Thank you for showing an interest in my fundraising page. My story is a long one but it is necessary to show how important Heart Link is to me and my family.

Stanley Jacob Black was born on the 10th October 2016 and unbeknownst to us, he had a congenital heart defect which wasn't diagnosed until he was 7 days old. We had taken him to Kettering General Hospital as a precaution after noticing his breathing was a little fast at times. Little did we know that the most difficult three weeks of our lives was about to commence.

When Stanley arrived at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester after being transferred in the early hours of the 18th October, he was extremely poorly. His heart function was described as a feeble twitching and the echocardiogram had identified that he had a severe coarctation of his aortic arch (meaning that blood was not effectively getting to the rest of his body), a significant hole between the bottom two ventricles of his heart and a small hole between the top two ventricles. Stanley's aortic valve was also not functioning as it should have been. He was placed on a ventilator straight away with all sorts of other medicines and sedatives to keep him alive. We have never felt so helpless in our life and I was fearing for the worst.

After a few days of stability we had to leave our beautiful, little, eleven day old baby boy in the hands of a surgeon as he underwent open heart surgery to fix his broken heart. An operation that we were told should take a few hours ended up taking over twelve hours as Stanley's little heart struggled to start again after its arduous ordeal. He was placed on a heart and lung bypass machine called ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation). This process involved his chest staying open with canulas in the heart that took the blood away from the body, oxygenated it and sent it back in. The idea was that it would give his heart a rest after everything that had happened. After forty hours he was successfully taken off of ECMO. Stanley's recovery after this was fairly rapid with the odd blip but we were finally allowed home on 4th November.

This was undoubtedly the most traumatic experience of my life but the reality is that it will be ongoing for the rest of my life. I have no idea whether Stanley will require any more surgery or not. He has already had to have a balloon catheter procedure as his aortic arch re-narrowed and when people ask how he's doing, we can only ever go by his last appointment. Nothing stops his wonderful smile though!

Throughout the trauma there is a constant source of light at Glenfield and that is Heart Link. Everything they do is in support of families that are affected by congenital heart defects and everybody involved in the charity has been affected themselves. They provide parent accommodation so you don't have to leave your child's side. They provide somewhere to cook and clean in the parents kitchens. They provide a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on whenever you need it. They have donated endless amounts of medical equipment to PICU and Ward 30 but for me, Heart Link saved Stanley's life as it is because of them that ECMO is used in the UK and without ECMO it is hard to think about what may have happened to our precious little boy. It was 1989 when ECMO was first used in the UK after being so successful in America and Heart Link was the charity that funded it. These are the reasons that make Heart Link the most important charity in my life and I want to raise as much money as I can for them.

Thank you for taking the time to read my story. In reality it is a never-ending one and Heart Link are central to it. I hope that you can find something to donate...every penny makes a difference to the lives of families who are affected by congenital heart defects.