HeavenSentPenny

On March 23, 2014 3:38pm our lives changed forever. It is the minute I found our daughter not breathing on our bed. She was 9 weeks old.

When you have 3 kids you kind of feel like you are a veteran of the parenting thing. Up until that point we felt we had been through everything possible. So you take for granted all the "what if's" when you are 3 children deep.

We placed her on our bed not knowing she was stronger than we had expected a 9 week old to be. We had 2 kids worth of experience. She moved herself into a position that prevented her from breathing. It was 15 minutes between the time we left her and the time I found her.

I found her. 14 minutes too late. At 3:40pm I was screaming into the phone at the 911 dispatcher. 5 minutes later we were headed to the hospital. 6 days later she was removed from life support.

We never thought we'd be here.  Neither do the parents of the nearly 2,300 infants who lose their life annually.

We lost our daughter Penelope to an accidental suffocation. What used to be classified as a SIDS death is now SUID - Sudden Unexpected Infant Death.

SIDS/SUID is something that impacts so many families. But it's not a reality most people think about. We never really did. Until we lost our daughter.

We had a support system. A group of family and friends that helped us emotionally and financially after we lost Penny. Not everyone has that support. So in the days following her passing and her funeral services we decided we did not want this tragedy to define her life. We wanted to create a legacy beyond March 23, 2014. And that is when we decided to create HeavenSentPenny.

HeavenSentPenny is an organization with the mission to support families who have recently lost an infant.

We want to provide support in several ways. First, in the short term, we want to send care packages to families after they've experienced the loss. Second, we would like to send grieving families on healing trips.

In the aftermath of our loss we were sent many gifts that were very therapeutic to our healing. We were also fortunate enough to be able to take a trip as a family to heal away from home. The time spent as a unit helped us immeasurably. We want to be able to offer the same gifts to other families who cannot do the same.

Our hope is that HeavenSentPenny will be that support for those families.

In the coming months we will be incorporating and filing for 501c3 status. We will be starting some fundraising activities to help with the initial cost of starting HSP. I will also be participating in the NYCTri in 2015 to raise funds to sponsor our first family trip later next year. We have many ideas and plans but we will be starting small.

We hope you follow us through this new journey in our lives. Stay tuned for updates...

- Erik & Leslie Santos