Thanks for taking the time to visit our JustGiving page.

This page is in memory of our son Jacob, who was born sleeping on 14th December 2021. He was stillborn at 31+2 weeks (7 months), and we’re raising awareness and funds for Tommy’s to support vital research into preventing this from happening to other families.

Stillbirth affects 1 in 200 babies in the UK, and in almost half of those cases, the cause is never found.

Jacob is our firstborn—naturally conceived and naturally birthed. Throughout the pregnancy, everything was completely normal. We never expected anything like this to happen.

At the end of November 2021, Jess caught COVID and had to isolate for two weeks. The illness itself was very mild, but the day after isolation ended, Jess noticed reduced movements. We went into hospital, where we heard those dreaded words: “There’s no heartbeat.”

On Tuesday 14th December at 10:33pm, our beautiful son was born. It was the saddest day—but also the best day—because we got to meet our baby boy.

Jacob was absolutely perfect and quite big! He was 45cm long and weighed 1550g (3 pounds 6 ounces). He had very dark hair, just like Daddy, but Mummy’s long hands. His feet were already the size of a 34-week baby’s—so we think he would’ve grown up to be tall, dark and handsome.

We got to hold him, and take lots of photos and videos. The hospital gave us a memory box that helped us make some precious keepsakes. We made hand and foot prints, kept a lock of his hair, dressed him, changed his nappy, sang to him, and read to him. We’ll treasure those memories forever. Some of our family were also able to meet and hold Jacob too.

The postmortem showed that COVID was found in the placenta, which triggered an immune response called CHI. It essentially cut off the blood flow to Jacob, and he died. This type of complication is rare (about 1 in 100 COVID pregnancies), and we’ll never know why it happened to us.

We miss Jacob every single day, and we will grieve for him for the rest of our lives. We’re learning how to live with this reality and move forward—but we will never “move on.” He will always be our firstborn, and our living children have an older brother in heaven. Jacob first made us parents.

We love talking about him and will always keep his memory alive. Fundraising is one of the ways we parent him—it brings us some comfort to know we’re helping save other babies in his name.

We love you always and forever, our precious Kubuś.

Thank you.

With love,

Jacob’s parents xxx

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