When Regina Binz was 17 weeks pregnant with her son, Ryan, in 2007 she received terrible news: Her son no longer had a heartbeat.
"You find yourself paralyzed, like the rug and the earth below you was completely yanked out from under you," Binz said. "My blood ran cold."
The stillborn baby had to be delivered anyway. After delivery, Ryan was brought to her and she held his tiny, fragile body wrapped in a hospital blanket. He was so small even preemie clothes were enormous, an indignity that added to the pain of his loss.
"The nurses did their very best, but what he was dressed in was huge," Binz said. "It would have fit a 1- or 2-pound baby, and my baby was ounces and only 7 inches long."
For seven years, Binz has worked to make sure other mothers who have suffered miscarriages or stillbirths have clothing to fit their babies. Her ministry is known as Holy Sews. What started as an Arkansas ministry has now expanded to include chapters across the country, as well as one in Canada.
Volunteers sew layettes and give them to 42 hospitals in Arkansas and many others around the country free of charge. The layettes include a fleece blanket, a hooded wrap and tunic and a knitted cap, as well as a tiny teddy bear and a prayer card. Coming up with a design that would fit such small babies was difficult, but after much trial and error Binz created a tunic that could easily be duplicated.
"I failed many times," Binz said. "I had to remember how fragile and small these babies are."
In 2008 she developed a prototype and while visiting Northwest Arkansas, she and a friend stopped by Mercy Medical Center in Rogers to see whether they would be interested in the layettes.
"As I walked in the door, they had a patient experiencing a loss. She was in labor and the baby was going to die and it was a lightning bolt for me, like I was doing the right thing," Binz said. "From that point on it was like a huge weight was lifted from me. I had a purpose. It was very liberating."
In Little Rock, a group of volunteers meets each month to sew items at Our Lady of the Holy Souls Catholic Church. Other groups, like the Carroll County Extension Homemakers Council, have also contributed by sewing items. The Carroll County group has a special connection to Binz. She grew up in the area and her mother, Sarah Lichti, was a member of the group.
"It makes it a little more special to me," Binz said.
Rosa Thomas, 77, president of the Carroll County Extension Homemakers, said she has sewn more than 100 layettes for Holy Sews. She said sewing the tiny garments took some time to get used to, but it's easy now.
"I can sew up the little wraps in no time, the tunics pretty fast too," she said.
Sue Hammer, a member of the group, said Thomas had shared a pamphlet about Holy Sews with the group. She contacted the ministry for more information, not realizing that it was run by the daughter of her longtime friend Lichti.
After learning more about Holy Sews, Hammer said, she began to realize how many mothers were affected by miscarriages and stillbirths.
"When you tell anyone about what you are doing, they know someone [who has been through it]. I have a friend in Siloam Springs who said her granddaughter had just lost twin babies," Hammer said. "You know how hard it has to be for the mothers. That's what really has gotten to me the most, seeing how important it is."
Binz said the chapter at Our Lady of the Holy Souls has sewn thousands of layettes since the ministry started, and hundreds and hundreds have been made by other chapters. Their goal is to bring some solace to the grieving mothers.
"It's not uncommon for people to bring clothing to the hospital and then have this harsh reality," she said. "They'll show up with preemie clothes and it's a very harsh reality that nothing can prepare you for. We try to make it so you don't have to be prepared for that. It takes a little of the sting out of it. That's really the heart of it."
Binz said she never imagined the ministry would grow so much, but she did realize early on that it would be her mission.
"This is what I'm supposed to do," she said. "It's been truly amazing."
With her job working as a clinical specialist of cytogenetics and caring for her family, Binz spends as much time as she can working on the ministry, buying supplies and supervising workdays, but she doesn't have time to sew. She relies on the many volunteers who help keep the ministry going.
"It's very much Holy Spirit-driven," she said. "I was just the first domino and so many wonderful hands and hearts have come together to make this what it is. The way this is growing, it's not me. It's basically word of mouth. It's not anything I would have ever expected."
Binz said she sometimes receives feedback from mothers and a few have become involved in the ministry.
"More often than not they don't," she said. "This is the sort of grief people tend to keep to themselves, and that's not really helpful at all."
She urges mothers who have experienced the death of an infant to attend the International Wave of Light Ceremony at 6:30 p.m. Thursday on the steps of the state Capitol. Holy Sews is one of many sponsors of the Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day event.
"At 7 p.m. in your time zone, you light a candle for an hour and it makes a wave of light around the world," Binz said.
Participants are asked to bring a battery-operated light instead of a candle.
Information on Holy Sews is available online at holysews.org.
Religion on 10/10/2015