Meet our handsome little superhero Fred!

Fred made a speedy entrance into the world on the 9th December 2020, unexpectedly at 6 and a half weeks early.

After a terrible birth experience, our premature bundle of joy spent his first 15 days in NICU during this time we had many ups, downs, taking one step forward and two steps back. No two days were the same! It was even harder as it was during COVID, we couldn't spend any time together with Fred, until we were able to bring him home on Christmas Eve, tube feeding. It was the best Christmas present we could have ever wished for.

We will forever be grateful to the Neonatal unit at Ipswich Hospital for all the care, love and support they gave not only Fred, but us too.

It was then our journey really began! As Fred was growing and getting stronger and stronger, we were doing all the 'first time parent' things with him to help him with his development, but it wasn't long before he wasn't meeting the 'milestones', so we decided to get him seen early for his 1 year review and thank goodness we did! As from then Fred was put under many different medical professionals, he had scans, tests and many appointments!

At 14 months old our little Fredbear was diagnosed with Suspected Quadriplegic Cerebral Palsy. At the time this didn't come as a shock as I had done so much research within the first year of Fred's life.

Today Fred is a very happy, cheeky 4 year old, who loves life, swimming and chocolate buttons! He has a diagnosis of Bilateral Cerebral Palsy with Spasticity, High muscle tone, Global Development Delay, Dystonia and full chromosome deletion of XP22.2 (which is extremely rare and we were told only 3 people are recorded in the world to be missing this)

We would love for our little Fred to have a trike to help him learn to walk, as the motion of cycling is very similar to walking and the repetition will help his muscle memory with this action.

Along side this, we would love the opportunity to take Fred to swimming therapy, which is based in Lanzarote. This is an intensive week therapy in a heated pool with professional physios. The results of people we've seen and read about who have had this is incredible and we would love Fred to experience this.

Any donation for our beautiful little Fredbear is hugely appreciated, every bit makes such a difference!

We're hoping to raise around £5000, for the intensive therapy week in Lanzarote, a specialised trike (which is approximately £1200) and private physio sessions which are £75 for an hour and a half.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read Fred's story. Let's get our little dude on the move!

7.5% of all donations to Tree of Hope in relation to this appeal will be allocated to the general charitable purposes of Tree of Hope to cover our core operating costs.

If we raise insufficient funds, or surplus funds, then the funds will be used, if appropriate, to fund support for our child’s needs in accordance with Tree of Hope’s charitable objects.

If in those circumstances we are unable to use all or part of the funds for the benefit of our child in accordance with Tree of Hope’s charitable objects, then any funds that cannot be used will be transferred to be used for the general charitable purposes of Tree of Hope.