When Mike and Jennifer Richwalsky were expecting their first child, they focused on such things as naming the baby and deciding on a color for the nursery.

It never occurred to them, Mike said, that they might have a premature baby who would spend weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit at Hamot Medical Center in Erie.

The care their son, Evan, got there six years ago is part of the reason Mike last year got involved in what was known as WalkAmerica and raised the most money of any individual in Crawford County.

“We just wanted to participate in the walk; it’s something important to me, to us,” he said.

Last year, when March of Dimes staffers called to thank him for raising so much money, he told them why the payback effort was so important to his family.

Their reaction was to ask the Meadville couple to be this year’s ambassador family for the newly-renamed March for Babies, the key fundraiser for March of Dimes, with money used for research, education and prevention of birth defects and of premature births.

This year, Jennifer joined in the fundraising and reached her goal of $500. Mike hopes to raise $1,500. He’s already past the $1,100 mark with a couple of weeks to go before March for Babies on April 27.

Recalling the days before Evan’s birth, Mike said the idea of a premature baby was mentioned in the prenatal class. But they never thought it would apply to them.

However, Jennifer developed preeclampsia, a condition which threatens the lives of the expectant mother and the unborn baby by affecting the organs and blood flow in both.

The doctors admitted Jennifer to the hospital on a Thursday in January 2002 in hopes that they could delay the imminent delivery — possibly for at least no earlier than St. Patrick’s Day. Complications continued and they hoped she could wait until Valentine’s Day.

The following Monday, Jan. 21, they told Mike to “go to work; nothing is going to happen today.”

However, when Mike called Jennifer from work at noon, he was told to get there immediately — they were taking Jennifer to the operating room to deliver the baby.

Born nine weeks before his due date, Evan weighed only 3 pounds. He spent 33 days in the Hamot neonatal unit where the staff used the latest technology to treat him.

“It was really scary. We were brand-new parents, not knowing what to expect,” Mike said.

But tiny Evan had the best of care, according to Mike, who has nothing but praise for the physicians and nurses at Hamot.