KnowGifts.com core value is a commitment to giving back to the world community, specifically helping support charities that help families and children get through some of the toughest times in their life. We do this several ways, primarily by donating a percentage of the proceeds from each sell to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. From time-to-time we’ll help promote and spread the message of other worthwhile charities like March of Dimes. With March coming up and KnowGifts.com sales increasing, we’ve decided to commit some of our success to helping March of Dimes’ March for Babies 2012 event.

We want to give a special acknowledgement to Melissa Davis for telling us about this great cause and her commitment to walk this year. Every day families face what can be the most exciting and terrifying moment in their life when the miracle of life comes a little too early. Babies die everyday due to being born premature and the one’s that don’t have a long, hard fight ahead of them. Organizations like the March of Dimes helps those families during the toughest times by funding research and programs that help moms have full-term pregnancies and babies begin healthy lives. Melissa’s commitment to this cause has inspired us and we would like to follow in her footsteps.

KnowGifts.com is pledging to help Melissa reach her goal of $400 by April 24 for her walk. From March 1 to April 20, we’ll donate 20% of our proceeds every time a purchase is made on Amazon.com from KnowGifts.com to Melissa’s walk. You can help support this cause by donating directly on her personal March for Babies page on MarchForBabies.org.

It doesn’t take a lot to help these newborns and their families through the fight of their life. Read the inspiring story of Callum, a 25-week preemie who started his life fighting for it.

Callum’s Story

We struggled for years to get pregnant and suffered several miscarriages. In March 2010 I became pregnant for the 6th time. Things started off very rocky and the pregnancy was labeled ‘complicated.’ I was monitored closely and by 21 weeks things seemed to be looking better. In early August we were away on vacation in New Hampshire with family. On August 6, 2010, when I was 25 weeks pregnant, I woke up and realized that I was having contractions every 15 minutes. I called my OB’s office and they told me to get to labor and delivery triage as soon as possible. We made it from New Hampshire into Boston’s Beth Israel hospital by 11am. I was already fully dilated. Our son Callum was born at 1:23p.m. by emergency c-section (he was breech). He didn’t cry, at least not that we could hear. It was the most agonizing five minutes as we waited to find out what was happening on the other side of the sheet. We didn’t know if he was alive or not. Finally the neonatologist came over to us and told us that he was alive and intubated and that he tried to cry when he first came out. She brought him over to see us briefly before whisking him away to the NICU. I remember thinking that I had never seen anything so tiny or so pink before. Callum weighed 1 pound 9 ounces and was only 13 inches long. He began his 4 month NICU journey that day.

Callum’s first few weeks in the NICU were tenuous at best.  He required a lot of respiratory support and twice he dropped his blood pressure so low that it wouldn’t register on a blood pressure cuff.  We were called to the hospital in the early hours of the morning and we were afraid that we were going to lose our baby that we fought so hard for.  Somehow he made it through those first difficult few weeks.  When he was 6 weeks old we got another middle of the night phone call- he was having some spells, which was unlike him and a CBC showed a shift indicative of infection.  He ended up having pneumonia.  Fortunately he responded well to the antibiotics.  Finally, after 8 weeks on the ventilator, Callum graduated to CPAP.  Things were going pretty well for a couple of weeks.  Then in mid October, Callum was diagnosed with aggressive retinopathy of prematurity.  He needed laser surgery on both eyes.  We were given a 75% chance that the surgery would save his central vision at the expense of his peripheral vision and a 25% chance of a ‘bad outcome’ which could lead to blindness.  We had to wait two weeks to find out if the surgery was successful.  It was a long wait, but fortunately the surgery worked.  After that, things went along fairly smoothly.  Callum eventually progressed to a high flow nasal cannula, and then to a regular low flow nasal cannula.  Just before Thanksgiving Callum was transferred to Children’s Hospital for bilateral hernia repair surgery.  It was a long day, but he was back in Beth Israel NICU by dinnertime with the amazing staff who knew and loved him.  We returned to cheers of “Welcome back, Callum!”  He was the oldest baby on the unit at that point.  A little over a week later, on December 2, after 118 grueling days in the NICU, Callum came home.  As a result of his chronic lung disease, he still requires oxygen support at home, but we are hopeful that he will be oxygen free by springtime.

Read the rest of the story on March for Babies Family Team Spot website.