Only on ABC-7: Family heals loss by sharing experience

— to find and fight the causes of prematurity… the number one killer of babies. i talked to one of the event’s biggest supporters — about their motivation: nats: the spohn family is happy bunch. nats: but it took time to reach this point. 28 our daughter was born in 2006 while stationed in germany. weren’t aware of birth defects until a few hours after she was born. problems with little julia lani’s heart and spleen unable to be fixed — for all four months she was alive. 1.50 it was a rough day, that day. the doctors tried to do everything, but it came to the point of, “ok you’re the parents, we’re doctors but we can’t make this decision if we want to keep your daughter in a comatose state for so long, or you want to say goodbye. 2.06 they unplugged the chest tubes and we said our farewells. 2.24 a difficult time made easier with mom wendy’s journal — now a book. 9.15 the day we had to pull her off life support was a difficult one. her funeral was difficult. those things would haunt me. 9.23 as soon as i wrote them down, they were purged. and they left me alone. they didn’t haunt me anymore. but they made it into my book. so they didn’t go away. 9.37 their mourning — funneled into charitable acts. they’ve organized “team julia lani” in the mar of dimes’ annual “march for babies” ever year since 2008. 3.00 doing the march of dimes, we realized that her life didn’t end that day, her life on this planet ended. but her purpose in life just began. 3.10 and their family’s grown since julia’s passing, too — their 5-year-old daughter, elena — who mom calls their “rainbo baby.” she, her big brother 11-year-old lukas — all embrace julia’s memory. 10.37 the pain never really goes away, but when you can share it with others, it keeps her memory alive, she’s with us all the time. 10.46 / you can join team julia lani — or kvia’s team– at the march for babies! we have a link to the website on kvia.com under “links mentioned.” the march for babies is on saturday at the fountains at farah in east el paso. registration is at 7 and the walk is at 8. we’ll be right back after the break ..