Please help us to raise funds for “Harriet’s heroes” the amazing regional Fetal Medicine Unit at the RVI in Newcastle as without their pioneering medical help we would not have our beautiful little Harriet.

During Ruth’s pregnancy at a routine 28 week scan we received the awful news that our baby was developing fetal hydrops caused by a huge fluid build-up in the chest cavity, this condition if it progressed would not have had a happy outcome and so getting urgent expert medical help from a fetal medicine specialist was our only hope. Luckily, we were referred to the regional Fetal Medicine Unit at the RVI in Newcastle and seen the same day, from that point the help, support and most significantly the operations and interventions they performed are the reason both Ruth and Harriet are here today. The most significant of these was a very rare pleuro-amniotic shunting procedure carried out by the genius that is Professor Steve Robson who performed a keyhole operation through Ruth’s tummy, inserting a shunt into Harriet’s chest to enable fluid to drain to reduce the pressure on her heart and lungs as well as take litres of extra fluid from Ruth, this enabled the pregnancy to continue for another 6 weeks which made a huge difference to Harriet’s chance of survival.

Harriet decided to arrive 6 weeks early and so spent her first 3 months in intensive care at the RVI a very, very poorly baby. She has a very rare condition called pulmonary lymphangiectasia which will mean she will be a very fragile little baby/toddler and will carry this through into her childhood. Thankfully she has come on leaps and bounds in the last few weeks and is settling into her own home with the love of us all and although we don’t know what the future may hold what is now very clear is that without the medical help from the Fetal Medicine Unit team we simply wouldn’t have Harriet and for that there will never be enough words to express how grateful we are to them all, they simply are the most amazing, caring and special people and are definitely the team you want on your side when mother nature isn’t! This is our first little attempt to start to raise funds for the unit to begin to say thank you and we would so grateful for any donations.

The Fetal Medicine Unit use every penny of funds raised to support the magnificent research, treatments and procedures that help poorly Mums and their unborn babies and enable them to perform miracles for families like ours so every penny really will make a huge difference.

Thank you so much, love Ruth, Ross, Henry and Harriet. x x