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November 1, 2024 12 mins
A MOM RUNNING FOR PREEMIES My daughter was two weeks early and in the NICU for 12 days and they were the longest days of my entire life. But there were babies in there that weighed two pounds and had to stay so much longer than she did. At 1pm I'm talking with Stephanie Hauser, the mom of one of these tiny babies that had to stay so much longer, 147 days to be exact. Now she's started the 4those organization to support families of extremely premature babies and she's the focus of a new film getting nominated for a number of awards about her journey to run 147 miles to honor her son and bring awareness to the issues families face when their babies come way, way too soon. Follow them on Instagram here and Facebook here.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Unfortunately, I have a little bit in common with her,
and we're part of a club that's not the most
fun club to be a part of, and it is
a club of parents who's went to a hospital to
have a baby, only to leave without the baby because
the baby needed to spend some time in the neonatal
intensive care unit otherwise known as nick You.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
For me, it was just twelve long days.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
For my guest, it was one hundred and forty seven
long days. Stephanie Hawser, welcome to the show.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
Oh, thank you so much for having me. And I'd
love to say, you know, any amount of the time
in the NICKU is really long. You know, it can
be one hundred and forty seven days or even just
two days.

Speaker 4 (00:39):
Well a lot.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Tell me about your son. What happened? He came in
very very early.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Yeah, So in twenty nineteen, our son, zeb was born
at just twenty three weeks, just stationed just over halfway
through pregnancy. He was given less than a one percent
chance of survival through birth, and as time went on,
and you know, he was given a ninety five percent
chance with all the complications of being born so impossibly early,
ninety five percent chance of never walking, never talking, never

(01:10):
eating or breathing on his own.

Speaker 4 (01:12):
They expected that he would be blind.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
These are all very typical outcomes of babies born so early,
and and Zev was just a miraculous case. From go
he came out rying on no lungs, and from there
we knew he was stronger than we thought.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
One hundred and forty seven days. I can't even imagine
how much did he weigh when he was born.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
Veev weighed one pound four ounces at birth. He was
small enough to fit into the palm of my hands,
so if you can believe it, he was so tiny,
but he was a fighter. And through our time in
the Nick, you note, through those one hundred and forty
seven days, that can be a really hopeless time. You know,
that's a place, just like you said, you know, the
Niki is really hard, no matter how long you spend there.

Speaker 4 (01:59):
It's full of two things at once.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
It's the best place you can be for the care
of your children and the hardest place to be as
a parent watching your child go through such hard things.

Speaker 4 (02:09):
And for us, you know, those one hundred and forty
seven days.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
We found hope in just believing that no matter what
came from Zev's extreme prematurity.

Speaker 4 (02:17):
You know, whether he lived or died or never, never, never,
we would.

Speaker 3 (02:21):
Stand in a place of belief that whatever came from this,
we would experience a big and full and beautiful life
for him, whatever that life looked like, and that we
as his parents would experience a big and beautiful life
for ourselves too. And now we bring that same hope
and healing and possibility to other families who are experiencing
the journey of the Niku through for those are nonprofit.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
And I will tell you, it is the scariest thing
ever to walk in to. And you've just had a baby, right,
And if you're the mom, you've just had a baby,
you feel like you've just had a baby. And then
you see this this little human that you've created, and
they're attached to fifty million wires and there's tubes, and
there's an IV in their foot, and it's just the
most incredibly overwhelming experience. And like I said, I only

(03:06):
went through it for twelve days. And because my daughter
was almost full term, she was just in fetal distress,
so we delivered her a couple weeks early. She was
this ginormous eight pound baby in a room where I
started calling them teacup babies. I would have referred to
your son as a teacup baby because they look like
they could just fit into a teacup. So tiny, so

(03:27):
so tiny. So there's all these machines, yeah, and you
don't know what they do, and it's just there's so
much and I would have loved anyone like you to
be able to help walk us through that.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
So tell me about four those.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
Yeah, I think you know exactly what you're saying. You know,
the shock of the niku can be really intense for people,
especially when you have these little you know, we call
them micro premies babies born before twenty six weeks. They
have all of these machines hooked up. You're not quite
sure what's going on.

