At our tournament this year we will have a baby remembrance of babies that our foundation has helped, or that we have met along our journey of establishing and running the foundation. We believe it is important to share their stories and say their names.
We are featuring beautiful Tenley today. I met Tenley’s mommy, Meagan, when she reached out to learn more about the Rhett Sullivan Foundation. Meagan and her husband are in the process of starting Tenley’s Tiny Touch in honor their sweet little girl. This is Tenley’s story….
Tenley Grae Harbison
November 19, 2018
“In late 2016 Meagan and I had been trying to get pregnant for several months and Meagan felt that something wasn’t right. After consulting with our OB/GYN, we decided to start meeting with an infertility specialist. Meagan and I decided to proceed with in vitro fertilization. During this process, as the husband, you watch your wife get labs and ultrasounds done frequently, you give her multiple injections at home every day in the hopes that it will be successful. You pull all of your savings and retirement in hopes to bring a healthy child into this world. After our retrieval, we ended up with 3 beautiful embryos. We were so happy. The following month we had a successful transfer and were overjoyed that we were going to start our family. Pregnancy was not easy for Meagan. She endured hyperemesis gravidarum. We found out we were going to have a baby girl, our Tenley Grae. Tenley continued to grow into a healthy baby girl. The Sunday of Tenley’s 36th week, Meagan was a little concerned because she wasn’t moving much, however we were told that as she continued to grow that her movements would not be as noticeable. Monday at 4 am, Meagan woke up to some signs of early labor. We made our way to the hospital with excitement to be welcoming our baby girl into our family. When we arrived to the hospital, after multiple tests we were told that she didn’t have a heartbeat. Our world stopped. Our little girl would not be returning home with us. In the following hours we cried, we were in disbelief, we were in shock. After multiple hours, Tenley was born. She was a beautiful, healthy baby girl with no heartbeat. She had a hyper coiled umbilical cord that caused her to lose blood supply. The following hours and days were spent getting to spend time as a family with our little girl.
We miss everything about our baby girl. It’s often the little things, like her smell, the color of her hair. We feel like we are missing out on getting to know her personality, her baby coos, her smile, her cry. The things that most parents take for granted are the things we are missing. Some days are easier than others. Doing things in our daughter’s name helps us find happiness. We started an organization to provide comfort items and resources to other parents who go through infant loss.
Emotionally, she changed us, the loss of our child changed us to the core. We not only had to pay for her funeral and headstone, but we chose to purchase a burial plot for us to be buried next to her. Between funeral and medical expenses, this has been extremely taxing on us financially despite having a good income.
I think it is outstanding that there are organizations like The Rhett Sullivan Foundation out there to truly help families by relieving the financial stress so the family can focus on the grieving process.”
~Tenley’s Daddy & Mommy
