LEHI — A labor of love borne out of a heartbreaking experience is now bringing healing to other families in a similar situation.
It was five years ago that Eliza Yeafoli lost her first child — Harper — nearly five months into her pregnancy.
“I was 19 weeks a long and,” Yeafoli says before becoming emotional. “It just shatters your world, it's just devastation, especially when it's unexpected,” she said.
“She was tiny, tiny, tiny, but she was perfect. Perfectly formed arms, legs, fingers, toes. I could see her facial features,” Yeafoli said of Harper, who weighed just 7 ounces and was 9 inches long.
It’s the memories of that day that motivated Yeafoli and her sisters — Audrey Rock and Jessica Lindquist — to create a charity called Heaven Bound Gowns, which turns donated wedding dresses into burial gowns for stillborn babies.
The sisters have made approximately 100 dresses so far and delivered about 30 to families who have lost babies.
Yeafoli said she wanted these children to have more than the plain white piece of cloth her daughter was placed in.
“Because they are perfect,” she said. “Just because they didn't spend or spent very little time on this earth doesn't mean they don't count or they shouldn't matter.”
Each wedding dress can make more than two dozen gowns for both boys and girls, and the outfits come in four sizes, from 20 weeks to full term.
“This is one of the boy gowns that was made,” said Rock while holding a small garment. Rock also noted the gowns are designed so they can be placed over the babies’ arms very delicately and can be tied or loosened to accommodate different sizes.
All the wedding dresses used to make the gowns are donated, and right now the three women have about 50 of them in storage.
As they unpack them, the sisters say they immediately start to see the tiny gowns appear, picking out beading or details that will be incorporated into a gown.
Yeafoli, Rock and Lindquist would love to make enough of the gowns to one day deliver them to hospitals. While for now they have enough dresses, they’re in need of seamstresses who may want to volunteer their time.
Rock said it “feels really good to know that we are helping” families in that terrible situation.
A feeling Yeafoli echos.
“It's such a sweet feeling to me to be able to provide a service to them.”