History of the Program

    Our second child, Katherine Jean (“Kate”) Carmichael, was unexpectedly born still on January 20, 2003 at 38 weeks gestation. Following a very healthy and uneventful pregnancy, we expected to arrive at the hospital on a Sunday night and leave later that week with a healthy baby girl — a little sister for her big sister, Allie. That was just the way things were supposed to be. Our lives changed forever late that Sunday night when the nurses at the hospital could not find Kate’s heartbeat. While it took several moments for the reality to sink in, the truth was that our baby girl, Kate, would not be coming home with us.

    The doctors and nurses were never able to determine the cause of Kate’s death. While we knew that nothing in our search for answers could bring Kate back to us, we hoped that answers to our questions about her loss might help us through a future pregnancy and the grieving process. We journeyed through our grief never finding any conclusive answers to our questions.

    We set up a foundation at Riley Children’s Foundation which supports Riley Hospital in Kate’s name. Since January 2003 donations from our caring friends and family in Kate’s name generated an amazing $280,000. With this funding, we were able to fulfill our vision of establishing a new program specifically for stillborns called the Kate Carmichael Stillbirth Program (a/k/a “Kate Cares”). We began “Kate Cares” to help families find more answers to questions about why their child was born still. Your generous donations made this program possible. Kate Cares is designed to ensure that all babies born still in Indiana will have the opportunity to receive a very thorough and comprehensive analysis and testing to determine the cause of the demise. As a result of Kate Cares, all stillbirths in Indiana will be tested in accordance with standard protocol, and the results from these tests will be analyzed and maintained at a central location to ensure accuracy and consistency in finding answers as to the cause. Ultimately, we hope the data generated through these analyses will develop answers to help prevent stillbirths in the future. Your generous donations made this program possible.

    After two years of meeting with a room packed with dedicated and caring obstetricians, nurses, geneticists, neonatologists, bereavement counselors, administrative assistants, and state leaders on neonatal death, we launched “KATE CARES” on a pilot basis on July 3, 2006 at Methodist Hospital, St. Francis Hospital and Indiana University Hospital. We plan to launch the program statewide in Indiana with the aggressive goal that every hospital participates to ensure every baby and every family gets the care and support they need after a stillbirth. Every donor to Kate Cares has the option of getting a baby’s name that has been affected by stillbirth placed on a Kate Cares plaque at every participating hospital.

    Our goal is to generate funds in the amount of $1.5 million in order to sustain the program and be fully funded in the future. Contact Patti Tehan at ptehan@rileykids.org (317) 634-4474. Riley Children's Foundation, 30 South Meridian Street, Suite 200, Indianapolis, IN 46204 for more information or to make a donation in Kate’s memory. You may simply mail a check to the above address with Kate Carmichael Stillbirth Program noted on your check. To make an online donation please visit KateCares.org and visit the Donate section on the site.

    Ultimately, we hope the answers “Kate Cares” finds for parents can turn into solutions for us all about how better to prevent the loss of precious children in the future. We developed, and remain very dedicated to, the Mission, Vision and Values of the “Kate Cares” program. Of greatest importance, we believe that every baby is to be valued and treated with respect and dignity. We hope that each of you reading this website is happy, healthy and enjoying each precious day of life.

History of the Logo

    Our Logo was carefully created and chosen. We wanted to represent a mother and a baby and create a feeling of the deep bond between a mother and child. However, something was missing. We chose to add a father comforting the mother and baby at a difficult time for all. This tragedy not only impacts the mother, father or partner, and baby--it impacts the entire family, the extended family, neighbors, friends, etc. It certainly impacted not only our immediate family unit...a mother, a father and a sister, but many other family members, friends, neighbors, co-workers and even strangers we had not met. We felt that this logo captured the essence of Kate Cares and we hope you know that this program was created out of deep love for Kate and a desire to help others through this tragedy. We chose pink as one of the logo colors because pink reminds us of Kate...she was dressed in pink, had a pink bow in her hair, had pink roses on her casket, etc. She was a precious little baby girl.

    Please know that someday life will not seem as dark and dull as it might presently. Kate Cares is here to help in whatever way that we can. Someday we hope to find answers so that we can prevent stillbirth from happening. Until then, take care and be good to yourself one day at a time.