“Brave the Storm For Sisi" (BTS4Sisi)
“Brave the Storm For Sisi" (BTS4Sisi) was launched on October 15, 2020 to commemorate Pregnancy and Infant Loss (PAIL) Remembrance Day. The story behind the campaign is that one of my best friend's 5 year old daughter, Eisley started a campaign in the spring of 2020 called "Brave the Storm'' (BTS) in light of COVID-19. She designed BTS silicone bracelets so she could make everyone smile and to remind everyone an important message that we are all in this together. The proceeds from the bracelets were donated to the 'First Responder Fund'. In the summer of 2020 after Sienna was born, BTS took on a new meaning for us. We proudly wore our BTS bracelets feeling comforted and united by the message, despite our immeasurable grief and heartache. Sienna has had an incredible impact on us and showing us just what it means to fight a little harder and appreciate the limited time we have as tomorrow is never promised.
Amidst our painful journey, we needed to change our mindset and shift our focus on creating beautiful memories of Sienna with the tremendous help of the NICU nurses and Paediatric Advanced Care Team (PACT) at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids). PACT gave us a beautiful dress for Sienna's baptism. The dress was made from a wedding gown donation. They had musical therapists play songs for Sisi daily by her bedside. Sisi loved music and her eyes would just light up. One day Hannah, an incredibly talented musical therapist, asked Ed and I what we would like to tell Sisi and she wrote it down. She then turned our words into lyrics and created this beautiful song with her heartbeat. PACT arranged a professional photographer to provide a complimentary gift of remembrance portraits to help with our healing. PACT also helped us in creating Sisi's hand and foot mold for keepsake memories. PACT has been instrumental in our journey through their guidance, support and legacy work.
In honour of my daughter Sienna and to continue to keep her legacy alive, we launched "Brave The Storm for Sisi" t-shirts and proceeds were donated to PACT at SickKids to help other families with their healing by creating lasting memories and legacy moments during their most difficult times. This was our way of thanking them and remembering our cherished Sienna Grace.
On BOS Awareness Day 2021, our family and friends who supported us proudly wore their BTS4Sisi t-shirts and help spread awareness about BOS on social media which generated a lot of interests/requests to order more t-shirts. We communicated that all proceeds from this batch will be donated to BOS Foundation. We were able to raise $255 CAD! We are blown away by everyone's love and support.