My name is Kimberly, and I would like to give my thanks for this website. I am truly thankful. I had my first daughter when I was 23. She was happy, beautiful & healthy. We named her Hailee Lynn Edge. When Hailee was about 5 months old, we found out we were going to have another baby...We were so excited...We found out we were having another little girl. When I was 7 1/2 months pregnant with our 2nd daughter I slipped and fell out of the shower, breaking my elbow...Needless to say there wasn't much that could be done, until after the baby was born because I was scheduled for a Caesarian. Well on May 2, 2004 Kaitlyn Michelle Edge was born. She was healthy, beautiful and she looked just like her big sister. She weighed 7 lbs 12.1 oz; she was 20 inches long and had the darkest blue eyes (like her daddy). She was the happiest baby, always smiling. Her big blue eyes would follow me when I walked into the room. When Kaitlyn was 2 months old, I went in for surgery on my right arm. I had to have two surgeries, and pins put in my arm. I did my best to hold Kaitlyn like a newborn baby but it was hard and I didn’t want to hurt her with my pins. September 17, 2004 I got my pins taken out and was so happy. I would finally be able to hold my baby after I healed. I wouldn’t have to worry about hurting her with those metal pins. September 19, 2004 was like any other day. Kaitlyn played in her Winnie-the-pooh swing, and in her bouncy seat. Her big sister would make funny faces at her and she would giggle up a storm. I fed Kaitlyn and laid her down in her crib for her afternoon nap. I fell asleep on the couch in the living room with Hailee. I was on prescription medication for my arm and was very tired. We all laid down around 2:30 PM. Hailee and I woke up from the couch about 4:00 PM... I fixed her some popcorn and some juice and we sat down and ten minutes later I realized that Kaitlyn had been asleep for almost 2 hours, which was unusual. She was always hungry with a touch of colic, and she usually wouldn’t sleep more than an hour and a half. So I went into the baby room to check on her, saw her face down, shrugged on her little shoulder, started to walk out the room, but then it was like something dawned on me she didn’t even budge. Surely that would have woken her, then I flipped her over and she was blue, her whole face was blue, her arms were blue all the way up to her little elbows, I started screaming. I grabbed Katie out of the crib, immediately started blowing breath into her mouth, grabbed the phone ran to the couch and called 911. The lady operator told me to blow 3 deep breaths and do 10 chest compressions. I was frantic; when I would blow into her mouth I would hear a noise from coming from her mouth as I blew. I kept saying come back to me Katie please come back to me. It seemed like it took forever for the ambulance to get to my house. I remember leaving Hailee with the paramedics that arrived with the ambulance. I rode in the front of the ambulance the whole way to the hospital. I kept asking through the back window if my baby was all right. Nobody would answer me. I remember there being 3 men working on her and the one blocking the view to her through the back window was a heavy set guy. I kept screaming hurry, please somebody tell me something. I can still remember like it was yesterday when they lifted her lifeless body out of the ambulance and carried her in their arms through the emergency room doors…..I thought my heart was going to fall out or explode…I kept pacing and I remember one nurse trying to drag me to a “family” room and wait for other family to arrive. I was trying to get to the room where Katie was being worked on. All I wanted was to see my baby’s bright blue eyes and hear her giggle again. It all happened so fast. I only remember bits and pieces of what was really happening. It all seemed so unreal, like I was dreaming, but it was a nightmare. I remember asking the nurse to just tell me, if my baby was ok, stop messing with me and tell me if she is ok, and the look she gave me, made me drop to my knees and she said “ I’m sorry honey, she didn’t “ I went running down the hall screaming and crying.. It felt so unreal; I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to hurt something, I ran outside the ER doors and leaned against the brick wall and started banging my head on it. I felt so much anger and pain. I ran back into the ER and ran into the room where I found my little tiny baby girl, on this big long, cold stretcher. She had a needle in her leg. Her eyes were closed. Her body was so cold and, I remember screaming come back here and “you are not done, don’t walk away from my baby, please somebody help her” at that time I heard my mothers voice, she must have heard me screaming, and I went running out the room down the hall to her and fell to my knees. From there much of what happened is a big blur. I remember them letting us go into a small private room and hold Katie for about two hours. I remember the Dr. Coming into the room and asking me a few questions and he said he believes it to be SIDS, and I said no, she suffocated. The Dr. Said “No ma’am” there are no signs of suffocation. He asked me what made me believe that. I told the Dr. how Katie learned the day before how to roll all the way over for the first time and that when I laid her in her crib I laid her on her back and when I checked on her 20 minutes later before I fell asleep, her legs were straight and her body was on the side like she flipped half way but when I found her she was face down and blue. I remember very vivid details about my daughters’ funeral but only like in movie clips. I try not to think about her funeral because I just can’t handle the feelings that rage through my body. Nothing felt the same anymore. I couldn’t function, I didn’t know how. How could life go on when Katie’s suddenly stopped and without warning? I didn’t feel like it was fair for me to go on with my life or to enjoy it. My beautiful baby was gone and would never get to experience the joys of life. It was so unfair and to this day I still feel like it is unfair. I use to look up at the sky and scream to God why? Why did he take my healthy, happy, and well-cared for baby, why? When there are so many abused and mistreated babies in the world. It was like nobody could answer that question. To this day I still ask WHY? I just want to know what I ever did to be so severely punished. I wasn’t the best mother in the world by far, but I tried my best and I loved my girls more than anything. My daughter was born May 2, 2004 and she passed away September 19, 2004 from SIDS Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Also known as: Crib death, Cot death. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is the sudden unexplained death of an infant under one year of age. It can only be determined after the completion of an autopsy, a death scene investigation & a review of the case history. SIDS remains a leading cause of death in babies from one month to one year of age. In the United States alone, SIDS takes the lives of thousands of babies every year.

i have found this site to be helpful in many ways i still suffer deep mourning after losing my daughter to this thief in the night. this site has been great and i trulyhope to see a answer soon in years to come so that my daughter did not die in vain. thank you for creating this so that our words get heard finally!!!!

I want to thank-you for taking on the task of exposing the truths about SIDS! I have waited for over 9 years to see something like this, and it really brings a lot of repressed emotions to the surface. This past year two of my friends lost their babies to SIDS within 2 months of each other. This is the first time I have known someone before they lost a child to SIDS and it was quite difficult and upsetting. I just wish there was some way I could keep anyone else from ever going through this kind of loss again! Thank-you for telling the public that SIDS is in fact not going down, if it was then statistically there would not be 3 people in my group of friends that have lost a baby to SIDS.

Cathy
Mommy to an angel, John Daniel Fry (3/19/98-6/14/98)
and also to Joseph John McDonald 12/26/05

I would like to express my gratitude to SprippsNews and it's employees for allowing me to share and publish my story of losing my sweet baby Owen. Losing my baby to "undetermined causes" has been worse than the most horrible nightmare imaginable to mankind that I must live with daily, but I believe that there is now hope for saving other babies from this tragedy. Thank you so much for performing the greatly needed research into sudden infant deaths that the majority of our medical experts, coroners, pathologists, etc, can not find true causes of.

In Memory of Owen, died suddenly on 10/6/03 and laid to rest on 10/9/03.

Sincerely,
Angie Steffke