#walk50milesindecember

#teamBliss

Please help me raise £500 for Bliss - a charity very close to my heart! As I approach Mac and Gracie’s 21st birthday in March, it feels fitting to do this as 1 in every 7 babies born in the UK still need neonatal care and I want to dedicate it to the many babies we met on our NICU journey who didn’t make it out of intensive care ❤️ and whom I will never ever forget.

Bliss help the 90,000 babies needing neonatal care each year and donations will help Bliss drive improvements in neonatal care and they provided me with Polaroid photos of Mac and Gracie at birth & as they were blue-lighted 🚑 away to another hospital on the other side of London from the hospital I was in... those Polaroids and the wee 'Premature Baby & NICU Guide' book were my lifeline to my babies and in those Internet -free times the book helped explain things as we started our insanely humbling and epic journey and I will be eternally grateful for that.

The twins were due in July and they were born in March - 14 weeks before their due date! Those of you who knew us then or have experienced a traumatic birth will understand the sheer terror of this happening suddenly 6 months into an notherwise really healthy pregnancy! Mac was just 2lbs 5oz at birth and underwent many operations pre his due date to stay alive and Gracie was a tiny 1lb 15oz at birth and also underwent life saving procedures in the NICU and they had a whopping 23 blood transfusions between them and on top of this wee Mac contracted MRSA in 4 different hospitals - being put back onto life support each time!

It was a rollercoaster of a journey, but these things happen and I’m so grateful that we had the outcome we have so many please donate anything you can 🙏🏻; in return, in this busiest of months (and believe me, my work days are hectic atm AND it’s “crazy Christmas season” on top, so this really has been a massive commitment for me to squeeze in) but as a thanks for the donations, it has pushed me to walk as many miles as I can for this fab charity!