This JustGiving page has been just over a year in the making now...

On 8th February 2023 during a routine midwife appointment, Beth was given the news that all expectant parents dread - 'we are unable to find a heartbeat'.

Beth’s phone call to me shortly afterwards will live with me for the rest of my life. The panic in her voice that something dreadful had happened.

Ever the hopeless optimist, I clung on to the hope that Lily was just tucked away somewhere out of range from the midwife and that our follow-up scan would confirm everything was okay. Deep down though, I think we were both waiting for the inevitable and sadly a few hours later we were informed at Poole Hospital that Lily had died. She was 28 weeks old.

I look back a year on and wonder how we navigated the subsequent hours, days, weeks and months.

Suddenly, without warning, we were thrown into so many heartbreaking situations that we never imagined we’d have to face.

We hadn't had a chance to begin to process what had happened but before we knew it, we were being taken into a small side room at the hospital where we would meet Jo, Emma and Michelle, the bereavement midwifes from ‘Spring’ for the first time.

Spring is a charity based at Poole Hospital who specialise in helping bereaved parents navigate the loss of their babies. https://springsupport.org.uk/

Even though we'd had multiple midwife appointments at the hospital during Lily’s pregnancy, we were blissfully unaware that Spring even existed. The sad reality is, you wouldn’t know who Spring are unless you had gone through the heartache of losing a baby.

At a time when we were completely lost and didn't know where to turn, Jo, Emma Michelle reassured us and guided us through what the next steps would be. When and where we would deliver Lily, who to contact regarding arranging her funeral, who to contact should we want to join a counselling group to meet other parents going through the same thing, discussing ways that we could break the news to our eldest daughter, Rose.

We delivered Lily the next day in the Spring Ward and spent the next few days with her. Being able to stay in one of Spring’s family rooms allowed us to live in our own private bubble, away from ‘the real world’. Here, we could create some everlasting memories with Lily. This time was so special. We held her, wrote her letters, we read her a few books, we told her how much she would have loved her crazy big sister and made the most of the short-time we had with her.

The truth is, Beth and I owe so much gratitude to Spring who picked us up when we were at our absolute lowest and provided a comforting space where we could start to come to terms with what had just happened and start to take the first few steps of our new life.

We have a memory box (again provided by Spring) which sits proudly in our bedroom and are comforted that at any point we can read through our letters, look through photos and remember the very special time we had together in the Spring Ward.

We already knew back then, that we wanted to channel our heartache into something positive.

We knew we wanted to raise money for Spring so that we could help them to continue to do the incredible work that they do.

Lily’s legacy gives us a platform to do that. In the last year, we have started to come to terms with what has happened and whilst it doesn’t make it any less heartbreaking, we proudly carry Lily’s spirit with us every day.

We recognise that Lily's memory now lives on through our actions. Through this fundraising page we can ensure that Lily’s legacy lives on.

We love you Lily Luna xxx