Donations for a Friend

As regular readers will know, about a year ago I became friends with a group of women from a cooking board we all frequent. In that time we've met up for dinner at local restaurants and also hosted a few ladies lunches at our homes. In that time we've all gotten to know each other beyond just our mutual love of cooking and managed to become good friends.

As I mentioned in my last ladies lunch post, my friend Brooke was on bedrest for her triplet pregnancy. She ended up delivering her babies on June 27 after only 25 weeks and 5 days of gestation, a far cry from full term even for multiples. The babies are all doing great, but they will be in the NICU (neonatal intensive care) until at least October. For more information about the triplets progress please visit their baby blog.

Brooke and her husband, Joe, are wonderful, caring, sweet people. I feel very blessed to have met Brooke and to call her my friend. I feel horrible that they have dealt with so much adversity when it comes to getting, then staying, pregnant. And now that the babies are here there's a whole new crop of worries to contend with.

As you can imagine, triplets are expensive. The girls on our cooking board have gotten together and started a donation project. We will be accepting donations via PayPal and one of the other girls on the board has set up a Chip In page where you can see how many people have donated and how much money has been raised so far. The link will live in my toolbar on the righthand side of the page. If you are able, please click on it and donate what you can. Every little bit helps, even $5. The ladies and I will be getting together on Aug. 9 and I'm planning to give Brooke the first donation check that day.

Even if you can't donate, please continue to keep Brooke, Joe and the babies in your thoughts and prayers. Even though the babies have had a pretty good 4 weeks so far, things can change at any moment.