WESTLAKE, Ohio—The apostle Paul wrote, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Corinthians 1:3, 4).
For Mike and Jill MacGregor, Todd and Stacie Lindeman, and Grace Baptist Church, these are more than just words; they are the impetus for a ministry, Kisses from Heaven, for parents in local neonatal intensive care units.
In 2009 Mike and Jill MacGregor had a 2-year-old son and were expecting their second child, also a son, when Jill suffered a ruptured appendix, underwent surgery, and then had complications with her pregnancy. Collin was born at 25 weeks. The weeks leading up to his birth and during his stay in NICU were emotionally difficult, especially as Jill dealt with unwarranted feelings of guilt, separation from either son, and the uncertainty of it all.
Jill says, “I hated leaving Collin while I went home to my family. It was more emotion than I had ever dealt with before. While I knew the guilt was not justified, it was there. I tried to read everything I could on having a premature baby and I was constantly looking information up online.”
When Collin took a turn for the worse, Jill and Mike were no longer dealing with things that “normal preemie parents” deal with. Instead it was a whole new range of doctors and specialists. They stayed with Collin almost 24-7 and spent Christmas and New Year’s with him.
Then on Jan. 8, 2010, as Mike and Jill say, Collin met Jesus. “It was agonizing and heart-wrenching. We live each day missing Collin, but we are confident we will see him again,” they say.
NICU life was unlike anything Mike and Jill could have imagined. They share, “We never knew that you could feel so happy about your baby being born while feeling so scared to your utter core. Our faith in Christ was the single thing that was getting us through each day.”
After Collin’s passing, they knew they had to serve others who would find themselves in the NICU over holidays. In November 2011 they assembled care packages to take to 15 families. The next month they asked Grace Baptist for help. The church made the care packages its Christmas project and multiplied the MacGregors’ efforts.
Like the MacGregors, Todd and Stacie Lindeman have intimate knowledge of life in the NICU. In 2005 Stacie was 28 weeks pregnant with twins when her quickly developing HELLP syndrome and preeclampsia meant the babies needed to be born within 48 hours. The babies, a girl and a boy, were taken from Akron General Medical Center, where they had been delivered, to Akron Children’s Hospital’s NICU, where they would spend the next two months.
Stacie says, “I can recall seeing Nolan before he was transported and couldn’t even believe a baby could be so small. The emotions that we faced over those two months were like none we had ever experienced. We had prayed and had waited a very long time for these two little ones and couldn’t imagine the road we now faced.”
She continues, “As we navigated our path during those first few days, we came to learn so much about the NICU. We simply had no idea. It was as though we had entered an entire foreign world. We learned to ask questions, make phone calls, sit beside isolates for hours and hours, read monitors, to know which ‘beeps’ were serious and which were ‘typical.’ It was one of the most unbelievable roller-coaster rides of our life.”
The babies did survive, and five years later, Stacie was pregnant again—with triplets! She and Todd were assured that the chances of developing the same complications were less than 5 percent. As Stacie says, “It turned out we once again were destined to have the NICU as part of our lives.” On Aug. 5, 2010, the triplets, all boys, were born at 27 weeks.
“While we were fearful and anxious with the three of them being born so early, we were so relieved to be veterans of the NICU,” say Stacie and Todd. “It was amazing,” says Stacie, “that even after the passage of almost five years it was like coming home. The same loving, amazing staff knew us by name. There was a comfort we felt that we ‘knew’ what we were doing this time around, and I think one of the biggest impacts for us was the help we were able to give others.” The NICU staff often called on these “veterans” to reassure other parents. Even then, Stacie and Todd knew they wanted to do something to make a difference in the place that had done so much for their family.
Then on Nov. 30, 2010, their son Carter succumbed to SIDS. After his death, Todd and Stacie decided to honor him by helping other families in the NICU as they had been helped.
In 2012 Mike and Jill teamed up with Todd and Stacie to minister through Kisses from Heaven. Working together, they have seen their organization grow each year. They say that God has blessed their organization so that not only is Kisses from Heaven a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, but they are now able to deliver gift bags to NICU families multiple times per year.
Each gift bag costs approximately $50 and includes items such as gift cards for gas stations, food, and coffee; an inspirational music CD; a preemie-size outfit and hat; a journal and pen; a board book like Guess How Much I Love You or You Are My Miracle; snacks; bottled water; and Hershey’s Kisses. In the most recent delivery, Grace Baptist Church and Kisses from Heaven delivered 151 gift bags to families with babies in the NICU. Grace Baptist Church and Kisses from Heaven desire to give parents a moment of happiness and hope in the midst of so much anxiety and struggle. “It is our hope,” they say, “that parents understand there are people who care about them and are praying for them.”
