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Last Sunday, 23rd September 2020 should have been a day full of celebration, presents and joy as we celebrated our son’s 10th birthday. Instead the day held a magnifying glass up to the sadness and pain we have felt for the last 10  years at losing our beautiful boy, hours before he was born. 

He was perfect in every way, after tests on both him and me, even the amazing specialists at St George’s in Tooting who looked after us couldn’t tell us why he died. I was 41 and a half weeks pregnant, early stages of labour, and his heart just stopped. For no reason at all. Or no reason that doctors can understand or explain. 

Life changed forever that moment the doctor had to deliver the news I had deep down known for the hours of no movement. I look back at it and 10 years later it still takes my breath away. The look of bewilderment on the face of my ever optimistic husband at the realisation that the unthinkable had happened. And it had happened to us. How were we going to get through this? 

I don’t think we ever answered that question. I still don’t know how we did survive. But we did. With incredible support we did. And better than survive, we found strength we didn’t know we had and have gone on to feel a joy as intense as that sadness at the birth of Isabella and Sebbie. 

On this 10th anniversary, I really wanted to set myself a challenge and try to raise some awareness and money for Tommy’s, the charity striving to stop other people lose their babies. For a long time I didn’t talk openly about our loss - I didn’t want to be ‘the girl who’s baby died’, or when making new friends, many of whom were pregnant, instil fear as I felt I made the horror of stillbirth real. But it is so important to talk about all pregnancy loss and support charities like Tommy’s who fund research into miscarriage, still birth and premature birth. Their target is to halve the number of babies that die during pregnancy or birth by 2030 - currently 1 in 4 pregnancies end in loss or preterm birth. And they believe this is unacceptable. They fund four research centres in the UK that investigate causes and find treatments for miscarriage, stillbirth and premature birth. Having also suffered unrelated miscarriages and an ectopic pregnancy, I feel so strongly that more needs to be done. 

I know that things are really really tough at the moment, but it would be amazing if you could support me in my challenge. Like many others I did Couch to 5k during lockdown and looking for a way to continue running, I have set out to cover 100k during the month of September. This will be quite a challenge for me - by no means a natural runner! But I am determined to do it! 

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this.

Annaliese xx