Why We Make Preemie Tees

From time to time someone will ask me about Elliot's Preemie Tees. The questions that I get the most from non-preemie parents is "Why do you make Preemie Tees?" or "Is there a market for that?" Depending on how the question is asked I sometimes have to fight the urge to not to stare in disbelief at some people. But then I remember how dumb I was before Elliot came into my life. The short answer to these questions are, "I make them because I want to help others like us and, yes, there is a market for them." The long answer is what follows. I hope it will give you some insight into why we do what we do. Enjoy!

When Elliot was born he weighed in at a whopping 1 lb. 12 oz. He was so tiny I hardly knew what to do. The first time I saw him I was horrified, not because I thought he was ugly or anything, I just thought he was so small and there was an IV or wire coming out of every conceivable place. It was scary! What worried me more was the way my daughter interacted with him. She seemed afraid of him. Instinctively I knew that she needed to bond with him and fast. As a struggled to think of ways to help this happened I started to think about what "normal" parents do to bond with their babies. I realized that parents basic responsibilities, when it comes to caring for their babies, are to love, feed and clothe them. I knew Brooke loved Elliot. She was also working so hard to feed him by pumping breast milk and leaving it at the hospital and freezing it at home for later. So my next thoughts turned to clothes. Where could I find clothes for such a tiny person? Was there even such a thing? Would the NICU let her dress him? I had all these questions and more so I set out to find the answers. What I found shocked me and then made me angry. I found preemie clothes alright, but there wasn't much of a variety, the sizes were very odd, the quality not very good and the prices were high.

I did buy some clothes for Elliot and it cost me $14.99 for a tiny t-shirt and hat set. I was appalled. It was thin and not very well made. But it was kind of cute so I washed it and took it to the hospital. What happened next absolutely astounded me. This seemingly small act of dressing her baby was a huge milestone for Brooke and our whole family. She loved dressing him and he looked so much better and more like a regular baby that it completely changed the way she saw him. For the first time she began to think of him as her baby! It was a miracle!! Could clothes make that much difference? It turns out it does. The March of Dimes just did a study in New York and they found that bonding occurred faster if the Mom could dress the baby and the mom did better as a result and so did the baby. It improved the overall outcome. I know this because the NY Chapter of the March of Dimes contacted me about Preemie Tees and they told me about the study. They just proved what I had already witnessed for myself!

I had been a seamstress for 25 years. I had made prom dresses, blessing gowns, baptism dresses, wedding gowns, smocked and heirloom clothes for my children. My girls never wanted me to just make a dress from a pattern. They wanted this sleeve and that bodice and a different skirt. I was constantly remaking patterns into original designs. Brooke's wedding dress is a good example. There is nothing like it. Made from two patterns and part of it I pulled out of thin air. (This is a picture of her with my other two children, Brent and Ashley at Brooke's wedding.) The point is, if I could do this I could certainly make clothes for Elliot and do it better and cheaper. So that is exactly what I did. The patterns had to be simple and they had to go on easily and come off easily, because he couldn't be disturbed and messed with like a regular baby. So...I decided the "fun" of it had to be in the prints and not the designs. Designs...simple. Prints...fun! So I measured him and set out to design the first Elliot's Preemie Tee. I kept all of these measurements. When he grew so did the patterns.

The first set of clothes I brought to him in the NICU caused quite a stir. Everyone wanted to see them and my daughter couldn't wait to tell everyone "Look what my Mom made for Elliot!" All the nurses kept telling me, "You should go into business, there is a real need for preemie clothes that fit." It was fine to do for Elliot, I loved him and it wasn't any work because I was helping my Brookie. Could I really do this all day long, everyday for complete strangers?


With this thought in the back of my mind I made more clothes and changed the designs, perfecting the construction, trying this and seeing how that looked. Elliot didn't care and Brooke loved it. I could make 4 tiny t-shirts out of a 1/4 of a yard of fabric of a cost of about $1.50 each. That is when I got mad! Most people who know me know you never want to make me mad because that is when I get enough fire in my bones that I will actually DO something about it. It was about this time that the medical bills were piling up and Elliot was approaching the $250,000 dollar baby with more to come! How could anyone take advantage of the parents of preemies like that? How could they charge so much for their tiny little clothes that they grow out of in weeks? I had seen gowns for $25 to $30 dollars for these teeny weeny babies. It just wasn't fair!! And it made me mad to think people were taking advantage of people when they were the most vulnerable. That is how Elliot's Preemie Tees was born - cause I got mad!

