From the moment you see a positive line on a pregnancy test, your pregnancy journey starts, the exquisite joy, making plans and dreaming the dreams.  As midwives we are proud to support women become mothers and couples become families.  We witness the precious, miraculous and life changing moments that comes with holding a new baby in your arms.  As midwives we are still there when sometimes the joy becomes sorrow and the dreams become nightmares.  Caring for women and their partners when a baby dies is both challenging and our greatest privilege and it never gets easier.  The death of a baby is not a rare tragedy.  Everyday in the UK around 14 babies die before, during or soon after birth.  That means nearly every two hours a family is- faced with the devastation of the death of their baby.

Maëla, Victoria and I trained as midwives together, bonding us for life, but we had no idea what life had in store.  Whilst, as a specialist trauma and loss midwife I have professional experience of baby loss, both Victoria and Maëla, both specialists in their own field, have personally endured the heart-breaking loss of a baby. I am in awe of their ability to put one foot in front of the other, let alone return to work and continue to compassionately care for and feel joy for others becoming new parents whilst growing around their own grief.

So when they asked me to help organise some fundraising how could I refuse? SANDS work tirelessly to provide support to families, training to professionals and contribute to much needed research, reducing the number of little lives lost.  If Victoria and Maëla can continue to put one foot in front of another in their darkest hours then I will do the same.  That is how we now find ourselves training for a mammoth event next year to walk continuously for 100km in the Cotswolds, right through the darkness and into the daylight.  They’ve got this in the bag…as for me, I’m not so sure!!!

If you feel able, please support us on our madwives adventure by donating what you can.  Training starts in earnest in February 2022 but we’ve already had a few ‘tester’ walks which have involved being chased by cows, lost in corn fields and falling through hedges.  Stay tuned for more pics and updates.

From our hearts and (soon-to-be-tired) soles – thank you

Jo, Maëla & Victoria xxx