Hello and thank you very much for visiting my JustGiving page.

I will be completing a charity bike ride along the Hadrian’s Wall coast to coast cycle route; a distance of 89 miles from Bowness-on-Solway to Tynemouth in a oner to raise money for QE Gateshead Charitable Funds.

My wife, Jody, and I underwent In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) treatment through the QE Gateshead Fertility Clinic in 2021. This is our way of saying thank you to all of the staff there who perform miracles on a daily basis, and to support other couples receiving IVF treatment; which by it’s very nature, is extremely stressful and full of uncertainty. The level of professionalism, dedication, and friendliness of the Gateshead staff was simply amazing and helped ease our worries. With a million questions floating around our minds, walking into the IVF ward for the first time was very daunting. As we sat anxiously waiting in the corridor, I remember comforting Jody as we sat looking at the pictures of babies on the walls, sent in by previous couples to say thank you to the staff; hoping that we too would be lucky enough to be parents one day. To be told that there was only a 23% chance of success was difficult to accept, and as a couple we had to come to terms with the fact that we may never be parents. With just one healthy embryo and the added complications of COVID, we each mentally prepared ourselves for the worst.

The 23^rd May 2022 was the happiest days of our lives, when we were blessed with the arrival of our miracle baby, Theadora Kelsey. We feel extremely lucky to be parents and honestly can’t thank the staff at Gateshead Fertility Clinic enough for the little addition to our family, which is now whole. We didn’t know this when we were choosing names, but the Greek meaning for Theadora is ‘God given’ which feels kind of apt.

Thank you in advance for your donations and support. Hopefully my skinny pins will carry me across the finish line in Tynemouth around 1800 hrs on Friday 9 September.