And I did a lot of research. it took me 6 months to get everything together. The hardest thing was and still remains the fabrics. I decided early on to use knit fabrics exclusively. They are stretchy and have some give to them and they are soft. But the cute ones are hard to find. It is my single hardest task - to find cute fabrics! I also figured out that in the NICU parents lose all ability to make choices. they have no choice over anything in the NICU and for very good reason. But the fact remains it takes away the control leaving poor mommies and daddies feeling helpless. So part of our business model was to give choices back to parents by letting them choose what clothes their babies could wear. Most of what is out there is ugly - let's face it! And the choices are sometimes between ugly and uglier. The best compliment I have ever gotten came by way of a gift card note for a customer, it said:

"A girls is never too young to be concerned about her wardrobe, hope these clothes put you on the cutting edge in the NICU!"

I couldn't have been more thrilled!! This is exactly what I was hoping to achieve with Elliot's Preemie Tees. When a parent comes to our website they will pick a style of clothing and then choose a fabric, then finish it off with their choice of snap colors. With 8 styles, over 30 fabrics and 3 snap colors to choose from the possible combinations are in the thousands! Where else can you get choices like that? So what what we are helping parents to do is to order something that is made for their baby - made to order exclusively for your baby! There is nothing else like it anywhere!! We are, literally, a one-of-a-kind business for preemies.

Our sizes set us apart too. Don't believe me - go take a look for yourself! Preemie sizes are often 1-3 lbs, 4-6 pounds. There is a big difference between 1 pound and 3 pounds! Then to make it worse, most of the variety in preemie clothing starts at 6 pounds. If you have ever had a preemie then you know that 6 pounds is almost full grown and there has been a awful lot of time and NICU stay to get to 6 pounds. If you have to wait to get to 6 pounds to dress your Preemie that is a lot of bonding time, parenting and enjoyment that has been missed. Sadly, most of the retailers just don't get it! But we do! Our sizes are 1-2 lbs, 3-4 lbs, and 5-6 pounds. I found that when I made clothes for Elliot these sizes gave him enough room to grow without being too big and he also could wear them for a good amount of time before he grew out of them. We call this sizing, "Preemie Fit Sizing", because it fits, it is a simple as that.

We have been open for business for a little over a year now. The question remains, could I do this day in and day out for complete strangers? The answer is a resounding YES! First, you are not a stranger to me, you are a fellow traveler on a similar journey and your path is my path. Second, I have yet to make a dime from my business. so your clothes are really a labor of love for me. I do love it! I love making people happy and I love making a difference in their lives. I love getting notes and pictures, it keeps me going. Someday I hope to have a profitable business, I am sure I will, but it is perfectly ok with me the way it is!

I have big plans for Elliot's Preemie Tees! We are designing a NICU dress for little girls and some pants for boys. A diaper cover is in the works too! Some people have asked for smaller sized blankets so we are looking into that too. A big project for the future is a toddler line of preemie clothes. As you know, preemies grow differently than other babies and the clothes never do really fit. Elliot is always losing his pants - some days he crawls or walks right out of them! So we are looking into that too! I don't see us doing this for a few years though unless we get a really BIG investor. If you have an idea or suggestion you would like us to try - let us know. We are here just for you! You are what matters the most to us!

Miracles Walk and Have Blonde Hair and Blue Eyes

I can’t believe it – after 21 ½ months Elliot is finally walking! To most it doesn’t seem that unusual especially given that he started life at a petite 1 pound 12 ounces, but you have to understand that most babies in our family walk very early - usually by their 1st birthday. Elliot started sitting up by his 1st birthday. We knew then that it would be a while until he was able to walk. We also knew that he would journey down his own path – completely uncharted territory for all of us.

He is still only 17 pounds and still in a rear facing car seat, so he has for all this time looked an acted like a baby. It has been hard not to treat him like a baby. We live in an area with lots of babies. On any given Sunday at church there are dozens of babies and dozens of comparisons. It is hard to hear, “Oh my baby is 6 months old and look he is bigger than your son! How old is he?” For Elliot these kinds of comparisons are not fair or accurate. E is in a class by himself. At his last doctor visit he was in the 3rd percentile – not too many of babies running around in the 3rd percentile but for E that is normal.

