Both would have benefited from a special room called an Angel Suite, instead of having been in a traditional birthing room and next to mothers delivering healthy babies.
Nicole was in a birthing room at Mercy Health-Fairfield Hospital and could hear a mother in labor in the next room, just moments after she delivered her child.
“Something like the angel suit would have been so crucial and so needed for me, for mental health while it was happening and afterward,” she said. “It’s very triggering, even after. I still remember things that are so vivid about that day.”
The Campbells found out Nicole was pregnant in May 2019, and they were excited to be first-time parents. It wasn’t until the second trimester, though, right at week 13 of the pregnancy, that Nicole experienced things that contradicted normal pregnancy symptoms.
These symptoms required multiple doctor appointments a week, including ultrasounds, and though they could detect a bleed, Hayden was still thriving. They found out they were going to have a girl at week 16, but three weeks later, Hayden’s heartbeat could no longer be detected. Nicole was immediately admitted (Mercy Fairfield) and was induced.
Hayden Ray Campbell was born stillborn.
During Kelsey’s pregnancy with Crue, she said she showed signs of preeclampsia at about 20 weeks. She was closely monitored by the doctors at UC Medical Center, but by week 24, it turned worse. Kelsey was hospitalized with severe preeclampsia, and her blood pressure continued to rise despite multiple medical interventions. Her brain showed signs of swelling. The medical team was forced to deliver.
Crue Corbett Hambrick was born on Dec. 9, 2019, by way of an emergency C-section. But after battling multiple brain bleeds and NEC, Crue died on Dec. 18, 2019.
Both Nicole and Kelsey went on to have another child, Nicole, her second, and Kelsey, her third.
The Campbells and Hambricks shared experienced brought them together to create the Hayden and Crue Project, which started out offering Care Kits, which included items mothers may have forgotten in the rush to get to the hospital. But through Kelsey’s connections with the Tri-Health the non-profit organization took on the task of this need.
The Hayden and Crue Project is funding the construction of this first-of-its-kind Angel Suite in the Cincinnati area. They are on their way to have an Angel Suite constructed at Good Sam Hospital in Clifton, a Cincinnati neighborhood, but they are waiting for items on back order to be delivered.
The Angel Suite room is a re-designed patient room, so there was no major construction, said TriHealth spokesman Thomas Lange.
“The room provides some distance from the traditional post-partum wing, so parents who just lost their child will have some distance from the sounds of newborn babies.
Heading into its third year, the Hayden and Crue Project is well ahead of where the Campbells and Hendricks thought they’d be by the end of 2022.
“We knew we wanted to grow this, and we envisioned where we are now, not until your fifth year of our five-year goal,” Tony said.
Kelsey said the project was still trying to find its niche and its direction, and “then this came along and it was a perfect opportunity.”
The Angel Suite won’t look like a hospital room, but all the medical hidden and machines will be hidden. It will also have something called a cuddle cot, which is like an incubator but will preserve the baby after it passes “so it will give families more time with the baby.”
While these experiences remain just as difficult today for Nicole and Kelsey, and their spouses, the long-time friends have established a legacy in the name of their children. And to continue the mission of the Hayden and Crue Project, they have created the Forever Young Gala, an upscale gala where all proceeds will further fund the project. Already, 240 have registered for the Delta Marriott in Sharonville.
This gala will help them create more Angel Suites, or at the very least, be consultants to hospitals looking to establish these suites.
There are around 21,000 babies are stillborn in the United States, which is one in every 175 births, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is not rare, but something people don’t talk about, said Kelsey and Nicole.
“I could tell you with 100% certainty that your neighbor, your grandma that just doesn’t talk about it, your aunt, your cousin, the person that sits beside you at your job every day, they know someone or they have gone through something like Nicole and I have,” said Kelsey. “And it’s the one thing that’s not talked about, and I think it should be. People just don’t shed light on just how traumatizing this.”
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