Story
<p><span style="color: #0000ff;"><em><span style="color: #000000;">We are raising money for SANDS, a charity which is very personal to me, by trekking along the Great Wall of China for 10 days. Each day we will be trekking for between 6 to 12 hours and staying in either local hostels or have our accomodation provided by local villagers.</span></em></span></p>
<p><span style="color: #000000;">Our son Noah was born asleep in April 2010. Like many people we were completely unaware of how common stillbirth and neo-natal death is today. Emma had had a perfect pregnancy with Noah, very little morning sickness and she bloomed during the pregnancy, glowing everyday. Every scan and test showed Noah to be a healthy baby growing as expected. He was highly active twisting and turning and kicking his mummy, especially after chocolate!</span></p>
<p><span style="color: #000000;">Our life was turned upside down when one day he just hadn't moved by late morning. The doctor advised us to go to the hospital, but just as a precaution as they were certain everything would be fine. After finding no heart beat with the doppler acoustic tests, an ultrasound scan confirmed our worst nightmare that Noah had died.</span></p>
<p><span style="color: #000000;">After Noah was born we were given access to a special suite at the hospital called the 'SANDS room'. This was where we were told about SANDS, a charity set up to provide support and services to bereaved parents and their families following the death of a baby. We found out that astonishingly every day 17 babies are stillborn or die in the first few days of their life, and stillbirth is 10 times more common than cotdeath. Yet the majority of people still think stillbirth is rare and doesn't happen in the 21st century. As with Emma's pregnancy, over half of stillbirths occur in pregnancies that had previously been considered low risk and the majority of stillbirths are unexplained. Furthermore, as with Noah, the vast majority stillbirths happen at late gestations when a baby might reasonably survive and thrive if delivered early<strong>.</strong> SANDS <span>promote research and changes in practice that could help to reduce the loss of babies' lives as well as helping and supporting bereaved families when they need it most.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="color: #000000;"></span><span style="color: #000000;"><span>Although nothing that we do can bring Noah back, we want to support the vital work that SANDS do and hope that the money we raise can go in some way to help save babies' lives and prevent other families from having to go through the complete devastation and heartbreak of losing a child.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="color: #0000ff;">Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.</span></p>
<p><span style="color: #0000ff;">Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.</span></p>
<p><span style="color: #0000ff;">So please dig deep and donate now.</span></p>