Myself and Martin Wright are preparing to walk the Cheshire Ring in the May/June Bank Holiday this year in memory of my son Theo Crosthwaite. This is a 97 mile walk around a number of canal networks which we plan to complete in 3 days walking over 30 miles a day.

As we progress with our training and planning for this challenge I will continue to update this JustGiving page.

More details to follow soon....

In the mean time please read the below story written by my amazing wife Lou:

On 21st April 2012 Dan and I were overjoyed to find out that we were having a baby. We had already had a miscarriage the previous Christmas so we were understandably nervous but we couldn't wait to become parents.

I loved being pregnant, every second of it, every ache, every headache, every stretch mark and every toilet stop because this baby was going to make us a family.

In October we knew something was wrong and went to Leighton Hospital. We were scanned and told that the baby wasn't growing and putting on weight as quickly as he should be and we were told that we would be closely monitored.

At first appointment we heard a strong heartbeat but the kicks just weren't as frequent as normal. The hospital said that they were happy with the test results and the baby might just be lying funny and we were sent home.

We returned 3 days later and as soon as the monitor was placed on my tummy I knew we had lost our baby. There was silence. Any parent who has lost a child through stillbirth will tell you that the silence they hear is the loudest noise that they will ever hear and the words that follow from the doctor or midwives - "I'm sorry" are heart-breaking.

Minutes turn to hours, hours to days, days to weeks and weeks to months and all of a sudden I am sat here 10 weeks on from that heart-breaking moment when they told us we had lost our precious baby boy, but we don't want his death to be in vain,

Theo was born on 11th November 2012 at 7.27am weighing 3lb13oz. He was physically perfect in every single way so why had this happened, why had this happened to us? Dan and I agreed to a full post mortem conducted by Alder Hey Children's Hospital. As I write this we are waiting for our appointment in February to be told the results, however we might not get any answers as in almost 40% of stillbirth cases the reason for death is still unknown.

We wanted to raise any money we could to go towards the research in to stillbirth so that hopefully more parents can be given the answers that they are desperately searching for but more importantly that stillbirths can be prevented.

We don't blame the hospital or the Doctors or Midwives and I can honestly say that they were amazing throughout our terrible ordeal. My community midwife Carole has been wonderful, not just the care while i was pregnant but also in the care since. The two midwives that took care of me and Dan and our beautiful baby Theo were called Andrea and Michelle and if you are lucky enough to have them deliver your baby at Leighton Hospital you will understand why.

We are going to raise money any way we can. This page has been started because of the generous donations that we received from friends and family in the weeks after Theo's death but we aim to do anything we can because one extra £1.00 donated could save one baby somewhere in the future, maybe even ours !

In memory of our beautiful baby son Theo Crosthwaite forever in our hearts xxxx

 

I wrote a poem for Theo & I shared it with the other stillbirth mums & it's been published on a website xx http://www.breastfeedingmums.com/stillbirth-poems-for-baby-theo.htm

 

http://www.justgiving.com/teams/theostar-cheshirering

 

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