We are so delighted to welcome baby boy Hirschfield into the world, a much longed-for sibling for our amazing son Jacob.

There have been so many times over the past few years when we thought our miracle baby would never arrive. We feel incredibly fortunate and our joy and love for our precious boy is beyond what we could have imagined.

We have an abundance of beautiful baby items which will be passed down from Jacob to the baby, so in place of gifts we would so appreciate a donation to the charity Chana, a charity which supports families in the community going through the often silent pain of infertility and miscarriage.

Recurrent miscarriage affects 1% of couples and in many cases the causes are still not known despite modern medicine. It is not something we feared beforehand nor thought would happen to us. But it did, and following 9 devastating miscarriages and utter heartbreak, we have welcomed the baby we dreamed of for so long.

The past few years have entailed so much physical and emotional trauma: hundreds of self-administered injections and medications, countless procedures, trips to specialists around the country, multiple miscarriages during the isolation of covid lockdowns, a traumatic partial molar pregnancy, missed miscarriages, heart-breaking scans and the ups and downs of the ivf process.

Life and time came to a standstill as everyone around us moved forward. After each devastating loss or setback, it took every strength of our beings to pick ourselves up and try again. Each time feeling less certain that we would ever be able to have the baby we so longed and ached for. Positive pregnancy tests stopped being a source of joy and excitement and instead invoked fear and an ominous sense of failure. Even the joy of seeing an early heartbeat on a scan was alien to us because we were so used to it disappearing and ending in heartbreak.

Even during this pregnancy, we were given a 70% chance of miscarriage early on due to complications and I was put on bedrest for 6 weeks. However, with the expertise of our amazing doctor, our perfect baby boy has arrived safely.

We have been so incredibly fortunate to have been able to access the best possible medical care at every juncture and to be able to throw everything we could at the various stages of the process. We are acutely aware that many families are not in this position and Chana provides financial and emotional support to couples affected by these issues.

Thank you so much in advance,

Lauren and David x