After 9 months of patiently waiting for our little boy to be born, my wife Jackie finally went into labour on 13th August 2016, 9 days late. The excitement we both felt was incredible; I’ve never wanted anything as much as I wanted this little person. After 3 grueling days in labour, without any warning signs, our baby’s heart stopped beating.

Initially there was the shock and disbelief, followed by the heartache at losing someone we had so longed for, and over the course of weeks and months, the realisation that in an instant my whole world had crashed down around me. Suddenly I felt broken and with no purpose.

In that moment when we found out that Jacob’s heart had stopped, Jackie and I felt completely alone. We figured we must be the only couple in the modern world that this has happened to as we hadn’t heard any possibility that this was a potential outcome during the pregnancy. We were left absolutely shocked and devastated to find that this still affects around 1 in 200 pregnancies in the UK. To give that context, that equates to around 3600 babies per year in the UK which is twice the number of people who die in road traffic accidents, 5 times more common than Down’s syndrome and 15 times more common than cot death/SIDS.

What we still don’t understand is how it can take having to go through the pain of losing Jacob before anyone mentioned to us that this was a possibility. This has led us to a passionate desire to raise awareness of how common this terrible tragedy is for 2 purposes: Until we talk about it, we won’t start bringing these rates down; and for others who may find themselves in the horrendous situation that we did it is important not to feel alone – It is unfair enough without having to feel like the whole universe has turned against you.

Since losing Jacob, we have found support in our local Sands group and are really excited about the research that Sands are doing to start bringing these unacceptable rates of stillbirth down. I’ve decided to run a marathon in order to raise funds for Sands research and so any donations that you give will be going directly towards research projects which will save lives and prevent families being shattered.

Jacob, this is all for you little man. It isn’t how I wanted parenting to be, but I hope you can see the impact that you’re having on the world even though you didn’t get the time you deserved. I miss you constantly. Love you always, Daddy x