She Trusted a Complete Stranger

Recently, my cousin and his wife had a beautiful baby boy. Sadly when born, he was not well and required emergency surgery.

They are in a different country to me, and I wanted to help them but wasn’t sure what to do. I read that it is comforting to the parents of a baby in hospital to be able to dress their baby and give them something of their own. Unfortunately many babies in this situation can’t wear clothes due to tubes and monitors. So I found a pattern online from the Miracle Babies Foundation for a preemie hospital gown and set to making some.

The instructions recommend that you use plastic snaps/ poppers on the gown for many reasons, but I searched everywhere locally and I could only find metal ones. These aren’t suitable due to xrays and the risk of them getting hot and causing a burn during treatments. I even tried calling sewing/alteration businesses to get it done. I was beginning to think my only option was to order and wait for the machine and supplies to arrive from over east.

As a last resort I put a note on a local Facebook buy and sell page. A lovely lady responded and said I could use her machine. I went there with my finished gowns, prepared to do them at her house. She showed me how to do it and handed me her machine and a bag of snaps and said to take them home and do them and return the equipment when I was done!

She wouldn’t take any money. This lovely lady had just bought this equipment and waited over a month for it to arrive, she needed it to create products for her small business and she was a complete stranger, yet she trusted me to take it home and return it the next day! I was super grateful for her kindness and finished the gowns that night. They have been posted to the baby with a note that they may be given to NICU friends if they don’t fit.

Many thanks to this lady for helping me to help a lovely family and maybe even other families. – Anon ❤