Thanks for visiting my page. I'm raising money for the British Heart Foundation's research and I'd be so grateful for your support. 

Just over 7 years ago, we were blessed with the birth of our beautiful
first born baby boy, Idrees Saleh. He passed away when he was 5 days old because of complications arising from a congenital heart defect called Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, which he was diagnosed with while I was still pregnant. 

Motherhood is the greatest blessing I have ever received and Idrees will always be my most special little one.

Anyone who has met Idrees would tell you, that despite his short life, he was just a very special little baby. With his arrival into our world, he silently took away all our fear, worry and heartache. Getting to meet and spend a little bit of time with him was an incredible opportunity to realise our journey of parenthood. We are forever changed because of his life and although we miss him every single moment, we also realise how very blessed we are to have someone so special in our lives who makes saying goodbye, for now, so hard.

This year he would have turned 8. He has been in our lives for close to a decade and we are planning to celebrate this significant gift we received in a big way. 

What's bigger than the London Marathon? Especially for a decided non-runner like me? 

26.2 miles across the best city in the world; the physical goal of a lifetime aided by the ultimate sense of purpose and fundraising for an incredible cause so close to our hearts.  

The British Heart Foundation funds around £100 million of research each year into all heart and circulatory diseases and things that cause them. Each day, around 13 babies in the UK are diagnosed with congenital heart disease. This means the heart or the large blood vessels surrounding the heart have not developed properly in the womb. Often, we don't understand why the baby’s heart hasn't developed properly. But BHF are funding research to find crucial breakthroughs. So we can improve the way we diagnose and treat babies, children and adults born with congenital heart disease, and beat the heartbreak caused by these conditions. Before the BHF was founded in 1961, the majority of babies born with congenital heart disease died before their first birthday. Now, thanks to research, we’ve helped to turn this around, with 8 out of 10 babies surviving to adulthood.

With Idrees’ life, as short as it was, and the journey we went on because of it, one of the greatest lessons we took away from it all is this: life is unimaginably short and fragile. The only thing that matters is the legacy you leave behind. We couldn’t control how long our son lived, but we could make sure, we had to make sure that his impact on the world, his legacy was one that would live on forever. So we embarked on a journey of making sure this legacy was one that helped make the world a better place, through us.

To date, through various charitable endeavours we have
raised just over £13,000 in his memory, for Heart charities that pioneer research and support families living with Heart disease, which is remarkable really, something more significant and impactful than we could have ever imagined.

A writer once said, “Grief is in two parts, the first is loss and the second is the remaking of life.” Losing our child has been the catalyst for us to seek out ways to help live our best life, in his memory. The marathon is a big part of that- I won’t just be running for him, but for all the millions of heart warriors like him, and the families who support them.

Thank you for your support for my TCS London Marathon journey. With your donations, well be able to fund breakthroughs and find cutting edge new treatments for people living with heart disease. Help make heart disease a distant memory. Donations to my page will be sent directly to the British Heart Foundation in a fast and secure way.