Story
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Slim for Summer
My name is Emma Inglefield. I am a Doula, which for those of you that don’t know is someone who supports people through pregnancy, birth and beyond. For more information on this please feel free to have a look on my website www.byyoursidedoula.co.uk .
I am aiming to raise £10,000 for Birmingham Children’s Hospital. Enabling them to purchase items such as -
Hydrogen Pulse Oxonater – measures pulse & oxygen levels
6 legged drip stand
Skin Temperature Monitor
Clinical teaching doll
Comfort items for Parents – i.e. TV/dvd player for parents room
To find out the reason behind me wanting to do this please read on. In doing so you will have an insight to a truly amazing couple and a truly amazing little girl, who together form a truly amazing family.
The Summer story…….
I first met Dan & Lucie on 26th May 2009. They were looking for a Doula. I went round to discuss how I could hopefully help them after their ‘bump’ was born ! At that first meeting I discovered they knew they were expecting a girl and also that she had a Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia. This was new to me but I still felt I would be able to support them. Dan & Lucie came across as being very positive about the whole thing and happy to deal with each step in a loving way and as a team.
I left the meeting and the next I knew ‘Summer Grace’ was born. She arrived on 17th June 2009, weighing 7lb 7oz. She was born at Birmingham’s Women’s Hospital and spent 1½ days in their neo-natal unit, where she was put on a ventilator to help her breathe. Dan and Lucie’s experience of the neo-natal unit wasn’t pleasant as in every bed lay a fragile baby, many of which would spend all of their short lives in the hospital. Summer was then taken to Birmingham Children’s Hospital. She needed to have a life saving operation. 1 in 5 children born with a Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia are born with other conditions such as downs syndrome. In fact the condition is so serious that less than 50% of babies born actually survive. Dan & Lucie didn’t know the extent of Summers problems until she was born. Lucie did have extra scans through her pregnancy as they wanted to see if the liver had moved up through the hernia but it hadn’t.
Birmingham Children’s Hospital ventilated Summer to handle her breathing. They managed to get her strong enough for the operation. Summer’s stomach and bowel was twisted and had moved through the hole in the diaphram into her chest. Her lungs were underdeveloped because of her stomach taking up room in her chest cavity. Her appendix had also grown on the wrong side. The amazing surgeon operated to move all organs back to where they should be and twisted them back round. With this operation it depends on the size of the hole whether it needs to be patched up or sewn. In Summer’s case it was quite small so it could be sewn.
Summer was then transferred to the high dependency unit and she was gradually weaned off her ventilator. She was getting stronger and able to start breathing by herself. All of Summers feeds up to this point were intravenous feeds. Lucie had become a master at expressing her milk !!
After just 2½ weeks Summer was allowed home. This was when I first met her. She was so beautiful. She took to breastfeeding well but did lose weight so had to go back to Birmingham Children’s Hospital after spending a week at home. They put her on a special feed, high in calories which she has fed to her via tube through the night. During the day she has regular feeds given by bottle which contain breast milk with a scoop of formula to bulk it up. What she doesn’t manage to have during these bottle feeds, due to her getting out of breath because her lungs have to work harder, has to be given to her by tube. She still sees the surgeon and the respiratory team on a regular basis and the dietician calls weekly to check on Summer’s weight gain as this determines her milk quantity. Recently she has managed to have the amount of feeds cut down and the high calorie overnight feed changed to breast milk. She is such a little fighter. She is an absolute angel and princess and I love her very much. She greets me every day with a brilliant smile, she hardly ever cries ( in fact the only time I really see her cry is when she has to have the tube put back in through her nose to her stomach which I think would make anyone cry !!), she is developing beautifully and I feel honoured she came into my life.
My story……
After meeting Dan, Lucie & Summer and getting to know them and what lovely people they all are I felt I too wanted to do something to help.
Dan & Lucie even before Summer came along have done so much for charity. They even asked for money for there wedding present but the money was not for them to buy a toaster or put towards some home improvements but also for charity. This really made me think a lot about what I could do.
One weekend I came up with the idea of a sponsored slim as I knew this would be the hardest thing I could ever achieve. I have battled with my weight since I can remember. I have considered myself ‘fat’ since I was at middle school. Looking back now I know I wasn’t but was like so many young girls led by the stereotypical slim person or celebrity pictures you see. This feeling has always stayed with me and made me yo-yo diet for years. Since having my two daughters I have realised how important it is to try and steer away from this negativity around diets etc but to be healthy. This said, I still find losing weight very hard.
I am asking people to please help me achieve my goal in losing pounds while Summer is trying to pile on the pounds !!!! I aim to lose 4st by 17th June 2010. All of this will hopefully help me achieve my target of raising £10k for the brilliant Birmingham Children’s Hospital and to get the things they desperately need to keep up the great work they do.
You can track my progress as I will update this site as I slim
If you can please donate now
Alternatively, if you would like to join me in ‘slimming for Summer’ and achieve your own goal with raising money then please contact me on 07850 483 915
Many thanks for taking time to read this story
Emma Inglefield xxxx