NICU STRONG
On May 10th, 2020 (5-10-20) at 8:52am, Kathryn and I experienced the greatest gift of our lives, yet the scariest day for us both. At only 28week, weighing in at a whopping 2lb-14oz and 15 ¾” in length, The Li’l Bobber “Brantley” flopped right into our world surprising everyone early… very early!
Being 12 weeks early “a total of 84 days” The Li’l Bobber was a li’l guy, but a fighter! He fought every day of the 75 days he occupied a room at Northside Canton NICU, all while mom and dad had limited hours to visit for the reason of COVID. “Wow, those days were really hard!”
Fast forward “and with the power of prayer” on July 24, 2020 The Li’l Bobber had fought like a large mouth bass and came home from the NICU. Since that day, he has never stopped fighting and growing tougher and stronger, exceeding everyone’s expectations.
While I might be a bit bias… The Li’l Bobber is pretty special.
Sadly, as special as he is to Kathryn and me and as blessed as we are, there are so many NICU babies’ that do not have the success story of our Li’l Bobber “Brantley.”
For this reason… The Li’l Bobber, Kathryn and myself have pledged to give 5% of RED BOBBER profits to the NICU babies and families in need.
Our mission is to help out as many NICU Li’l Bobber babies as possible! Living the nightmare ourselves, we know how hard it is as parents and what the family goes through during these very hard times. Our mission is to help the family with expenses that they might acquire during their NICU visit.
The Story…
Throughout Brantley’s NICU stay, he had a neighboring NICU baby that simply did not have it as easy as our Li’l Bobber. While this Li’l Bobber himself was a fighter and is still a fighter today, he did have his battles with multiple complications. His visit was filled with multiple surgeries and even after him leaving the NICU, this poor guy had it pretty hard.
Meanwhile, throughout this Li’l Bobber’s fight in the NICU, Kathryn found out that his mother was having a hard time with travel, lodging and money. Knowing how hard it was on us… our short 4.3 mile drive, the support we had from one another and the support of family and friends, we quickly realized that we had it pretty easy! This poor mother’s drive to the hospital was over a 120 miles round trip and with traveling, the expense of travel and to make it worst, because of the restrictions mandated from Covid, this mother was only allowed to visit with her baby for only one to four hours a day and not allowed to stay overnight in the NICU or hospital. Kathryn and I could not imagine what she was going through and knew it had to be taking a toll on her.
Not knowing anything about this mother, Kathryn and I offered a room in our home for her to stay and because we ourselves had no money, we took blank t-shirts we had in-stock and printed NICU STRONG on them and gave the shirts to the this mother so she could sale as a fundraiser.
Kathryn and I wanted to do much-much more and as we felt grateful for what we could do, we both knew deep down we wanted to help more!
Fast forward to today, with our luck, hard work and drive, once our newest baby RED BOBBER was born “and us believing and knowing how big this venture can and will be” we both agreed to give back and the NICU, The NICU Li’l Bobber’s and The NICU families that have the hardship of their babies being in the NICU was were are hearts led us too give…
Every Li’l Bobber NICU baby is very near to our hearts!
Kyle Gore
RED BOBBER™
Flounder
