On October 5th 2020 at only 24 weeks gestation Claire's waters broke. We went straight to Bronglais hospital in Aberystwyth who confirmed this but scanned her and found that Harriet was still ok. As a small hospital they didn't have the facilities to car for such a premature baby and begun the process of finding the nearest one which could. That turned out to be Liverpool Women's Hospital, approximately 3 hours away. At around 1pm Claire was taken by ambulance to Liverpool. I wasn't allowed to visit initially due to COVID-19 restrictions, but on the 7th these changed and I came and visited for what was supposed to be a day trip on the 8th. At this point Claire was fairly stable and they were hoping that Harriet would stay inside a bit longer and there was even talk of Claire returning home for a while. I left the hospital around 6pm and stopped for food an hour later when Claire phoned to say that they were taking her to the delivery ward. We later found that this was because she had pre-eclampsia and HELLP syndrome, the only way to correct these is to give birth. Harriet wasn't in the right position at this point, so they were planning a caesarian section in the following day.

The next morning (October 9th) Claire started having contractions and the consultant came in to discuss having the caesarian in a few hours time. At this point Harriet had other ideas and within the space of about half an hour of the consultant arriving she was born. She managed to take breaths on her own and even made some little noises after being born. Because she was so small the doctors quickly got her onto oxygen and into an incubator. She went on to battle several life threatening conditions including problems with her lungs, heart, kidneys, an infection and severe swelling of her body.  There were several occasions when I feared that we were close to loosing her. We had a number of difficult conversations with the consultants about her chances. It was a constant emotional roller coaster where things would look good (or at least stable) one day or even one hour, the next we'd be back to a stable state. Then the whole process would repeat with either a new problem or a recurrence of an old one. Despite all these she battled on for 23 days. The one word we repeatedly heard staff describe her as was "feisty".

On November 1st it was clear that it was all becoming too much for her. Her lung condition was worsening, she was struggling to keep up her oxygen saturations and her heart rate was dropping. There was nothing more that could be done for her and the difficult decision to stop treatment was made. We got to take her to a private room and spend a few hours holding her before she passed away in our arms.

During this time the hospital staff have been amazing. They've provided us with accommodation firstly in the hospital itself, then in a flat just outside where we were able to have some family stay and finally a room in the unit to say goodbye to Harriet. Despite COVID-19 restrictions, we've had 24/7 access to her. The level of care has been excellent, she's had a dedicated nurse the whole time and a lot of attention from a team of consultants. She had many xrays, ultrasound scans and blood tests almost all of which were arranged and analysed at impressive speed. Even after she died there was still a dedicated nurse assigned to us who helped us navigate through everything that came after.

We hope that this fund raiser will help the hospital continue their amazing work and any other families that have to go through this.