On 5th January 2024, I gave birth to our lovely little girl, Peggy.

Since Peggy was born, she has had lots of issues with feeding and breathing and has been on breathing support of various forms her whole life. Peggy has been on intensive care since birth, she started off life in Telford NICU and on 28th January was transferred via ambulance to Birmingham Children’s PICU, where she has been ever since.

One month after Peggy was born, we found out that she has been born with an incredibly rare genetic mutation. Peggy is only the 7th child in the world known to have this genetic mutation. This means that doctors are working with very limited information about how to treat her and what her future may look like. But because of this, the doctors are treating Peggy as an individual and letting her show everyone what she is capable of. However, Peggy is a little fighter and is showing us daily how strong she is.

We have received lots of help and family support from Hope House since Peggy’s birth and can already see that they are going to be incredibly valuable to us as a family throughout Peggy’s life, and potentially beyond. It is already clear that this charity is going to have a very special meaning to us.

Since Peggy has been born, I started the Couch to 5k plan to give myself time and headspace to process Peggy’s diagnosis and decided to push myself to run the 10k. I certainly don’t view myself as a runner, but if Peggy can keep on fighting, then I can definitely give 10k my best shot!