Speaker 1: Unfortunately, I have a little bit in common with her,
Speaker 1: and we're part of a club that's not the most
Speaker 1: fun club to be a part of, and it is
Speaker 1: a club of parents who's went to a hospital to
Speaker 1: have a baby, only to leave without the baby because
Speaker 1: the baby needed to spend some time in the neonatal
Speaker 1: intensive care unit otherwise known as nick You.
Speaker 2: For me, it was just twelve long days.
Speaker 1: For my guest, it was one hundred and forty seven
Speaker 1: long days. Stephanie Hawser, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you so much for having me. And I'd
Speaker 3: love to say, you know, any amount of the time
Speaker 3: in the NICKU is really long. You know, it can
Speaker 3: be one hundred and forty seven days or even just
Speaker 3: two days.
Speaker 4: Well a lot.
Speaker 2: Tell me about your son. What happened? He came in
Speaker 2: very very early.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So in twenty nineteen, our son, zeb was born
Speaker 3: at just twenty three weeks, just stationed just over halfway
Speaker 3: through pregnancy. He was given less than a one percent
Speaker 3: chance of survival through birth, and as time went on,
Speaker 3: and you know, he was given a ninety five percent
Speaker 3: chance with all the complications of being born so impossibly early,
Speaker 3: ninety five percent chance of never walking, never talking, never
Speaker 3: eating or breathing on his own.
Speaker 4: They expected that he would be blind.
Speaker 3: These are all very typical outcomes of babies born so early,
Speaker 3: and and Zev was just a miraculous case. From go
Speaker 3: he came out rying on no lungs, and from there
Speaker 3: we knew he was stronger than we thought.
Speaker 1: One hundred and forty seven days. I can't even imagine
Speaker 1: how much did he weigh when he was born.
Speaker 3: Veev weighed one pound four ounces at birth. He was
Speaker 3: small enough to fit into the palm of my hands,
Speaker 3: so if you can believe it, he was so tiny,
Speaker 3: but he was a fighter. And through our time in
Speaker 3: the Nick, you note, through those one hundred and forty
Speaker 3: seven days, that can be a really hopeless time. You know,
Speaker 3: that's a place, just like you said, you know, the
Speaker 3: Niki is really hard, no matter how long you spend there.
Speaker 4: It's full of two things at once.
Speaker 3: It's the best place you can be for the care
Speaker 3: of your children and the hardest place to be as
Speaker 3: a parent watching your child go through such hard things.
Speaker 4: And for us, you know, those one hundred and forty
Speaker 4: seven days.
Speaker 3: We found hope in just believing that no matter what
Speaker 3: came from Zev's extreme prematurity.
Speaker 4: You know, whether he lived or died or never, never, never,
Speaker 4: we would.
Speaker 3: Stand in a place of belief that whatever came from this,
Speaker 3: we would experience a big and full and beautiful life
Speaker 3: for him, whatever that life looked like, and that we
Speaker 3: as his parents would experience a big and beautiful life
Speaker 3: for ourselves too. And now we bring that same hope
Speaker 3: and healing and possibility to other families who are experiencing
Speaker 3: the journey of the Niku through for those are nonprofit.
Speaker 1: And I will tell you, it is the scariest thing
Speaker 1: ever to walk in to. And you've just had a baby, right,
Speaker 1: And if you're the mom, you've just had a baby,
Speaker 1: you feel like you've just had a baby. And then
Speaker 1: you see this this little human that you've created, and
Speaker 1: they're attached to fifty million wires and there's tubes, and
Speaker 1: there's an IV in their foot, and it's just the
Speaker 1: most incredibly overwhelming experience. And like I said, I only
Speaker 1: went through it for twelve days. And because my daughter
Speaker 1: was almost full term, she was just in fetal distress,
Speaker 1: so we delivered her a couple weeks early. She was
Speaker 1: this ginormous eight pound baby in a room where I
Speaker 1: started calling them teacup babies. I would have referred to
Speaker 1: your son as a teacup baby because they look like
Speaker 1: they could just fit into a teacup. So tiny, so
Speaker 1: so tiny. So there's all these machines, yeah, and you
Speaker 1: don't know what they do, and it's just there's so
Speaker 1: much and I would have loved anyone like you to
Speaker 1: be able to help walk us through that.
Speaker 2: So tell me about four those.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you know exactly what you're saying. You know,
Speaker 3: the shock of the niku can be really intense for people,
Speaker 3: especially when you have these little you know, we call
Speaker 3: them micro premies babies born before twenty six weeks. They
Speaker 3: have all of these machines hooked up. You're not quite
Speaker 3: sure what's going on.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: We couldn't hold Zev for month, you know that, And
Speaker 3: even when we.
Speaker 4: Did, it was so touch and go. You know, Zev was.
Speaker 3: Going through so many different ups and downs and highs
Speaker 3: and lows, and we just kept holding on to that
Speaker 3: hope that whatever came next, we could walk through it.
