Like any other parent, Dowagiac’s Elizabeth Williams will do anything to ensure her son, 1-year-old Ryker, has everything he could ever want in life.

Right now, that mostly consists of playing his favorite movie, “Moana,” around three or four times every day on the TV.

The bubbly child, like most boys his age, is a bundle of energy who is constantly in search of new adventures — mostly around the family room.

However, things were not always so idyllic for Ryker and his mother, a native of Dowagiac and a nursing student at Southwestern Michigan College.

Last summer, Williams gave birth to her son seven weeks before his expected due date at Bronson Hospital in Kalamazoo. While she was only in labor for five minutes, Ryker was born at just 3 pounds, 6 ounces — as his mother described, he nearly fit into her hand.

The joys of becoming a mother quickly evaporated, as Ryker stopped breathing almost as soon as doctors delivered him. The newborn was rushed to hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit, where he was hooked up to machines in order to keep him alive.

For the next 37 days, Williams was trapped in what could only be described as a nightmare, traveling between her home and Kalamazoo every day while doctors worked to get Ryker breathing on his own. She would wait for hours at a time just to have a chance to hold her child in her arms in between his treatment, she said.

“The only thing you want for your kids for them to be happy. But this was a situation where I felt like I had no control,” Williams said. “Seeing him in what is basically a plastic box, struggling, was incredibly hard to watch.”

Thankfully, she did not have to shoulder pain of the ordeal on her own.

On top of support from friends and family, Williams was invited to weekly dinners with other parents whose children were patients in the NICU, organized by Parent to Parent of Southwest Michigan, a nonprofit dedicated to helping parents and children with disabilities or special needs, such as children who are born prematurely. Taking place in the basement of Bronson Hospital, Williams said the dinners gave her a space to vent her emotions during a turbulent, where she could celebrate every ounce Ryker gained and pour her heart out about every setback.

“It seems so simply, but no one else can really understand what you are going through, so to have that kind of support system really helps,” she said.

Today, Ryker is as healthy as can be — last time Williams checked, her son was around 20 pounds, which is even heavier than his baby cousin, she said.

Earlier this month, Williams and her family celebrated a very important milestone: Ryker’s first birthday.

Instead of asking her friends and family to shower the child with toys or clothes, Williams asked guests to Ryker’s birthday party to bring money. She intended to use his party as a way to raise money for Parent to Parent, to help to repay the organization for everything its members did support her and her son last summer.

When Williams counted the checks guests had left inside the collection box she put out for the party, she was overwhelmed by the generosity. In just a single day, she had raised more than $700.

“When I saw how much money we had raised, I couldn’t help but cry,” Williams said. “It feels so great to know we can give back to parents who could use the help.”

On top of that, the Gnarly Beard Co., an online beard hygiene business she works for part-time, pitched in as well, donating a $1 of every sale it made in June. The company donated a total of $225 by the time the month was over, Williams said.

Last week, Williams returned to Bronson to hand over a check for $1,000 to leaders with Parent to Parent during its weekly NICU family dinner. The donation will specifically be used to continue supporting the program, in order to make sure that others enjoy the same helping hand as Williams did during her and Ryker’s time at the hospital.

The mother hopes to continue supporting Parent to Parent however she can in the future, including collecting donations for Ryker’s future birthdays — at least until he’s old enough to start asking for what he wants for birthdays.

“We were very, very lucky in our journey,” she said. “We have his health and we are happy. That is more that I could have asked for. If we can help make things better for families who are not so lucky, that is wonderful.”

People interested in donating to Parent to Parent may do so by contact the organization at p2pswmi.org.