Our youngest son Arlo was born in December 2016 at 25 weeks gestation. He spent 198 days in hospital, including his first Christmas. He was 10 days old and his first lot of treatment for his heart murmur had just had to be stopped because he had a brain bleed and was bleeding from his stomach. Leaving him on Christmas Eve was horrendous. We got home and I realised Arlo was the only one of our children without a ‘First Christmas’ bauble on the tree. It broke my heart.

Having a critically ill baby in hospital alone for his first Christmas, and a 4 year old and 1 year at home who were excitedly expecting a visit from Father Christmas, and the impossible task of trying to be there for all 3 of them! It was so hard.

However, it was made infinitely better by the kindness of the staff on the unit and some amazing total strangers who had put together gifts for the baby’s, the parents and even siblings. I can’t put in to words what it meant to our family. As we put him to bed on Christmas Eve our 4 year old asked if Father Christmas would know to take presents to the babies in hospital. I didn’t know what to say, we hadn’t even thought about getting anything for Arlo, we’d barely left the hospital! How could I explain why Father Christmas had forgotten his baby brother!? 

We walked in the next day to a beautiful stocking, card and sack full of presents for Arlo. The look on Reuben’s face when he discovered Santa does visit the NICU, it meant the world to us (there were many many tears!) and we will never ever forget that. It gave us a much needed boost and more than that, it gave us a bit of hope back after an awful few days. We promised ourselves that next Christmas we’d do the same for another family in our position.

So... We’re aiming to do three things -

* Donate a ‘My First Christmas’ bauble to every baby, in every unit Arlo spent time in. That’s New Cross NICU, Princess Royal Telford Neonatal Unit, Birmingham Women’s NICU and Birmingham Children’s Neonatal Surgical Ward. I’d also really like to have a few extra to give to Kids NTS for the babies who are transferred over Christmas. We need approx 115 😱 We’re currently trying to decide between 2 different designs but I’ll upload a picture ASAP.

* Donate 8 hampers of treats for staff, parents and siblings. One for each parent's room and one for each staff room at the hospitals mentioned above.

* We’d also like to raise a little ‘Christmas Bonus’ for the Critical Journeys appeal, which Arlo helped launch earlier this year. You can read more about that here: https://www.bch.org.uk/news/eight-month-old-arlo-fronts-2m-critical-journeys-appeal