My name is Colleen and my husband Pete and I were greatly inspired by our loving friends and family to begin this wonderful non-profit. When Pete and i were married in 2014, neither of us had any idea just how many obstacles life was going to throw our way so quickly. I was diagnosed with cancer a year after being married and Pete fell and broke his leg and was out of work for many months that following year. After some years passed and we got back on our feet (no pun intended) we were overjoyed to find out that we were expecting our first child in August of 2020. In January of 2021, I went to a doctor appointment and that's when my world crashed again- the doctor had to come in and tell me my baby, at 24 weeks, had no heartbeat. I'm not even sure if devastated is the right word I would use to explain my reaction, but after Catherine was born and you’re then forced to go back to your routine I think destroyed would be the best word to describe how I felt. 
I will be honest, life was very hard for me the months after Catherine died. At 24 weeks pregnant, my shower invites had already gone out, we began decorating a baby room that was only half finished and shower gifts were being delivered to my house. I didn’t sleep for weeks, and when i did it was in small spurts. I shut out my family and friends who had children or were expecting children because i couldn’t understand why they got to keep their baby and i couldn’t hold mine ever again. I remember after Catherine was delivered one nurse said “you can stay and hold her as long as you want” and i told her “if you don’t come back in 1 hour and take her I will never leave this room.” She cried with and hugged me and said she experienced the same loss. 
If it wasn’t for my family and friends who never stopped supporting us or loving us, i’m not entirely sure how we would have survived the devastation. I spent so much time crying and leaning on people that never let us feel alone. 
Through tragedy can come triumph. The day we lost Catherine was the day I kept telling her no one will ever forget about you and I personally will never stop celebrating you. It took me years to put things together but Catherine’s Cause exists so that people who have to also endure this pain never feel alone and always know there is a sense of community with us. We want to celebrate your baby and their spirit and we aim to bring couples and families back together and reconnect with each other during this time. When we were in our deep grieving phase (because im not sure you ever get out of it), we were gifted with many meals, movie tickets, and were given tickets to a play and dinner downtown for a night. These outings helped Pete and I reconnect with each other on a deeper level and gave us reasons to smile again. 
When people ask me about my experience with what happened to Catherine, I always say when women are pregnant, they don’t realize how lucky they are to leave the L&D floor with a baby in their arms; it’s something taken for granted. On the other hand, its also something no couple wants to even think about. But when we left that L&D floor after Catherine we were showered with so many keepsake gifts from other couples who were in our shoes.
Our hopes and dreams for Catherine’s Cause is to raise enough money so that couples know there is always a community with us, they can all receive meaningful keepsake items, and they too can experience a one time funded outing to help their hearts heal and allow for the couples and families to come together and smile in a time that is unimaginably hard to recover from.