Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

My story....

There is always a personal story behind a charity event and ACTive 4 Rosie has been organised following on from my story.  It is part of a journey and is certainly very much for a reason!

In 2012 I gave birth to my beautiful angel daughter Isabelle who was born sleeping at 38 weeks.

Words can never ever really explain how Isabelle's stillbirth affected me and my family but I shared my story in 2015 and through grief and immense heartache, I have found a need to want to continue to do something positive out of such devastation and in wanting to keep her memory alive.

In 2015 I shared my story for love and support of raising awareness and funds for a charity who supported me through the very early days of my grief.  In 2017 it is now in tribute to Isabelle that ACTive 4 Rosie has been organised and in Isabelle's memory being at the very core of this event, but also to celebrate life and family.

WHY ACTive 4 Rosie?

There is important and amazing place for whom I would like to say a personal thank you to for all their support.  An amazing place with fantastic people who were part of my journey and who also deserve support and recognition for all they do.  This special place touches the hearts of many other families and lives in Cambridgeshire and beyond, and there are also many other personal stories and reasons.

The Rosie Maternity Hospital in Cambridge was a huge part of my life from 2009 - 2013.  In 2009 I gave birth to my first born son who was born prematurely by emergency C-Section at 31 weeks.  My husband and I spent 5 weeks in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and the Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU) and our life became lived within the Rosie Maternity Hospital.  I will never forget the amazing teams of midwives, nurses and carers who looked after my tiny baby boy and all those who supported us in the time we spent there.  Through total shock, teams of people helped my husband and I learn how to care for out tiny baby and how to help him with all the surrounding and extremely scary equipment helping him to breathe in those very early days of life.

I will never forget my bereavement midwife, and the bereavement team who were there and the amazing midwives on the delivery unit when I gave birth to Isabelle sleeping.  You never forget a face!  You never forget a name!  You never forget a minute!  Through all the sadness and devastation at the time I was in the Rosie Hospital, the care, love and support that I received from everyone, well that has never been forgotten.

I won't forget the specialist teams, midwives consultants, doctors, nurses who all cared for me through my most fearful third pregnancy with Esme.  Through this pregnancy I spent hours and hours at The Rosie Hospital being monitored by specialist teams.  When I needed to go to the Rosie to hear my daughters heartbeat just because I needed to so desperately hear and see that her tiny heart was still beating, I could do this and at anytime.  I went there and this was never questioned but always encouraged with so much care and understanding.

The Rosie Maternity Hospital is a specialist maternity hospital caring for babies quite often from across the UK.  The Hospital provides specialist neonatal intensive care and surgical care.  Having spent time in the neonatal unit I saw how the unit received referrals for the most critically ill neonatal babies within the East Of England and where necessary from outside of this region.

Every Parent hopes that their babies will be healthy yet sometimes problems arise that require a new-born to be admitted to NICU - being born prematurely, having a difficult delivery or antenatal concerns and then sometimes the un-thinkable, unexpected and unimaginable happens with a baby's loss.

The care given to a baby and families is often intensive in the Rosie and the doctors, midwives, nurses and other health professionals reply on some of the latest equipment to help ensure the best possible outcomes.  It is expected that the NHS should or can provide all of this equipment but some just goes way beyond what the NHS will ordinarily be able to fund and I have seen this.

It is through Addenbrookes Charitable Trust (ACT) that ACTive 4 Rosie aims to support the Rosie Maternity Hospital in ways that can enable the purchase of life-enhancing and life-saving equipment and support improvements directly within the hospital that can help make a huge difference to families and patients lives.  Support providing equipment that can support midwives in the work that they do day in and day out, to be sure that a baby can be cared for in the best possible way.

Equipment such as a video laryngoscope.  There is often a need to intubate sick babies.  Intubation is the insertion of a tube into the windpipe which then serve to maintain airway.  It can be challenging to insert these tubes and using a tool called a blade guides the tube into the correct location but this is only done on feel and not sight.  Intubation needs to happen quickly.  Repeated incorrect attempts can cause soreness of the throat or damage to the vocal cords of sometimes irreversible damage to speech.  The video Laryngoscope resolves these issues.  It is a tiny video camera which live-streams the image to the cot-side screen.  These camera are £4,500.

On delivery unit there are two rooms which are the bereavement rooms in which mothers have to give birth to their sleeping babies.  Careful consideration of an environment that families are placed when they loose a baby is something that is so important and that the hospital wishes to improve.  Funds raised for the Rosie Maternity Hospital can support this.

There is so much that additional funds can do and so it is with much appreciation and with huge love and thanks that you have taken the time to read this and I thank you from my heart for your support and sponsoring me participating in ACTive 4 Rosie.

Wish me luck for the event and completing the 4 hour marathon.  Looking forward to it!

Thank you,

Amelia X