Stephanie Jaye

All her life, her dreams were to become a wife and a mother. The simple things that most of us take for granted. She was a beautiful soul with much love to share and she wanted to spread that love to her children. She struggled to become the mom she wanted to be, many tries and many losses but she didn’t give up. Changed everything the doctors told her to change, weight loss, less stressful work, more self care and still the losses mounted. Stephanie suffered from PCOS and she was losing faith that she would become a mom.

She was all about her family and the closeness we shared, the love we had for each other she wanted to pass along.

Finally the time came for her to be a mom in 2022. She was progressing along further than ever before but still the problems were there, high risk and unable to do the normal things most women do, yet she fought hard to make it through this time. Because of Pre-eclampsia her baby boy was coming and he was going to be early, a premie for sure but, she did finally become a mom, and KC was born 11/17/22, 31 weeks and weighed just over 3 lbs. She had finally lived her dream and was beyond excited, beyond happy.

Fast forward to 2023 and Stephanie was pregnant again, this time, expectations were high, but the fear of another loss and with fear of more issues she was super cautious, taking everything day by day. Pre-eclampsia reared its ugly head again and after months of “smooth sailing” she was fighting to keep her baby “cooking” as long as possible but the baby was coming, this time even earlier and even smaller. McKenna was born on 12/14/23 at 29 weeks and weighed 2lbs 2oz, a nightmare to go through once but she had to go through it second time. Now a mother of two she decided she didn’t want to go through this again. She had her boy and girl and was ready to love them as she had always dreamed. Two weeks later the effects of preeclampsia, blood pressure issues and many struggles of her pregnancy, she suffered a CVT stroke, a 5 in a million type of stroke that ultimately took her away, she gave her life to give life. She appreciated the doctors but most importantly, she praised the nurses at Fairview Hospital’s NICU, they became “family“ when KC was born and even closer in the two short weeks after McKenna’s birth.

As of this letter, KC is walking and a very happy healthy boy and McKenna is over 4 lbs, off the cpap and starting to bottle feed.

During the 9 days we spent up at the Neuro ICU with Stephanie, we discovered that she was an organ donor, her last act of selflessness on this earth. A true hero in the eyes of many.

A beautiful Mommy gone too soon. 8/8/91-1/6/24