2012 SPECIAL SCARS FAMILY WEEKEND GETAWAY

We are very pleased to announce that our first Family Weekend Getaway is coming up in August and will be in Nashville, TN! We changed the location and hotel to make it more accessible to the majority of our group members.

The hotel is Club Hotel, Nashville, TN, and the dates are: Thursday August 2nd – Sunday, August 5th, 2012. This event is being held strictly to get together as families and get to know each other. We will relax, play, swim, and have a good time. There will be no fund-raising or other scheduled events (other than a group dinner!). It’s all about connecting up, sharing stories, and enjoying company. Families are also totally welcome to go out and explore the sites in Nashville.
http://www.clubhotelnashville.com/
Phone: (615) 883-0500
2435 Atrium Way, Nashville, TN, 37214

To make reservations with our group (there is no discount unfortunately) just call the hotel directly and ask for a room in the Special Scars group. We have rooms blocked off for our group and they will be held until July 2nd. After July 2nd they will be released back to the general public, so book your room soon!

The hotel has an outdoor pool, indoor Jacuzzi, free hot country-style breakfast, airport shuttle service, coffee & tea in the lobby daily, free wi-fi and other great amenities. The rooms are approximately $85 a night, but please contact the hotel or a travel website as prices do vary and sometimes there are even better deals to be had!

We are looking forward to seeing everybody and having a great time!

For any further questions please email me, Christie Collbran, Event coordinator, at: christie@doulachristie.com.

 

Introduction:
My name is Christie Collbran, and I’m the Event Coordinator for Special Scars ~ Special Women. I’m a mother to a 5 year old little boy (my SS baby) and I just recently gave birth on April 15th, 2012, to my second little boy! It was a beautiful, and successful home, vaginal birth! I gained an enormous amount of strength from this group, which helped me on my path to achieving the birth I wanted.

I’m a Certified Doula, and also training to be a Certified Childbirth Educator. I have a strong passion to help women achieve a natural and intervention free-birth, and especially in supporting those who are working towards a VBAC.

I have been involved in organizing and coordinating various events and parties of different kinds for the past few years, and it is something that I enjoy. Therefore I volunteered to be the Event Coordinator for our group and I look forward to helping achieve our goals with many successful gatherings, and conferences in the future.

A Quick Note About the 2012 Trust Birth Conference

Wow! What an experience! I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to go to that conference. I learned so much. Even better, I was able to share the truth about Special Scars with SO many! I had a whole hour and a half session Saturday morning that I got to talk to about 10 birth workers about Special Scars. It was wonderful! I enjoyed being able to share our stories. I can't wait to do it again, which I will get to do in June at the monthly Birthworkers of Central Ohio meeting. Yay!

A Note From Our Treasurer

I'm Amy, the Treasurer for Special Scars~Special Women, Inc.  I'm a single mom of two.  Graham just turned four and is my SS (special scar) baby.  He was a face presentation and was born by inverted T incision.  Stella is currently 20 months and is my HBAC (homebirth after cesarean) baby.  I am a Stroller Strides franchise owner, I help moms get back in shape after having their babies and I'm also training for a marathon that I plan to run Labor Day weekend.

As a former doula and childbirth educator, I have a passion for cesarean prevention and VBAC support, especially for SS moms that wish to VBAC.  I love my work with Special Scars because even though I'm not actively working as a doula or childbirth educator, it allows me to continue to support women who have had unusual cesareans.  I also have a financial background as a former accountant at a CPA firm so I enjoy preparing our financial statements and tax return.

We incorporated last June so this is the first year that we are preparing a return as a non profit organization.  As a non profit we rely on donations for funding.  These donations allow us to do things like create scholarships to help someone attend the Special Scar Family Weekend Getaway in the fall, distribute informational fliers at birth conferences in order to educate providers so they may help SS moms VBAC and hopefully will help us fund better Special Scars studies.  We also sell Special Scar key chains to help raise money for our organization.  We would greatly appreciate any donations so that we can continue to provide information and further educate others on Special Scars.

If you have found Special Scars to be helpful to you, please consider making a donation or purchasing a key chain to show your support for our organization.  If you would like to make a donation please do it through our website here on this home page.  On the right, you will see a PayPal link for cash donations and below the opportunity to purchase a Special Scars key chain.  All donations are tax deductible because we are a non profit organization.

We would like to thank everyone that donated to our cause in 2011.  This money helped us to pay the fees required to incorporate and we greatly appreciate your help.

A Note From Our Secretary

Hello All!

