We lost 3 baby heartbeats due to Miscarriage, and I have completed 2 London Marathon courses in memory of these little angels. I’m now running the 2024 London Marathon as I feel there is unfinished business to finalise this part of my life, and complete my marathon journey for the third loss.

My personal mission in supporting my charity of choice, the Miscarriage Association Charity.

These are my Marathon and personal Fund Raising Achievements so far :

• In 2020 I trained for a London Marathon that got changed twice due to the pandemic, however I finally completed the virtual London Marathon on the 4th Oct 2020 locally in dark, wet, lonesome, and windy conditions in 4 hours 20 minutes.

• In 2021 kept going on my training and fund-raising objectives, and was delighted to finally complete my first ever London Marathon. I loved every second of it and completed the marathon course in 4 hours 14 minutes. My fund raising total had reached over £42,000 at this stage for the Miscarriage Association.

• In 2022 I loved it so much, that once again I decided to do it again for the same charity on Sunday 2nd Oct 2022, and completed the marathon course in an amazing 3 hours 56 minutes , plus raised another £3,322 towards my fund raising goal for the Miscarriage Association.

I have been fund raising across my wide network of friends, family, and colleagues. Also, my employee Lloyd’s Insurance has matched my personal fund raising, with support from the Lloyd’s Charities Trust. My personally raised total currently stands at a whopping £45,332 (forty five thousand , three hundred and thirty two pounds) which is just brilliant for my chosen charity.

My goal now is to complete this journey with a 3rd London Marathon across the historic route and continue to raise money for the Miscarriage Association and all the good that it does for many people.

Hence my objective is to now hit the £50,000 mark to satisfy a lifetime achievement. This will help satisfy and settle my mind knowing that I have done enough for the remembrance of 3 lost babies (plus supported close family and friends that have also lost recently through miscarriage ) and also supported a charity I love to the best I can because it does so much good for this common , but unspoken problem for many people .

Please help me by supporting me in my quest to do this final 3rd marathon for the 3rd loss, and help my fund raising goals.

My story - Why did I choose the Miscarriage Association?

During 2013/14, my wife Amanda and I sadly experienced 3 heart-breaking recurrent miscarriages!

The first was an experience we will never forget! Going into the first important scan at 12 weeks, we couldn’t wait to see our little heartbeat on the screen, full of excitement and smiles. To then not see that recognisable image, and only that of concern on the face of the sonographer, was heart-breaking. We had been told that we experienced a ‘missed miscarriage’.

The feeling of disbelief, shock and numbness was overwhelming, and one we still remember to this day.

Obviously, we wanted some answers, but there weren’t any. We just had to mentally, and for Amanda physically recover, and see what the future brings.

We soon had some good news and were pregnant again. Due to miscarrying previously, and age not being a luxury we had (Amanda was 43), we were being monitored by the Early Pregnancy Unit at our local hospital. Unfortunately, 14 weeks into the pregnancy we suffered our 2nd tragic miscarriage.

After a time of recovering and acceptance of the situation, and being referred to our brilliant hospital consultant, we found ourselves pregnant for a third time.

With monitoring and observation by the experts, we felt positive about this pregnancy.

How wrong was we to feel that!......Sadly, we had a 3rd miscarriage!

As you can imagine Amanda and I were absolutely devastated after the 3rd, we felt like our whole world was full of grief which had fallen apart. With time running out for us, we was beginning to wonder if we were ever going to be blessed with a child to love and cherish.

Well, miracle's do/can happen, ours arrived on Monday 22nd February 2016 at 10:09 in our beautiful healthy daughter Ava! She is our world, who we love and adore with every beat of our hearts, and who completes us as a family. We are so grateful and thankful that we were lucky!

We had great guidance from our consultant and hospital staff, as well as love and support for each other and from our families, but not all couples are as fortunate. Raising money and awareness for the Miscarriage Association enables this wonderful charity to provide such support, and important information to those who experience the sadness of miscarriage, whilst also researching the prevention of miscarriage to help many couples avoid what we and other couples have been through.

I am running and doing charity work, in memory for our 3 babies that we lost and never got to meet, and for our precious miracle rainbow baby Ava, who we are so blessed to have in our lives.

Please can you sponsor me to support this wonderful charity and all the couples that need its support.

Thanks from the bottom of my heart

Ian

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