Dear friends,

I'm sure many of you have now heard that Katy and I lost our beautiful little son, Arlo Dutton Hogg.

In memory of our little boy, Jon has decided to run the Wirral half marathon on Sunday October 12th to raise money for the Liverpool Women's Hospital. He will be running with his brother, Alex, and his good friends Stephen and Sam: Team Arlo. while the race is going on, we'd like to invite family and friends to join Katy. She will be in the little shelter at the bottom of Magazine Lane, New Brighton (next to Vale Park) with friends from 9.45am. Please join us if you would like to. Team Arlo will stop and chat with everyone as they pass through (probably around 10.15), and you might even get a sweaty hug for free. Although we all know the sun always shines in New Brighton, you might want to wrap up warm and bring a brolly as well...and a thermos.

Afterwards, we would like to invite everyone to our new home. Please come along any time after 1pm for food and drink. We very much welcome children. Although I'm sure we'll shed a few tears, this day is about the beautiful memories we have of Arlo during the day we spent with him, and please don't feel awkward talking to us about him.   

The Liverpool Women's is a remarkable place. From the moment we were told, completely unexpectedly, of Arlo's death, they were perfect in every way. Katy had to endure a complicated induced labour for 24 hours, but it was as painless and bearable as we could have hoped. She is in good health now. All of the staff who helped us will stay in our hearts for ever, as they guided us through our worst nightmare. It was the midwives though, with their compassion,  professionalism, sensitivity, honesty, humour and toughness that got us through. Katy and Jon gained strength from midwife Sarah especially, as she introduced them to Arlo gracefully, and lovingly.

We hope you can join us on the day, and if you can spare a couple of pennies for the Liverpool Women's, that would make us really happy. They need to be able to carry on doing the work they are doing, to the incredibly high standard we experienced.

JustGiving is a very safe and secure way to donate. They will send your money directly to the Liverpool Women's charity, The Kitty: http://www.thekitty.org/

******** Race update: Hello everybody,
We're pleased to let you know that Team Arlo completed the Wirral half marathon yesterday. Although we finished +20mins outside the slowest of our personal best race times (we completed in 2hr 12mins after stopping to chat with friends and family at mile 4, and pausing for a few minutes at mile 9 for an ill-advised cramp/ toilet stop, after which a lady in her 60s coached one member of the Team back to full running/ trotting pace), it was a wonderful day in the New Brighton sun. And who cares about times, right? Two members of Team Arlo had done no training at all for this run, so we were very pleased to get around! The support on the home straight was brilliant, and Jon regrets being so 'focused' (ie. knackered) that he didn't (ie. couldn't) wave to anyone as the Team ran home. It was an emotional end to the race.

The afternoon spent at our house will stay in the memory for a long time to come, and it was a real pleasure for us to invite so many old and new friends to our new home. Thanks for the cake! Some of you travelled a long way to support us, and it meant a great deal to Katy and Jon.

Thank you all so much for the donations. Your generosity is overwhelming.********

********* Update on how your donations will be spent  7/1/2014

 
Dear friends,

We've just had a very nice email from Lisa Masters, who is the Fundraising Manager at the Liverpool Women's. After letting Lisa know that we would like the money raised by Team Arlo to go towards researching issues surrounding stillbirth and premature birth, she has got back to us with details of a project which runs out of The University of Liverpool. Professor Zarko Alfirevic and Professor Sue Wray are 'working on an interconnected research programme to understand better what causes preterm birth and what can be done to prevent it.'
 
Their bigger project involves ‘a strong focus on developing personalised treatments for all those pregnant women who experience or are at risk of preterm birth. This will include personalised risk assessment in early pregnancy, understanding the effectiveness of different preterm labour drugs and facilitating better and safer use of preventative therapies.'

Although much of their research is funded by Wellbeing of Women, the additional funds we can offer them will allow the team to 'do some novel maternal cardiovascular assessment' in order to 'investigate why low dose aspirin fails to prevent placental disease in some women (so called aspirin resistance) leading to pre-eclampsia, fetal growth restriction and even stillbirths in some cases.'

Katy and I are delighted that the money you all raised will be spent in this way, especially as we are contributing to a bigger project that will have a range of positive outcomes for babies, women and families for years to come.

We thank you again for your kind donations, and we hope you all have a great 2015!

Love from,

Team Arlo, Katy, Jon and Arlo.