At only 29 weeks gestation no one can prepare you for the words "I'm very sorry but you are in pre term labour, you're going to meet your baby early" and on December 18th 2014 at 3.40pm,  Zach was born, weighing just over 3 lbs and his fight for survival started.

The Neonatal Intensive Care (NICU) journey is a life changing experience. You witness sights and hear sounds that you often wish you could just erase from your memory. The milestones you always expected to reach with your new born such as the first smile and the first night's sleep are then replaced with oxygen reduction, better SATs, removal of tubes and the best of all graduating from Intensive care through High dependency and then the Nursery preparing for home.  Through out this journey the medical and support staff on the unit, as well as other parents become an extension of your family. On days when I just couldn't leave his side a caring voice would remind me how important it was for me to go and eat to support the milk production, or one time when having a brief cuddle Zach got into respiratory distress and needed intervention, as they removed Zach to support him, an arm came round my shoulder to support me.

It costs the unit about £1500 per day per baby therefore fundraising is absolutely critical in achieving the level of care and support  the team at Oliver Fisher provide. We are so very thankful to now have an extremely happy, bright, strong (and not so little) 2.5 year old with no remaining health issues.

So as a thank you Zach and his friends (many being NICU graduates) including the inspirational Adalyn Poad our new littlest hero who started her fight for survival at only 25 weeks , are going to be completing our annual walk, picnic and raffle, started this year by our latest littlest fighter Addy.

Thank you for your donation - every penny really does count xxx