Speaker 4 (03:58):
You know.

Speaker 3 (03:58):
We couldn't hold Zev for month, you know that, And
even when we.

Speaker 4 (04:02):
Did, it was so touch and go. You know, Zev was.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
Going through so many different ups and downs and highs
and lows, and we just kept holding on to that
hope that whatever came next, we could walk through it.
And when we were there, you know, on one of
his worst nights, that was when we sort of decided
we're going to create the place that you know, there's
so much narrative in the Nicku around what could happen,
you know, what would happen to your children, you know,

(04:27):
your child, your children being hooked up to all these
things and all these different outcomes that can.

Speaker 4 (04:31):
Feel really scary and lonely.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
And what we're doing with for those is telling a
new story around extreme prematurity. We are saying, hey, however
this road goes, you're not alone, and when you come
out of here on the other side, we're going to
be here to walk you through it and to catch you,
to help provide that same hope, healing impossibility through for those,
you know, through our programming, we do you know, a

(04:55):
nick You family day out every year, which is basically
like a mini fair. You know, there's a train and
ponies and petting zoos and face painting and all these
fun things for kids. Because what we found was Zev
after all this impossible narrative, to watch him do these
really incredible little kid things, you know, it just brought
so much healing to us as his parents.

Speaker 4 (05:16):
We had made it through such a hard season.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
We're here to celebrate that with other families, to provide
memories and these wonderful places for them, where the whole family,
siblings included, to live out the big story after the
niqu And then for parents. You know what we found
when we came out is where do we put all
these feelings that we had, these highs, these lows.

Speaker 4 (05:35):
It's emotional whiplash in there.

Speaker 3 (05:37):
You know, how do we sort of give these parents
a place to heal too, to say we've been through
this big journey, we have fought for our children against
impossible odds. Where can I go to start believing in
a big, beautiful future for myself as well?

Speaker 4 (05:52):
I am.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
On my daughter's first birthday, we took her and we
took lunch to the to the nurses of the NICU,
like we just went back to the hospital. And by
this point, I mean, well, we left the hospital with her.
We were told and you know what, I understand the
medical system, I get it, but they just give you
the worst case scenario. They literally tell you the worst
things that can happen, so your expectations are managed.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
So we leave the hospital being told.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
We don't know she's gonna walk or do any of
these things. And I cannot even tell you how normal
my daughter is, right now. So obviously he's fifteen now,
so obviously none of that panned out. But we went
back and took lunch to the nick You nurses and
two of them started crying. They said, we never get
to see the babies who do better. So it was
like a really for us. It was just a way

(06:36):
to say thank you to the people who are so
important our family. But this, what you're doing sounds like
it's so needed to just be able to get your
questions answered by people who have been through it before.
I mean, what a great thing you guys are doing.
Let's talk about the movie though. Now you're a movie
star too, Stephanie, you're just doing it all.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
Tell me about one forty seven.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
So one forty seven, so the backstory of one forty seven,
that's a documentary that we have about now by.

Speaker 4 (07:05):
Our friends at Farsighted Creative.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
So one forty seven came about when we started for those,
I thought, okay, what can we do to bring attention
to this really the long and hard journey, but the
beautiful journey as well that it is encapsulated in the
nick You And so I thought, okay, so we're launching
for those, how do we bring awareness to this. How
do we raise money for this? And I thought, okay,
I can I can run. That's one thing I can do.

(07:29):
So I thought, all right, why can we do to
make a big splash. I'm going to run one hundred
and forty seven miles one for every day ZEB was
in that NICKU to bring hope, feeling and possibility to
other families who are sitting there saying, I'm sitting in
the valley. I need to know there's a mountaintop somewhere,
you know, and we've you know, I'm willing to go
through that valley to get to that mountain top and
then I want to come back and bring that to

(07:49):
the other people who are going through the hard things.
And so with one forty seven so a year ago September,
I took off. I I had to run one hundred
and forty seven miles over forty eight hours.

