Thanks for visiting our JustGiving Page. Don't forget to join our Official Facebook Page too. Here you'll be able to see what we're doing to raise £10,000. We are a very private couple felt compelled to tell our story to help others and also raise money for such a deserving cause.

In 2010, after being married for two years and having been together for nine years, Emma and I felt the time was right to start a family. It is something we have always wanted.

We were lucky enough to fall pregnant within a month or so of trying and the World seemed a perfect place. We were excited and felt ready to be the best parents we could be.

Everything was going so well, all our appointments had gone as expected and we were ready to enjoy pregnancy and then the next chapter in our life. Devastatingly though, when we went for our first scan, on 14 weeks, our excitement turned to disbelief as our baby was medically-described as ‘not compatible with life’. Your brain just doesn’t compute this information, especially when you are sitting in a scanning room with, just seconds before, the World seemingly at your feet.

Our baby had anencephaly - a word neither of us had ever heard before but one that is now imprinted in our hearts and minds.

Anencephaly is a congenital birth defect that occurs in approximately one in one thousand pregnancies. It is a neural tube defect, just like spina bifida is. Life expectancy for a baby with anencephaly after birth is just a few hours, sometimes a few days at most.

To be given this news broke our hearts and led to some very dark days. My wife was immense and went through things that only those who have been in this situation will ever understand. Our baby would live on, not in this World, but within us and in God’s Keeping.

We are getting stronger and, thankfully, our love for each other has kept us this way. Despair and devastation has turned to hope. Granted slowly but, also, very surely. We will be parents but we will never forget our Little One.

Losing a baby, at any stage of pregnancy, in any circumstances, is devastating. It is a subject that many feel uncomfortable talking about. It’s also very hard to deal with and to come to terms with. That is why we are so grateful to have each other, solid families and some very special friends.

SANDS offer comfort and a place to go to. Even if, like us, that equates to a search on the internet to read messages of support and understanding. Realising you are not alone helps. Realising that others have been through what you have been through helps. This is where you begin to understand that there is hope.

This page has been set up to tell our story and to break the silence of what is still very much a taboo subject. Although raising money is important to help our chosen charity SANDS continue to offer support and solace, for us raising awareness of baby loss and indeed anencephaly is vital.

If you do one thing today, other than donate, just take this on board and remember it:

If all women of child-bearing age took 0.4mg of Folic Acid every day before and at least until the end of the first term of their pregnancy, between 50 and 70 % of potential cases of anencephaly and spina bifida could be prevented. One little tablet. One massive hope.

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