When my wife and I first found out we were going to have our first child, we were over the moon with excitement and were so looking forward to the journey ahead. Unfortunately, at around the 6 week stage my wife was not feeling right and we went to be checked up at Hull Royal Women & Children's hospital and were told the devastating news that pregnancy was not going to plan and it turned out that it had become an ectopic pregnancy, Ectopic pregnancy is a complication of pregnancy in which the embryo attaches outside the uterus. The embryo was not going to develop and for my wife's safety, and to prevent any surgery, she had to take methotrexate treatment that terminates the growth of the developing embryo.

As much as this was traumatic for us both, the men and women at the Early Pregnancy Assessment Unit (EPAU) at Hull Royal were brilliant and very understanding of our situation. They could not be helpful enough even with all the heavy demands that the unit has at the hospital. And after the treatment was complete and we had had the time to look to the future again, we can happily say that we now have 2 beautiful girls.

The EPAU has also helped people I know. Our close friends started trying to conceive in March 2017. A decision that at first was an exciting and happy time but soon turned into a journey of infertility and brought them sadness and loneliness. She began to research and write to help herself but also to reach out to other women and to share knowledge and support. Her blog is a platform to encourage discussion surrounding pregnancy loss, miscarriage & infertility. In the uk it is most normal to not discuss pregnancy before 12 weeks of gestation, that then leads to people not talking about their early pregnancy losses because it was ‘too early’ to share. I believe this leads to lots of women living an incredibly lonely journey, so she decided to share her story. You can find the link to her blog here.

https://crazyfertilityqueen.blog/

Again, after lots of hard work and determination, my friends now have a beautiful baby boy.

As part of our journeys, we are raising money to help support the EPAU at Hull Royal Infirmary and raise awareness of early pregnancy loss. My efforts is to do one thing I used to do when younger and that is run. So I plan to run the Jane Tomlinson Hull 10k on 2nd June and to challenge myself even more I plan to aim for a time of less than 55 minutes, and just for context, I have not run that distance in that time since 2010, and i have since put on around 3 stone in weight and suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon, so this should be hard work indeed, and if that is not reason enough for a donation, surely the main cause is.

Thank you to any and all that help me reach my target and if you want to know more information please feel free to contact me.