From NICU to nonprofit: How one mom is bringing bunny-shaped
Caroline Bentley Noble always enjoyed sewing and crafting. She just never envisioned how much it would help her – and others.
In the fall of 2023, Noble was pregnant with twins. After experiencing a premature rupture of membranes (when the water breaks before the 37th week of pregnancy), she was put on hospital bed rest to keep the babies in utero as long as possible. When her grandmother brought Noble a stuffed rabbit upcycled from a bandana, a cuddly idea was born — and soon were her twins Paisley and Jaxson, who arrived on Dec. 16, 116 days before they were expected. Paisley weighed 1 pound, 5 ounces; Jaxson was 1 pound, 4 ounces.
Instead of the diaper changes and feedings parents of full-term babies usually experience, Noble found herself with lots of time on her hands. The twins would be at the Kentucky Children’s Hospital neonatal intensive care unit for months, and Noble needed something productive to do. Enter the bunnies. A lot of bunnies.
“I am very passionate about making sure I can give someone a token of my gratitude, which pales in comparison to what they’ve shown me with my children,” Noble said.
Noble began crafting custom stuffed bunnies for the KCH staff who were so attentive to her children. Under the banner of Bunnies for Babies, she coordinated with friends to source fabric and make a bunny for every member of the NICU staff. Once they were covered, she began making bunnies for her fellow NICU parents. And then bunnies for the NICU babies. Now, with her nonprofit Lucky in Kentucky, she wants to get any patient who needs one a cuddly companion. Since December of 2023, nearly 500 bunnies have been gifted.
Paisley came home after 159 days in the NICU; Jaxson logged 165 before he came home. But the connection to UK Healthcare continues.
“From every moment of everything that has happened, every person that entered my or my children’s hospital room, has been there to help in a genuine, honest, caring, respectful way,” Noble said. “It’s awoken something in me, a desire to be able to spread that kind of feeling to anyone who will possibly listen to me for five minutes.”