My name is Jade, and I’m your Special Scars secretary. I am a very busy mom to two- a 7 year old girl born by classical cesarean, and a 4 year old boy born by low transverse cesarean. On top of raising my kids (one of which has special needs) I am also attending school full time to become a registered nurse and helping out when needed with Special Scars.

I enjoy my work with Special Scars very much, and was excited when Jessica brought me on as a board member. There are six of us now, and I am developing a friendship with each of the women. I am sad that we have each had to walk the road we have in obtaining our special scars, but am so happy that our scars have brought us together and have made us stronger. Nothing excites me more than seeing a successful VBAssC to a woman who wants it- and I cannot wait to one day be counted among the success stories!

I am excited about this group & what it does for women. Five years ago, I was pregnant with my youngest and having secret dreams of laboring at my house until it was too late for a cesarean. Unfortunately, it did not happen that way and he was born by “emergency” (doctor emergency, not true emergency) cesarean. He was so well engaged that he was born with a “cone head”. I did go into labor with him, but it was picked up on at a doctor’s appointment and I was told to stay. I did not know then what I know now. If not for this group, I would not have been armored with the knowledge to research my options, and probably would not be planning on having any more children as I did not want to subject myself to another unnecessary cesarean. I have heard many times from women who say that they would not be having more children if they thought that there were no other options than major abdominal surgery for birth. I am so glad that the word is being spread and catching fire among the birthing community- and so honored to be a part of it!

~Jade

Special Scars Stats for 2011

Happy New-ish Year!

Sorry it’s taken so long to get this post up, it’s been a busy month here at Special Scars!

We started the New Year off right with an amazing UBAC after a preterm inverted T on New Year’s Day! Sweet baby boy was born into the hands of his mama and daddy at home after a great labor. Mama and baby are perfect, what a rock star!

In other news, we are very excited to announce that the national ICAN blog will be dedicating an entire week on our organization to help raise awareness of Special Scars and Special Scar VBACs. During the week of February 4th- the 10th please visit this link: http://blog.ican-online.org/ for even more birth stories and articles about Special Scars!

And finally, we want to share our official 2011 VBAC stats from our group.

• VBACs after inverted T: 9
• VBACs after preterm classical: 5
• VBACs after other special scar (low transverse with vertical tears): 2

A handful of our mamas chose repeat cesareans for their births, and there were no CBACs this year, meaning every mama who went for the VBAC, got her VBAC!  :D

We are very excited to see all that 2012 brings, and thanks for all your support for the mothers we serve. :)

October Update

The survey (link below) will be open for as long as long as this website exists.  The information will need to be continually update as time goes on.

Holy crap, we just lost another two months!

I am terribly sorry for not updating the site. My mother had a bilateral lung transplant on August 6th and she occupied the majority of my attention for the month of August. She is recovering well and hopefully will be going home soon.

I have begun a simple survey of Special Scars mommas. I hope to have some studies done on Special Scars, this is the starting point. Which leads me to another place where fund raising money is going to go - a 2 drawer locking fire-proof filing cabinet. I saw one at Staples for around $400, so that is our goal.

June was so busy, it just flew right by!

At the end of May, I finished the Articles of Incorporation as needed by Ohio.  They were then mailed around for signatures and then to the state for approval.  They were accepted on June 24, 2011.  Hm, that is my first VBAC baby's birthday.  Coincidence?  I think not. We are finally done with government paperwork until tax time.

I started a PayPal account just for Special Scars, there is a Donate button on the right.  Feel free to donate to our fabulous organization!  The majority of our donations will go to scholarships for the Family Getaways and the conferences and whatever other expenses are necessary for the conferences.

Announcing the 2012 Special Scars Family Weekend Getaway

The Getaway will be at Great Wolf Lodge in Kansas City, Kansas!  This Getaway is for women who have a Special Scar and their families to step out of everyday life and spend some time with other women who also have a Special Scar.  Take a look at the Events page for more information.

Donation Update

I have now received enough money to file the Articles of Incorporation with the Ohio Secretary of State!  Will be filing that paperwork by the end of the month.

Big News!

To further my relatively huge goals for this group, I am in the process of creating a nonprofit organization for it.  If you would like to donate a few dollars to help get the legal paperwork filed I would really appreciate it!  You can send it to my PayPal at Jessica @ jessicas-haven.com.  I will be getting the organization it's own bank account and PayPal account once all the paperwork is filed.  One very generous member already donated $50 to be put toward the legal paperwork.  I still need $75 to file the Articles of Incorporation and $50 to open the organization's bank account.  I do not know yet how much it will cost to file the 501(c)(3) paperwork with the IRS.

Oh, I almost forgot!  My first article on Special Scars will be published in Whole Woman magazine on the first of June.