For me the last few days have been ones of pure joy! Joy that he is walking. Joy that E has found a new sense of freedom. Joy at seeing my daughter’s relief. This has been a monumental week for all of us, but I didn’t realize until today what his walking means to Brooke. She said, “He is a real little boy now and I am so glad, he’s been a baby for so long!” Wow!

There are two interesting events in the walking – turning around and falling down. At first falling down was fun, the trick then was getting back up. Unable to just stand up by himself he just sat there and screamed, highly frustrated that his business of walking had been so rudely interrupted. So I showed him how to crawl to the nearest wall and use that to help him stand up. I was amazed that before I could turn around he was heading to the wall, standing up and off on his way again, falling down a time or two on purpose just to try our his new trick, now fully satisfied that he could manage this all on his own. The second thing, turning around, is a real source of laughter and delight for all of us. Firmly planting one foot he pivots all the way around only lifting the outside foot. This maneuver gave him the ability to pull off the perfect fake out. “Elliot, come here to me!’ someone would say with arms outstretched to receive the wind-up doll waddling toward them. E moving unsteadily toward the receiver looked as if we was going straight to them, but at the last second he would execute the pivot maneuver and toddle away with a big grin on his face. So pleased with himself!!!

This morning I went to pick up my daughter and E to bring them back to my house for a day of making Preemie Tees. I got E dressed and had him sitting on my lap while I dressed him. Afterwards he just stood up and walked away and it startled me. “Oh yeah, he is walking now!” I suppose in time I will get use to it, but right now it is just amazing. He looks too little to be walking I think to myself as his blonde head wobbles away from me. He is moving faster today than he did yesterday. It makes me so glad to be his grandmother and that I get to see him progress like this. It was different with my own children. Walking was like breathing. Everyone does both effortlessly. The brain commands and the body obeys. That is how I used to see it. I took so much for granted…not anymore.

I am sitting here watching and hardly able to believe what I am seeing and what I am seeing is a real life miracle - a long awaited blessing from a gracious, kind, loving Father in Heaven! A little downy, toe headed boy, some days he reminds me of a duckling and especially today, waddling back and forth like a wind-up toy. He takes walking so seriously, it is his new job and he performs his task over and over without tiring. His tongue is stuck out with his perfect Cupid’s bow lips firmly pursed around it, brow furrowed and eyes set on an imaginary mark somewhere in front of him. His whole face is set in deep concentration as if what he is doing is a new invention, never done before by anyone. For a second he looks so grown up with all that concentration on his face and I see for a second what he will look like in a few years. He holds up his left arm as if holding onto an imaginary hand for balance. Back and forth he goes crossing the room in a pattern only he can see. Oops, plop! He looks at his Mommy and a broad grin crosses his face, blue eyes sparkling in delight. “Yaaaayyyyy” he squeals, hands clapping. I watched him nearly all day and I never got tired of seeing this scene played out. He literally did it all day long. And like the Energizer Bunny he kept going and going! It is, for me, as delightful the last time as it was the first time!

How I Became a Grandmother

I was in the car, somewhere in Iowa, when I got a call from my daughter. Her name is Brooke. her voice was small and sad. She sounded like she was chocking back tears which would soon spill out with the words she spoke. She had just come from her 25 week ultrasound where she discovered that her baby was not growing at the proper rate and that he was losing ground. I was sunned, I didn't know what to do or what to say. My first born was in trouble with her firstborn. It was such a helpless feeling. All I wanted to do was to hold my daughter and hug her. I would have given anything to be able to crawl through the phone at that minute.

My teenagers were in the car with me and my husband was following along behind. We were in the middle of a cross country move from Long Island, New York to Cedar Hills Utah. Brooke and BJ, her husband, live in Utah. I thought I was going there to become a grandmother and enjoy the last half of her pregnancy with her. We had such great plans of shopping and sewing and baby showers. We were so excite, our first grandbaby on the way and we were moving to be closer to them, a grandmother's dream. In one moment all of that changed. I all could say to her was, "Hang in there honey, I am on my way! I'll be there in three days." I tried to make my voice sound like a hug as much as I could.

That was the longest three days of my life! I spent most of it wishing my car could fly or that I could somehow magically teleport myself to Utah. Neither of those option worked so I was doomed to driving. My husband is a nautral lead foot, that is why he was following me - so I could set the pace, which was naturally slower. Not this time baby!