Speaker 3: And when we were there, you know, on one of
Speaker 3: his worst nights, that was when we sort of decided
Speaker 3: we're going to create the place that you know, there's
Speaker 3: so much narrative in the Nicku around what could happen,
Speaker 3: you know, what would happen to your children, you know,
Speaker 3: your child, your children being hooked up to all these
Speaker 3: things and all these different outcomes that can.
Speaker 4: Feel really scary and lonely.
Speaker 3: And what we're doing with for those is telling a
Speaker 3: new story around extreme prematurity. We are saying, hey, however
Speaker 3: this road goes, you're not alone, and when you come
Speaker 3: out of here on the other side, we're going to
Speaker 3: be here to walk you through it and to catch you,
Speaker 3: to help provide that same hope, healing impossibility through for those,
Speaker 3: you know, through our programming, we do you know, a
Speaker 3: nick You family day out every year, which is basically
Speaker 3: like a mini fair. You know, there's a train and
Speaker 3: ponies and petting zoos and face painting and all these
Speaker 3: fun things for kids. Because what we found was Zev
Speaker 3: after all this impossible narrative, to watch him do these
Speaker 3: really incredible little kid things, you know, it just brought
Speaker 3: so much healing to us as his parents.
Speaker 4: We had made it through such a hard season.
Speaker 3: We're here to celebrate that with other families, to provide
Speaker 3: memories and these wonderful places for them, where the whole family,
Speaker 3: siblings included, to live out the big story after the
Speaker 3: niqu And then for parents. You know what we found
Speaker 3: when we came out is where do we put all
Speaker 3: these feelings that we had, these highs, these lows.
Speaker 4: It's emotional whiplash in there.
Speaker 3: You know, how do we sort of give these parents
Speaker 3: a place to heal too, to say we've been through
Speaker 3: this big journey, we have fought for our children against
Speaker 3: impossible odds. Where can I go to start believing in
Speaker 3: a big, beautiful future for myself as well?
Speaker 4: I am.
Speaker 1: On my daughter's first birthday, we took her and we
Speaker 1: took lunch to the to the nurses of the NICU,
Speaker 1: like we just went back to the hospital. And by
Speaker 1: this point, I mean, well, we left the hospital with her.
Speaker 1: We were told and you know what, I understand the
Speaker 1: medical system, I get it, but they just give you
Speaker 1: the worst case scenario. They literally tell you the worst
Speaker 1: things that can happen, so your expectations are managed.
Speaker 2: So we leave the hospital being told.
Speaker 1: We don't know she's gonna walk or do any of
Speaker 1: these things. And I cannot even tell you how normal
Speaker 1: my daughter is, right now. So obviously he's fifteen now,
Speaker 1: so obviously none of that panned out. But we went
Speaker 1: back and took lunch to the nick You nurses and
Speaker 1: two of them started crying. They said, we never get
Speaker 1: to see the babies who do better. So it was
Speaker 1: like a really for us. It was just a way
Speaker 1: to say thank you to the people who are so
Speaker 1: important our family. But this, what you're doing sounds like
Speaker 1: it's so needed to just be able to get your
Speaker 1: questions answered by people who have been through it before.
Speaker 1: I mean, what a great thing you guys are doing.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the movie though. Now you're a movie
Speaker 1: star too, Stephanie, you're just doing it all.
Speaker 2: Tell me about one forty seven.
Speaker 3: So one forty seven, so the backstory of one forty seven,
Speaker 3: that's a documentary that we have about now by.
Speaker 4: Our friends at Farsighted Creative.
Speaker 3: So one forty seven came about when we started for those,
Speaker 3: I thought, okay, what can we do to bring attention
Speaker 3: to this really the long and hard journey, but the
Speaker 3: beautiful journey as well that it is encapsulated in the
Speaker 3: nick You And so I thought, okay, so we're launching
Speaker 3: for those, how do we bring awareness to this. How
Speaker 3: do we raise money for this? And I thought, okay,
Speaker 3: I can I can run. That's one thing I can do.
Speaker 3: So I thought, all right, why can we do to
Speaker 3: make a big splash. I'm going to run one hundred
Speaker 3: and forty seven miles one for every day ZEB was
Speaker 3: in that NICKU to bring hope, feeling and possibility to
Speaker 3: other families who are sitting there saying, I'm sitting in
Speaker 3: the valley. I need to know there's a mountaintop somewhere,
Speaker 3: you know, and we've you know, I'm willing to go
Speaker 3: through that valley to get to that mountain top and
Speaker 3: then I want to come back and bring that to
Speaker 3: the other people who are going through the hard things.
Speaker 3: And so with one forty seven so a year ago September,
Speaker 3: I took off. I I had to run one hundred
Speaker 3: and forty seven miles over forty eight hours.
Speaker 4: Center friends.
