Mourning Queens Mom Sends Comfort Boxes To Other Grieving Parents

CORONA, QUEENS -- As families across the country celebrated America's birth on the Fourth of July, the world stood still for Elizabeth Ortiz while she watched her newborn son take his last breath in her arms.

Her son, Ellisander, was born with omphalocele, a birth defect in which organs are outside the baby's growing body. The infant survived eight days before doctors' treatments stopped working.

A lot has happened in the nine months since that day.

The Queens mother, whose lived in Corona her whole life, agonized over how to honor her baby boy's memory while putting on a brave face for her 6-year-old son. She lost loved ones who didn't know how to comfort her, so they instead said nothing at all.

"I couldn't let it drown me," Ortiz told Patch. "I had to pick myself up and figure out a way to tell people, 'You're not going to forget my son.'"

Ortiz found solace in a Facebook support groups for mothers who lost their newborns to birth defects. It was there she realized just how many other parents felt isolated by grief like her. She decided to honor her son's memory by creating a network of support for them.

She's since poured all her energy since into making "comfort boxes" to ship to parents all over the country who have lost their newborn babies to omphalocele or other birth defects. She'll do it all under the name, EllisBearyLoved, in honor of her son.

"It's all because of him," Ortiz said.

Packed inside the boxes will be therapeutic goodies - such as lotions, body scrubs and journaling supplies - along with quotes and songs that helped Ortiz through her own grieving process. Each will be customized with a note for the grieving family and a homemade bracelet, teddy bear and candle bearing their child's name.

"Even though it might not make a huge difference, it might help for them to know someone's there," Ortiz said.

She was paying for the supplies out of pocket when she started, but said people have donated more than $1,300 and supplies for the packages since she launched a GoFundMe campaign in early April. She'll also host a fundraiser at Friends of Firefighters in Brooklyn and use the proceeds to make and ship more boxes.

Ortiz hopes to have the first 25 comfort boxes shipped out to families across the country by June 26, which would have been her son's first birthday.

It's the first step in what she hopes will someday be a full-blown nonprofit to raise awareness of omphalocele while offering comfort boxes and other forms of support to families mourning the death of an infant.

"I want to bring people's attention to it and let people know its okay to talk about things like that," she said.

But for now, Ortiz will have to limit her focus to getting out the first batch of comfort boxes. She's pregnant with twins and she's been working overtime to get them in good shape ahead of her due date two weeks from now.

It's a lot of work, but Ortiz isn't complaining.

"It's a miracle," she said. "I lost my son and then he blessed me with two."

(Lead image: Elizabeth Ortiz's newborn son, Ellisander, just days before succumbing to his birth defect, Omphalocele. Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Ortiz)