Speaker 4 (07:59):
Center friends.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
We've filmed it, community outside the video and stuff like that,
and we created a documentary that tells the story of
both that long, hard run and also the narrative of
the nick you you know, sort of wound up into
it as well. And so what we're doing with the documentary,
it's been around to multiple film festivals here in Colorado.

Speaker 4 (08:20):
We just had a fundraising screening of it and Boulder.

Speaker 3 (08:22):
We brought it home to our community and we're getting
ready to start licensing it out as well. So it's
been so fun to see the movement grow, to see
people hear our story in a new way.

Speaker 4 (08:32):
Through one forty seven, it's been awesome.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
So how can people get involved?

Speaker 1 (08:36):
I mean, how do people find out about you if
they are going through this? How do you bring people
into the fold?

Speaker 4 (08:44):
Well, we're so lucky we have such a big community.

Speaker 3 (08:46):
We still have connections as well with our nurses and
doctors from that time in the hospital. Zev's five Now
he lives a healthy and thriving life as a five
year old, and we do go back and see our
nick You family as well all the time. Gosh, what
a gift our nick You nurses and all the care
team there were to us, and so they spread the
word for us. You can go to our website www

(09:08):
dot for those that's number four t h o SE
dot org.

Speaker 4 (09:12):
You can sign up for our newsletter.

Speaker 3 (09:13):
You can see when you know we'll send up information
when we're doing more screenings.

Speaker 4 (09:17):
Our biggest ask is that if.

Speaker 3 (09:19):
You know someone in the Niku right now, would you
tell them about for them? You know, the whole healing
and possibility that comes from these impossible journeys in the Niku,
these long stays. We're here on the other side to say,
whatever comes next, we're here to get you through it.

Speaker 4 (09:33):
We're here to support you as you go.

Speaker 3 (09:35):
You know, you could just follow us on Instagram too
for those org or on Facebook.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
Well, I love, love love this organization so much. Somebody
and it's Zev right, Zev.

Speaker 3 (09:48):
At Ev And yeah, you can hear our whole story
at the Zev Project. It's a podcast I did after
we got out of the nick you to just tell
a new story. You know, there's all this fear and
a you know, uncertainty about the future. We're here to
just say whatever future comes, it can be beautiful even
in the hard stuff.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
Well, we always had the attitude when we got all
the negative possible prognosis, we were like, look, we're just
gonna do everything we can. Treat her like a normal
kid and just let the ships fall where they may.
Because you can get too caught up and worrying about
what's going to happen or what's not going to happen,
and then that just makes the whole thing worse. I
have put links to everything. I've put links to four

(10:25):
those on the blog. I put the trailer for the
movie on the blog so people can see it there.

Speaker 4 (10:30):
Are you.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
Do you have any showings around like in the Denver
Metro coming up anytime soon?

Speaker 3 (10:37):
Currently not right now. We are still we're getting ready
to license it out. We're just waiting for it to
finish its festival run and then we'll be able to
bring it back to the Denver area. So stay tuned
on our website. Like I said, you can find all
the information there and we'll keep everyone posted on when
you can come and see it.

Speaker 4 (10:53):
It's going to be so fun.

Speaker 1 (10:54):
Well let me know and I will spread the word
for my listeners. And Stephanie Hawser, thank you so much
for coming on the show and for everything you're doing,
Because I know twelve days was the longest twelve days
of my life.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
You were in almost six months.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
I cannot even imagine, but I can imagine what it
must have been like the day you walked out of
that hospital, was zev That feeling is like no other
feeling in the entire world. And that's what I focus
on when I think about the.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
Nick you that day we left.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
That's right, that's right, and I think what you said
was just right. We're all part of this club. We
all know that feeling.

Speaker 4 (11:31):
It is such an incredible moment.

Speaker 3 (11:33):
You know, you've you've gotten through one of the hardest
situations in your life and now we get to provide
through for those the place where you get to.

Speaker 4 (11:40):
Live out that beautiful future out here in the world.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
It's so good, Stephanie, thank you so much for your
time today.

Speaker 4 (11:48):
Thank you. It was so good to be here, all right.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
That is Stephanie Hauser with For those, I put a
link to the Instagram page, the Facebook page, thefour those
dot org page. It's just for the number four those
dot org.

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