As many of you know, on the 25th January 2011, our eldest daughter Amber was born.  She was a simply perfect baby girl, except for the absence of a heart-beat.  Devastatingly, we had discovered 2 days earlier that she had died inside my tummy at 39 weeks, just days before we were due to meet her.

Perhaps naively, we had no idea that stillbirth was still something that happened  - 8 babies are stillborn every day in the UK.  That's about 1 in every 250 pregnancies. This is equivalent to around 2,950 babies dying every year. Our stillbirth rate is currently 24th out of 49 high-income countries.

Amber should now be 12.  I still think of her everyday.  I wonder what (and who) she would look like, what she would be good at, and bad at, and how different our family dynamic would be today had things gone to plan.  Instead of a nearly teenage daughter, and 12 and a bit years of parenting her, we have just a handful of photos and keepsakes to keep our memories of her alive, as well as a fabulous range of family traditions to ensure she is always included and never forgotten.

We choose to fund raise for Tommy's because they carry out amazing research projects (you can read more about them here:  https://www.tommys.org/research/research-topics/stillbirth-research).  We very much hope that one day soon these studies will make a significant impact on the shocking UK stillbirth rate.

Duncan wanted a new challenge this year, and it's a HUGE one.....  During June, Duncan will be aiming to complete RUN BRITANNIA:  LAND’S END TO JOHN O’ GROATS.  That's 1,000 MILES on foot (that's something like 38 Marathons), a 70,000FT ASCENT, all in 36 days.

Please, give what you can, and help us raise some money for a cause as close to our hearts as you can possibly get, and once you've sponsored Duncan - please share Amber's story with your friends, get them to read up on stillbirth and don't be afraid to talk about it.  Awareness alone could be enough to save another family from losing the most precious thing imaginable - their baby.