In the meantime, Brooke was put on bedrest and told to monitor the kicks the baby made in an hour and to call the doctor if they fell below a certain number. Can you imagine how terrifying that is? To only be able to lay there and count kicks, that is the equivalent of the worst kind of torture to a pregnant mom! Especially a first time pregant mom!! Sometimes I think doctors have no idea what they do to their patients when they perscribe these things.

We finally arrived in Utah and were put into temporary housing while we searched for a new home to live in. In between house hunting I took my terrified daughter to the hospital each week for an ultrasound to monitor the progress of the baby. We followed these visits with lunch out on the way home to break up the monotony of bedrest. At first the neonatologist said that the baby must have a fatal chromosome defect. He continued, "Your baby will likely not survive birth..." As he talked I saw all of the blood rush from my daughters face, she swayed and I moved towards her to catch her if she fainted. I don't know if was the look on her face or the coldness in which this news was delivered but something inside me snapped. I turned and said, "NO! That is not it, look again!" To my amazement he did! This time a Doppler was used. As he dopplered the blood flow through the cord they discovered that the blood flow of the baby was not pumping well enough so he was not getting enough of the good things he needed to grow. To me this was a better explanation for why he was so small. Maybe I was grasping at straws, maybe I just couldn't face reality or maybe I just really knew he would be fine. I thought they would do a C-section right then and there but the reasoning was that it was better for him in than out as long as he was getting something. We were left with weekly visits to the hospitial to Doppler the cord and bedrest and counting kicks. So we dutifully showed up at the hospital each week, worried and anxious. And each week we went home for more bedrest and counting more kicks. Weeks felt like years and this torture continued for four more weeks. Mom's will do anything for their children and I saw my Brooke become a mom right before my eyes. At the same time I felt myself becoming a grandmother.

Finally the great and dreaded day arrived. It was a beautiful day in June, the sun was shining, there was a soft breeze and the flowers around the hospital were in full bloom, but I couldn't ignore the dread I felt in my stomach as we went to the hospital for the regular ultrasound. We were growing used to our new routine. In the meantime, we had found a house to buy. The closing was scheduled for the following day. We were joking as we got into the elevator that Elliot better wait to come at least until his grandma could get moved into her new house. It was not to be.

Everything moved so fast. It felt like someone had pushed the fast forward button on our lives. The doctor said the blood flow through the cord was beginning to flow in reverse. Brooke was admitted to the hospital immediately for observation. Plans for a nice lunch out, our weekly splurg from bedrest, were cancelled. BJ was called and he raced to the hospital. I hated to leave my poor baby girl. She looked so helpless, small and sad. I just wanted to be able to take all of this away from her. But I had to go! I was moving the next day!!! How could this be happening? Looking back I can see that it was a good thing that Brooke and BJ had to do this alone, together. It helped to cement their relationship and to make them parents.

I went home and packed up our things from the temporary housing and prepared for the 9 am closing. Brooke called and said that the flow through the cord was getting worse and they would take the baby at noon. I thought I would make it...we could close on our house and I could start the moving company unloading the truck and my mom and my sister could take over for me while I ran to the hospital just in time to reassure Brooke that everything would be alright. If everything went according to plan we would just make it.

As you know, things never go like they are planned. It must have been the fastest closing in the history of closings... 30 minutes! Done. In the middle of signing that mountain of paperwork a call came, it was BJ. Things were bad enough that the doctor rearranged her schedule and was there to do the C-section right then. NO! Not right now!! I am not done. Oh no! Put Brooke on the phone.

"Hi, honey, we are almost done. I will be there as soon as I can. I love you so much. You are such a brave girl, everything will be ok!"

"Really mom, do you think so?"

"I know so!"

"i will be there when you wake up. I love you!"

"I love you too mom!"

That was the last time I talked to my Brooke before she became a Mom and I became a Grandma. When I think about it now I had a lot of nerve or faith to tell her everything would be ok but somewhere inside me I knew it would be. I had such peace in the middle of this train wreck of our lives that I could not deny that it would be ok. I don't know how I knew it, I just KNEW!

It is true that Elliot is a preemie - Brooke is a premature mother - I am a premature grandmother. All of these things bring there own set of challenges and nothing turned out how we planned or dreamed it to be but we all love our sweet little Elliot dearly! sometimes life comes at you fast but we wouldn't change a thing. His little life has touched us in so many ways. He is a light and our inspiration! We have all learned so much and it has made us who we are, a bit premature maybe, but all in all that isn't such a bad thing is it?