Camille's story:
On April 11th, 2023, we welcomed our beautiful baby girl, Camille Stevi-Lu Kotack, into the world. Unfortunately, due to an unexplained fetal-maternal hemorrhage, she was born with severe HIE (Hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy). After 6 days in the hospital, striving to overcome insurmountable obstacles, Camille, left us.
Despite the tragic outcome of Camille’s life, thanks to the incredible care Camille received from her nurses and doctors at BC Women’s Hospital, both Mac and I only look back at our time in the NICU with utmost love and gratitude.
Over the 6 days we spent at the hospital, Camille had 14 nurses, and each nurse played a massive part in why we can look back at our time in the hospital with so much love, gratitude, and even joy.
Not only did the nurses take incredible care of Camille medically, but they also ensured her 6 days of life were filled with love and light, and helped keep us (her parents) in the best headspace so we could create memories that would last a lifetime.
Thanks to Camille’s NICU care team, despite the insurmountable obstacles we were dealing with, we were still able to cultivate the environment we wanted our daughter to be exposed to. We got to hold her, dance with her, and sing to her. She even got to meet our 80-pound golden retriever! To this day, it brings us so much comfort that Camille got to hear the sound of her mom and dad’s laughter.
Camille's mission:
Suffice to say, when thinking about how to commemorate and memorialize our daughter, it became clear to us that Camille would want us to focus our attention on further enabling Neonatal Nurse Practitioners to do the incredible work they do.
In celebration of Camille’s first birthday, we have partnered with McGill’s Ingram School of Nursing to start the "Camille Stevi-Lu Kotack NICU Award"
This award will be granted to students within the Ingram School of Nursing who wish to specialize in neonatal and in turn, help foster a strong pipeline of NICU nurses and ensure continued excellence in this specialized field.
To grant this scholarship to future neonatal nurses, we hope to raise $25,000. This is where we hope the strength of Camille’s community (that’s you) will come in!
You can help us reach our goal of starting a scholarship in Camille’s name at the Ingram School of Nursing by either directly donating to her funding page or purchasing Camille’s T-shirt (100% of proceeds will go to the fund).
Camille's (very cool and oh-so joyful) t-shirt
Camille was (and is) the strongest, bravest, coolest, brightest little soul we've ever met. To kick start the funds we hope to raise for Camille's scholarship, we thought it would be cool to create & sell a t-shirt that embodies her qualities & undeniable presence we feel everywhere we go.
Through the help of an amazing designer, Spencer Pidgeon, we created a t-shirt that reminds us of her and the special "place" she now holds in our hearts and so many others.
Camille's Place is technically a fictional "place" but it's also wherever you think it is. To us; her place is in our hearts, in the mountains, by the ocean! She's everywhere.
We hope you love it as much as we do and will proudly rep Camille's shirt and spread the word about her story and cause.