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As most of you will know, on December 12th 2011 Thomas was born 7 weeks premature at the Princess Royal Hospital in Farnbrough.  He was immediately taken into the care of the Special Care Baby Unit.  Although he was healthy, he required round the clock care. He was in an incubator and only able to be fed through a tube. He also spent two days under a UV light as he developed jaundice. This was a particularly hard time as whilst needing this treatment we were not able to take him out of the incubator.

We were genuinely moved by the love and care that the staff in the unit showed to Thomas, the other babies and the parents. All the feeding facilities such as, breast pumps, privacy screens, feeding chairs, kitchen facilities, in the unit enable mums and Dads like us to spend as much precious time with their babies in the early days of their life and are donated to the unit. Without them what was already a really tough time, would have been much harder.

One evening while we were sitting with him watching him sleep I decided that I should do something to say thank you to everyone at the SCBU, and so I am competing in the British Gas Great London Swim on 26th May, a 1 mile open water swim in Royal Victoria Dock.  As I write it is still only 12 degrees C!

The staff ensured that we had the best Christmas present possible when Thomas was discharged on Christmas Eve. He is now thriving, happy and healthy. His biggest worry is being squashed by his sister giving him big cuddles!

We never envisaged that this would happen to us and I hope that I've gone some way to explain how much new parents need units and facilities such that we received. In particular this year the unit are requesting donations in order to purchase special jaundice machines that allow parents to hold and feed their children whilst undergoing treatment, something we would have been very grateful for at the time.

And so if anyone has been touched by our story and feels they would like to help those families yet to need the care of the unit, our family would be very grateful for anything you can spare.

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