As hope grows, our children grow.

Joanna is a wall. Not one that divides, restricts or creates borders, but one that supports, protects, reassures, stands tall in the wind and storms.

Today is Giving Tuesday, an initiative organized as part of the International Day of Generosity! For the occasion, members of the public are invited to make the lights glow on Sainte-Justine’s Tree of Lights. If we reach 10,000 lights by the end of this special day, Videotron has pledged to donate $10,000

Her parents call her “Charlie the Warrior Princess.” She was already a fighter before she came into the world. 

Every year, more than 2,000 parents end up at Sainte-Justine, caught up in the whirlwind of a premature birth. State-of-the-art technology, the expertise of the team of medical professionals and lots of love are the keys to survival.

As a parent, you are never prepared to hear there is something wrong with your child. I didn’t have the tools to process the news. Neither did my wife. And yet today, six years later, when I look at Éli-Noam and I step back to see the big picture of how our family is getting along, I have to say I’m extremely proud of how far we have come. 

They are young, they are lovely, and above all, they are golden-voiced. Though they didn’t know each other just a few short weeks ago, they share a common bond: they each have their own Sainte-Justine story. Ariane, Clémentine and Thierry joined their voices to those of Ariane Moffatt and Martha Wainwright in support of the Love is contagious campaign. 

To see her happily scuttling around, her eyes twinkling with curiosity, you’d never imagine just how far 17-month-old Victoria has come in her short life.

At 6:00 the following morning, the doctor told us we had to go ahead with the birth. “The heart rate of one of your daughters is dropping too much. We could lose her – we have to get them out.”