Remembering Keigan
March for Babies
STAPLES - If Keigan Ross Rychner were alive today the infant boy would be turning 6 months old on Saturday.
Instead, his family continues to mourn the loss of the little boy they never got the chance to know. He was stillborn on Nov. 1, 2009. Despite their grief, they will honor his memory Saturday as they walk together in the March for Babies 5K benefit walk at Forestview Middle School in Baxter.
Mary Rychner, Staples, looked at a collage of photographs of her son, Keigan Ross, who was stillborn on Nov. 1, 2009. Keigan died in utero as a result of a placental abruption when Rychner was 39 weeks pregnant. Rychner and her family have formed a team, Team Angel Keigan, to walk together in memory of Keigan in the March of Dimes walk Saturday at Forestview Middle School in Baxter.
Brainerd Dispatch/Steve Kohls
Mary Rychner said Team Angel Keigan has 35 adults and seven children walking together to benefit the March of Dimes and that number is growing. They plan to make their participation in the March of Dimes event an annual tradition to remember the little boy who left their lives far too soon. One mile of the 5K walk will be dedicated as a memory walk, with photograph reminders along the way of the babies, including Keigan, who have died. It's what the March of Dimes is for, to raise funds to improve the lives of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality.
Rychner said her family wants to raise funds and walk together to honor Keigan and to help other families so they don't go through what the Rychners have in the past six months.
"I think it's a way of healing for everybody," said Rychner. "He'll never be forgotten."
Rychner lives in rural Staples with her husband Ross and their sons, Mason, 10, and Haiden, 4. She was scheduled to have a Cesarean section on Nov. 2 for their third baby, though they didn't know at the time he was a boy. She was 39 weeks pregnant. On Halloween night Rychner noticed she hadn't been feeling the baby move as he so often had done before. She had to go in to Lakewood Health System the next morning for a pre-operation appointment so she asked if she could have someone check on her unborn son.
Sadly, the baby's heart was no longer beating.
When her regular doctor arrived, after the ultrasound found the baby was gone, she didn't say anything and instead hopped up on the bed beside the couple and hugged them both, said Rychner.
At 3:25 p.m. later that day, Keigan Ross Rychner was born sleeping at 7 pounds, 8 ounces and was 20-1/2 inches long. Photographers showed up from the Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep organization, who volunteer to take photographs of miscarried or stillborn babies for grieving families, and took many photographs that Rychner said the whole family cherishes. The family was able to spend nearly 24 hours with their deceased son, whom they dressed in the outfit they planned to take him home from the hospital, before he was taken away by a funeral home and was cremated.
They later learned that his death was caused by a placental abruption, where the placenta had separated from the uterine wall. It is considered a "silent" placental abruption since there were no signs that this occurred, said Rychner.
While the entire family grieved for Keigan, their 4-year-old son Haiden seemed to struggle outwardly the most. He watched the slideshow of photographs of Keigan taken in the hospital, which was set to music, over and over again. They told him that his little brother was an angel in Heaven with Jesus and read him a children's book that deals with the loss of an infant sibling. Haiden would say many times that he just wanted to hold his little brother "one more time." He would sleep with the small teddy bear that Keigan received in the hospital.
"He would say, 'I hate Jesus. I wanted a brother not an angel,'" Ronnette Smith, Rychner's sister-in-law, said of her nephew Haiden through tears. Smith and her family also spent time with Keigan after he was born. "It was harder to see Mary's and my brother's faces than to look at Keigan. He was sleeping and he was beautiful. ... Mary is strong and they'll make it through this."
"You don't feel any better, you just learn to live around it," Rychner said of the grief. "There are days I want to stay in bed but I've got two kids and a husband."
Rychner said her sister-in-law, Lisa Doucette, formed Team Angel Keigan to walk in the March of Dimes walk Saturday and called Rychner to make sure it was OK. Rychner said she was excited to do it for Keigan.
So far the family has raised about $1,275 for the walk and Lakewood Health System in Staples has offered to match up to $1,000.
"You just don't want it to happen to anybody else," said Rychner. "If there is any way to prevent it, I'd love to be a part of it."
JODIE TWEED may be reached at jodie.tweed@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5858.