March of Dimes Gains in Baby Steps

Justin Cooper was born with his intestines in his chest.

Emily Goodman came into the world with a damaged heart.

Justin made it. Emily didn’t.

Giving life to a child with a birth defect is a devastating experience, say their mothers, Trudy Cooper and Nancy Goodman. A time of great joy becomes a time of immeasurable sorrow.

The women were among guests attending the kickoff breakfast for WalkAmerica, a 10K sponsored by the Orange County Chapter of the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation. Both plan to participate in the April 27 benefit at Fashion Island Newport Beach.

For Goodman, the event marks the 10th time she and her husband, Richard, will have walked on behalf of the foundation, which raises funds for the prevention of birth defects. The Goodmans of Irvine use the annual walk to memorialize Emily, who died 10 years ago when she was 8 months old.

The walk helps ease the painful memory. “My husband and I walk alone. It’s our time to mourn Emily and remember her,” said Nancy Goodman, who has a healthy son, Eric, 8.

“It not only helps us--it helps our friends and family members feel like they’re doing something constructive,” she said. “When people have a child die, no one knows what to do. With the walk, they can sponsor you--send $10, $15, $100--and feel like they’re helping,” she said.

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The event will mark the first time Trudy and Greg Cooper of La Palma have participated in the walk. Their son, Justin, 6, will join them, “maybe riding in a wagon,” Justin said during the Friday breakfast at the Four Seasons Hotel in Newport Beach.

When Justin was born, he “came out blue--a hole in his diaphragm, his intestines in his chest,” his mother said.

“It was a horrible shock. He had his first surgery when he was 4 hours old; and we started to lose him. He was on a heart-lung bypass machine for 10 days, and, through all of the processes required to save him, his heart shifted to one side. He only has one lung; the other didn’t have room to develop.”

Justin, a goodwill ambassador for the local chapter of the March of Dimes, says the best part of being involved with the organization “is being alive.” Life is “good,” he added, dipping a spoon into a bowl of corn flakes.

In the past, the Coopers have participated in fund-raising walks sponsored by Children’s Hospital of Orange County. “Walks are wonderful,” Trudy said. “It’s good to see everybody coming together for the babies.”

Nancy Goodman brought pictures of her children to the breakfast. “You never get over this,” she said of Emily, “but you learn to put it in a place where you can talk about it.

“It creeps up on you sometimes. Recently, I was standing in front of a store that had little-girl clothes in the window, thinking of the girl I’ll never have,” she said. “There I was, sobbing my heart out at South Coast Plaza.

“The walk is the way I can help raise funds for a discovery that will prevent another mother from being in this situation.”

To honor friends who have helped sponsor them over the years, the Goodmans decided to match each of their donations to this year’s walk. “After we sent our letter out, telling friends of our plan, the first check we received was for $500,” Goodman said. “This is great, because Richard and I will match these and then our companies--I’m with Citicorp, he’s CFO for Taco Bell--will match our total donations.”

With 6,000 participants, proceeds from the walk are expected to gross about $500,000, said Lynette Carlucci, executive director of the Orange County Chapter of the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation. “We have over 130 corporate teams participating,” she said.

Proceeds will be used for national research projects and Orange County programs that include Babies and You, a pre-pregnancy and prenatal plan for the workplace, and college programs such as “Risky Business: Drug Babies Don’t Need to Be,” “Birth Defects: Heredity vs. Environment,” and “Crossroads” about teen pregnancy.

Each year, 250,000 babies are born with birth defects in the United States. For information on WalkAmerica in Orange County, call (714) 263-1100.