From Struggle to Connection

In the spring of 2019, I was blessed to get away at Meadow Lake Retreat. This weekend trip was organized for a local group of moms with extra special kiddos like mine.

If you’ve ever slept in a hospital room as a visitor and not the patient, I believe the couch pullouts are specifically designed so you don’t every get comfy. As a caregiver, this is tragic because we aren’t leaving our babies and will suffer through the terrible “beds” provided while also navigating the critical situation of our child’s illness.

Shortly after this retreat, I heard about how mothers of children with Cystic Fibrosis had “hacked” the sleeping situation at the hospital during lengthy stays. These mamas were bringing in air mattresses to place on top of the couch pullout so they could rest better at night. Genius!

A couple of months after I met these incredible moms at the retreat, one of them had a hospitalization with her daughter. I could not stop thinking about this air mattress hack and reached out to a friend to see if she wanted to split the cost of a personalized bed in a bag idea.

Since that first bag was gifted, our mama group has gifted 5 more bags each giving an exhausted mother a soft place to lay her worried head each night during the hospital stay.

This is a huge need and we are working to develop a 501c3 to help meet this need on a larger scale. The name of the bags play on the word belonging, as we are providing a bag that holds all of your belongings, but it is also a bag that helps create a sense of belonging in those who gift it and those who it is gifted to. Our prayer is that these bags will help friends and loved ones who always want to help when hospitalizations occur to have a concrete WAY to help that is also sorely (pun intended) needed by caregivers.