Our Story

Our journey began November of 2018 when we found out we would be parents to our first born. We had waited so long to grow our family and we couldn’t wait to meet our daughter as we counted down the weeks until her arrival. On June 17th, after noticing changes in our daughter's movement, we went to the doctors for a checkup. On that day, two weeks shy of her due date, we heard the two words no parent ever wants to hear, “no heartbeat“. We were beyond devastated and at a total loss. How could this be happening? What went wrong? There is nothing that can prepare you for this moment. As we walked hand in hand into Cleveland Clinic Akron General to deliver our daughter, it was gut wrenching to know she wouldn’t come home with us. We walked up to the nurses desk trying to explain what was happening, but from the look on our faces they knew right way. From that moment they took these two broken parents into their care and supported us through the worst moment of our lives. On June 18th, 2019 at 11:45 am our beautiful daughter Luna Serafine Gargano entered this world just over 5 pounds and 19 inches long, so still and so quiet. 

Luna was finally here, but would only stay for a moment compared to the life we had envisioned with her. There are no words to explain the pain of losing your baby, knowing you will never hear them cry, read them a story, rock them to sleep or give them a bath. Instead you only have hours to soak in every single detail of your beautiful baby before you have to say goodbye for the rest of our lives. We held our sweet Luna for hours, putting to memory everything about her. With the help of the amazing nurses and doctors, we made memories with Luna through photos by a volunteer who came and took our family pictures and made a mold of Luna's feet and hands for us to take home. Saying goodbye to Luna was the most difficult thing we will ever experience. Your arms physically ache for your baby and you know nothing will ever fill that. Every mom dreams of the moment you are wheeled out of the hospital with your beautiful baby in your arms. To help ease that pain our nurses gave us a weighted teddy bear for me to hold. As we left that day, we were so thankful for the support and time we were able to have with Luna. We just couldn't imagine not having the photos and the molds of her feet or the precious hours we were able to spend with Luna because of the CuddleCot provided by a generous donation. 

As the days and weeks passed after Luna's death, our grief through the milestones was extremely difficult. We not only were grieving our daughter, but we were grieving the memories and life experiences we were so close to experiencing with Luna. We kept thinking of everything we wanted to do with her and we knew we could never have enough time, but we felt compelled to try and be there for others who would experience this terrible loss. So as we thought about the beautiful acts of kindness and support we experienced during our hospital stay and in doing some research, we felt driven to create a space for parents to build memories with their baby before they have to say goodbye forever. We brought our vision and ideas to Cleveland Clinic Akron General who without hesitation partnered with us to design and bring forth The Butterfly Suite, a space for parents and baby(ies) to spend time with each other and build memories to last a lifetime. We hope this will be the first of many suites we help bring to hospitals across Northeast Ohio.

Lastly, we want to thank our family and friends for their continued support. We would not be where we are today without their daily love for our family and our sweet Luna. We’d like to thank the hundreds of people who donated to The Butterfly Suite for their generous contributions. And we owe so much to the amazing support of our team at Cleveland Clinic Akron General of staff, doctors and nurses who helped make this space possible.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts,

Megan & Anthony Gargano