Fran Heatley
Beth's gift
Fundraising for First Touch
Story
This page is now closed to donations. If you'd like to donate please do so here:
https://www.justgiving.com
/fundraising/bethsgift19
Thank you for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page called Beth's Gift.
After an easy and uneventful pregnancy I went into labour on the evening of 15th November 2018 and went off to St George's Hospital in Tooting early the next morning. Tragically, just 30 minutes before Beth was born, her heartbeat was lost. She was resuscitated and quickly transferred to the Neonatal unit (NNU), where she was cooled for 3 days to see if they could limit the amount of damage that her brain had suffered. Sadly after it became apparent that Beth did not have any brain function, Doug & I made the difficult decision to remove her life support several days later.
The care we received from the staff in the neonatal unit during Beth's short life was incredible. We were in shock initially and didn't know how to help her, but they showed me how to express my milk so I could feed Beth (I found this distressing at first and couldn't understand why they would ask me to this but now I am so happy that I had the chance to feed my daughter with my own milk). They encouraged us to change her nappy and clothes and to read to her. When I asked if we could bath her, they created a makeshift bath next to her incubator and despite all the wires and ventilator we were able give her hair a good wash (which was interesting to say the least!). The kangaroo chairs also allowed us to have precious skin-to-skin contact with Beth for hours on end. During the worst week of our lives, we managed to make such happy memories with Beth and even had our fair share of laughs - this is all because of the wonderful staff on the unit.
15 babies a day are stillborn or die within 4 weeks of birth in the UK. This means that over 400 people around the UK have been through the same heartache as us since Beth was born just one month ago. I want to honour Beth's life and allow her to be remembered by raising funds to help others who find themselves in this sad position.
The First Touch charity supports sick and premature babies at St George's in many ways and are currently raising funds for a new cerebral monitor which Beth used during her NNU stay (which cost about £13.5K). Doug has raised £1800 hiking the 3 peaks via this page: https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/Montaguthreepeaks so we only need to raise £11.7K here).
We are running some fundraising events but anyone wishing to donate in the meantime can do so here. Thank you so much for your support.
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.
#Bethsgift
#Bethsgift
This page is now closed to donations. If you'd like to donate please do so here:
https://www.justgiving.com
/fundraising/bethsgift19