Speaker 3: We've filmed it, community outside the video and stuff like that,
Speaker 3: and we created a documentary that tells the story of
Speaker 3: both that long, hard run and also the narrative of
Speaker 3: the nick you you know, sort of wound up into
Speaker 3: it as well. And so what we're doing with the documentary,
Speaker 3: it's been around to multiple film festivals here in Colorado.
Speaker 4: We just had a fundraising screening of it and Boulder.
Speaker 3: We brought it home to our community and we're getting
Speaker 3: ready to start licensing it out as well. So it's
Speaker 3: been so fun to see the movement grow, to see
Speaker 3: people hear our story in a new way.
Speaker 4: Through one forty seven, it's been awesome.
Speaker 2: So how can people get involved?
Speaker 1: I mean, how do people find out about you if
Speaker 1: they are going through this? How do you bring people
Speaker 1: into the fold?
Speaker 4: Well, we're so lucky we have such a big community.
Speaker 3: We still have connections as well with our nurses and
Speaker 3: doctors from that time in the hospital. Zev's five Now
Speaker 3: he lives a healthy and thriving life as a five
Speaker 3: year old, and we do go back and see our
Speaker 3: nick You family as well all the time. Gosh, what
Speaker 3: a gift our nick You nurses and all the care
Speaker 3: team there were to us, and so they spread the
Speaker 3: word for us. You can go to our website www
Speaker 3: dot for those that's number four t h o SE
Speaker 3: dot org.
Speaker 4: You can sign up for our newsletter.
Speaker 3: You can see when you know we'll send up information
Speaker 3: when we're doing more screenings.
Speaker 4: Our biggest ask is that if.
Speaker 3: You know someone in the Niku right now, would you
Speaker 3: tell them about for them? You know, the whole healing
Speaker 3: and possibility that comes from these impossible journeys in the Niku,
Speaker 3: these long stays. We're here on the other side to say,
Speaker 3: whatever comes next, we're here to get you through it.
Speaker 4: We're here to support you as you go.
Speaker 3: You know, you could just follow us on Instagram too
Speaker 3: for those org or on Facebook.
Speaker 1: Well, I love, love love this organization so much. Somebody
Speaker 1: and it's Zev right, Zev.
Speaker 3: At Ev And yeah, you can hear our whole story
Speaker 3: at the Zev Project. It's a podcast I did after
Speaker 3: we got out of the nick you to just tell
Speaker 3: a new story. You know, there's all this fear and
Speaker 3: a you know, uncertainty about the future. We're here to
Speaker 3: just say whatever future comes, it can be beautiful even
Speaker 3: in the hard stuff.
Speaker 1: Well, we always had the attitude when we got all
Speaker 1: the negative possible prognosis, we were like, look, we're just
Speaker 1: gonna do everything we can. Treat her like a normal
Speaker 1: kid and just let the ships fall where they may.
Speaker 1: Because you can get too caught up and worrying about
Speaker 1: what's going to happen or what's not going to happen,
Speaker 1: and then that just makes the whole thing worse. I
Speaker 1: have put links to everything. I've put links to four
Speaker 1: those on the blog. I put the trailer for the
Speaker 1: movie on the blog so people can see it there.
Speaker 4: Are you.
Speaker 1: Do you have any showings around like in the Denver
Speaker 1: Metro coming up anytime soon?
Speaker 3: Currently not right now. We are still we're getting ready
Speaker 3: to license it out. We're just waiting for it to
Speaker 3: finish its festival run and then we'll be able to
Speaker 3: bring it back to the Denver area. So stay tuned
Speaker 3: on our website. Like I said, you can find all
Speaker 3: the information there and we'll keep everyone posted on when
Speaker 3: you can come and see it.
Speaker 4: It's going to be so fun.
Speaker 1: Well let me know and I will spread the word
Speaker 1: for my listeners. And Stephanie Hawser, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for coming on the show and for everything you're doing,
Speaker 1: Because I know twelve days was the longest twelve days
Speaker 1: of my life.
Speaker 2: You were in almost six months.
Speaker 1: I cannot even imagine, but I can imagine what it
Speaker 1: must have been like the day you walked out of
Speaker 1: that hospital, was zev That feeling is like no other
Speaker 1: feeling in the entire world. And that's what I focus
Speaker 1: on when I think about the.
Speaker 2: Nick you that day we left.
Speaker 3: That's right, that's right, and I think what you said
Speaker 3: was just right. We're all part of this club. We
Speaker 3: all know that feeling.
Speaker 4: It is such an incredible moment.
Speaker 3: You know, you've you've gotten through one of the hardest
Speaker 3: situations in your life and now we get to provide
Speaker 3: through for those the place where you get to.
Speaker 4: Live out that beautiful future out here in the world.
Speaker 1: It's so good, Stephanie, thank you so much for your
Speaker 1: time today.
Speaker 4: Thank you. It was so good to be here, all right.
Speaker 1: That is Stephanie Hauser with For those, I put a
Speaker 1: link to the Instagram page, the Facebook page, thefour those
Speaker 1: dot org page. It's just for the number four those
Speaker 1: dot org.