MESA, AZ (AZFamily) — A Mesa mother is turning her grief into a gift to help families facing loss.
Kerry Murphy’s son Grant Jr. was born on Nov. 4, 2025, at 8:52 a.m., weighing eight pounds and one ounce.
“He was a big chunky boy,” Murphy said. “Honestly a lot of the doctors didn’t expect for him to make it to the delivery.”
Grant Jr. was born at Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix, but was quickly hooked up to a breathing tube due to complications. He was taken to the NICU unit at Phoenix Children’s but passed the next day. Murphy only got to hold him for a short time.
“I didn’t get to spend a night with him,” Murphy said. “To be able to go to sleep and wake up to still see my baby is something that I’ll never get, so it’s the hardest thing for me.”
During the interview, Murphy was holding a teddy bear containing a recording of Grant Jr.’s first cry, wishing she could be embracing her firstborn son instead.
“This is just everything I have left of him,” she said.
A bookshelf in her home serves as a memorial for Grant Jr. His clothes, toys, pictures, and hand and footprints are all treasured by his family.
“Death should not come before life and that’s sadly something our family had to experience,” Murphy said. “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone in the world.”
Murphy wanted to hold her son for as long as possible. She asked doctors if they had a CuddleCot, but they did not.
A CuddleCot is a device that preserves the body of an infant by using a specialized cooling blanket, giving parents hours and sometimes even days to say goodbye.
“I got my day and a half with him, which is more than I could have ever asked for in the world,” Murphy said.
She doesn’t want other parents to have so little time with their baby. Murphy is raising money through a GoFundMe to donate a CuddleCot to Phoenix Children’s for other parents to use.
“I can’t take away the pain that they’re going to experience. I can’t fix their loss,” Murphy said. “But if I can give a family even a couple more hours with their baby to get that time and those memories to start the grieving process that they need, I’ll do everything I can in the world to do that.”
Her motivation to help is to bring closure to families in honor of Grant Jr., whose first cry she didn’t get to witness for herself.
“I cherish it,” Murphy said of the recording. “I’m so scared of the battery running out that I recorded it on my phone so that I always have it.”
Nonprofits, such as Midnight Mammacitas and Ashlie’s Embrace, have donated CuddleCots to different hospitals across Arizona.
According to Ashlie’s Embrace website, these are the hospitals in Arizona to which they have donated CuddleCots to are:
- Yavapai Regional Medical Center in Prescott Valley
- Valleywise Health in Phoenix
- Banner Estrella Medical Center in Phoenix
- Banner Thunderbird Medical Center in Glendale
- Banner University of Phoenix Medical Center in Phoenix
- Banner University Medical Center in Tucson
- Banner University Casa Grande Medical Center in Casa Grande
- Summit Healthcare Regional Medical Center in Show Low
- Mountain Vista Medical Center in Mesa
- Carondelet St. Joseph’s in Tucson
- HonorHealth Sonoran Crossing Medical Center in Phoenix
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