Our story started the same as every other we were expecting our second child together to join our family of 6 already. On the 30th January we went for our first scan for our whole world to change in just a matter of minutes, they found that our baby had developed without the top of his skull a condition called anencephaly, this meant that our baby would not survive once born as his brain wouldn’t further develop due to the amniotic fluid. Once we had discussed our options with several professionals we decided we wouldn’t terminate our pregnancy and would continue with the full intentions of being able to donate our Williams heart valves, kidneys and liver cells to those who needed them despite the risks.

However, after several weeks we went back for another scan to assess how he was growing and to make sure the organs weren’t being affected in any way. Once again, we were let down by life and had our intentions fall flat on their face, our boy, our precious baby that we so badly wanted to stay with us and grow with our family was facing yet more issues and complications. He had developed a condition called diaphragmic hernia which meant all his organs were being pushed up in his chest and having his heart pushed against his chest wall and was under pressure due to this, we were also told he had a hole in the heart and because everything that was happening with him we wouldn’t be able to donate.

After all the above life had to throw another few curve balls at us, I had started to grow bigger and bigger by the day as William wasn’t able to sallow the amniotic fluid. we decided to bring forward his birth to avoid more increasing complications and risks to myself. So, on the 24th may we came into St Richards hospital to have our William James Armstrong. After 2 days in labour we finally had him he stayed with us for 11 minutes after he made his appearance and shocked us all on how much of a fighter he was. For us our boy will always be a hero despite not being able to do everything that we had planned for him.

Throughout all our ongoing struggles there has been one bunch of extraordinary people other than the support of our family and friends that have been able to make our whole journey a lot easier and will continue to support us and so many others in situations such as ours. we wanted to help St Richards hospital by donating money to make a difference as best we can to aid other families that will go through the same thing in the future.

We hope you can help us achieve this.