If I can take one hour from my time to make one of these dresses, it can help a mother through something unfathomably difficult.

Wales and other members of Knots for NICU saw burial gowns for premature babies who weren't as fortunate as they were.

"I met another pair of twins, same age as me, three days apart – we're both twins. We're both premies in the same NICU. Same time," she said.

Karis and her brother, Chase, were born at Banner Desert. They weighed 3 and a half pounds each

"So one day I walked in and I saw my preemie twins. One of them had a hat on that somebody, a volunteer somewhere, crocheted for him. It was the first time they could wear something normal, and it brought a sense of normalcy to that pregnancy and that delivery of those babies. That was the first normal thing that happened, was a hat, and I cherish it," Stacey Wales said.

All these years later, Stacey Wales still tears up over the memories. The emotion is just as raw now as it was then, as she helps her twins give back to mothers in a situation she understands all too well.

"We crochet hats and headbands. At the start, it was just those, and then we moved to blankets, and this year is when we started doing burial gowns," said Karis.

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The burial gowns are made from donated wedding gowns.

"I wanted to do something to make a difference and something that was close to my heart, which is to donate my dress to HonorHealth Scottsdale Shea because that's where my son was born," Mitzie Warner said. "Life could have taken a different direction because he was born so early. Doctors didn't know if he would live."

Mitzie Warner donated the dress she wore to walk down the aisle 17 years ago. That's because her son, Dylan, weighed 1 pound and 8 ounces at birth. He's 10 now and thriving. Warner really knows how lucky her family is.

"In the case of Mitzie's dress, [it] had so much beading. We would now incorporate the beading that's leftover from her dress into another gown that might come in that might not have adornment on it, use material from another gown and the beading from Mitzie's gown and join them together to continue to get out as many burial gowns as we can from both sources," Stacey Wales said.

It takes eight hours to sew a gown and a blanket to wrap the baby in. Since February, Knots for NICU has made 13 gowns. Seven gowns were donated to St. Joseph's Hospital in downtown Phoenix. Five gowns went to HonorHealth Scottsdale Shea.

"It's a huge relief for the hospitals to be able to go into their inventory. If they are fortunate to have one and bring out some options or any option or one option to present to the grieving parents and for those grieving parents to just have the relief of OK, that's a detail I don't have to worry about right now," Stacey Wales said.

knots for nicu

A group of premies in the Valley, who not only survived, are thriving, and helping others heal.

"I think it's just a beautiful process because these nurses have been searching for things. These moms have been searching for things and to just know that I can just hand it to them. I can solve something. I can solve one issue for these beautiful nurses and these beautiful mothers who are going through something so hard. It's really amazing," said Karis.

It's a heavy topic for teens to deal with, but letters of gratitude from grieving mothers offer them the strength they need to cope. The inspiration to keep sewing.

"It's not just a gift. It's not just something from Michaels. It's a real wedding dress. It has meaning behind it. It's not just a dress. It's a woman [who] walked down the aisle in this dress. It's memorable,"said Karis.