Hello. Thank you for coming to our page, and thank you for reading our story.
This is the story of the Chandler & Paisley Skies Foundation…
We are the Hurst family. Our family of six is not your typical family of six. You see, while we have two sets of twins, one of those sets resides in Heaven. This is their story.
After a struggle with infertility, we had successful in vitro fertilization which resulted in Michelle becoming pregnant with twins. We were thrilled to finally be on our way to becoming parents. It was a dream come true. From the day we transferred their precious day 3, 6-cell and 8-cell embryos, we began calling them our Itty and Bitty, which quickly became nicknames which stayed the entire pregnancy.
In September of 2014, we found out we were having a boy and a girl. We could not be happier! It seemed so very perfect. We had names picked out for years, and knew our twins would be Chandler Charles and Paisley Joan.
We were so excited to begin preparing for them. We soon began picking out baby pink and baby blue items for the nursery, and were so thrilled to be on our way to having two precious babies to love.
At 22 weeks, Michelle went to a doctors appointment, and after describing some odd feelings, her doctor decided to check her cervix. Upon doing so, it was discovered that Michelle was 4 centimeters dilated. Michelle was quickly admitted, placed in trendelenburg position, and given medicine to stop the contractions, which were detected on the monitors. These interventions did not help, though, and Chandler and Paisley were born a few hours later.
While viability at that time was not until 24 weeks, the NICU was one of the best in the state, and made efforts to save the babies. Both babies were able to be intubated, and were little fighters. Chandler was born weighing 1 pound 5 ounces, and Paisley was only 14 ounces. The NICU did everything they could, but the following day, Paisley entered Heaven. A few hours later, in the early morning of the following day, Chandler followed his sister. We will forever be grateful to the doctors and nurses who worked so hard to save our babies and some of these nurses have become life-long friends whom we love dearly.
Needless to say, we were heartbroken. The loss of a child is a pain that no parent should ever have to experience. Our lives were forever divided into a before and after. The grieving process began in October 2014 and is something we continue to live with daily.
Shortly after our babies passed away, friends began to send us pictures of brilliant pink and blue skies. These pink and blue skies reminded all of us of Chandler and Paisley. Soon, these skies became known as #chandlerandpaisleyskies, and still to this day, years later, our friends and family still show us so much love in posting and sending pictures of brilliant pink and blue sunsets. There are honestly no words that can describe how we feel when we are sent or see posted pictures of these skies.
Once we began to emerge from the deep fog of sadness, we knew that what we wanted more than anything was a way to keep Chandler & Paisley’s memory alive, and to bring meaning for their lives. From there grew the idea of this Foundation. Given so many people recognized the pink and blue skies as Chandler & Paisley Skies, the idea for the name of this foundation was born. In fact, the nurse who helped deliver our babies was the one who helped develop the name we have today.
And that is Chandler & Paisley’s story, and the story of the Chandler and Paisley Skies – A Foundation for Itty Bitties