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.

Our little muffin didn't give up that easily, her involuntary breathing kicked in and she fought for 4 more nights to stay with us. The hospital advised us that we would be more comfortable at a hospice, but we were a little reluctant to move at first, as the NNU was all we had known for a week. Eventually we came around to the idea and we were so glad we did. 

Shooting stars hospice is an incredible place. The staff were kind and compassionate and we had one to one care for Beth throughout our stay. There were wonderful facilities, including the sensory room which made Beth so calm. The staff arranged for foot and hand prints to be taken, for the remember my baby charity to come and take professional photos of our Snuzzi, plus suggesting lots of other sweet little things to help make precious memories with Beth. 

The hospice even has an onsite chef who prepares all your meals so we didn't have to worry about anything apart from spending quality time with our lovely. Beth chose to spend 4 special days with us without the machines and we are so grateful to the hospice for creating a special place where we could say goodbye.

Now we've raised £13.5K for the fetal cerebral monitor at St George's, we'd love to now give back to the hospice to ensure other families are supported as much as we were. Amazingly, Shooting Stars only receives 10% of their funding from the government, the rest comes from fundraising. The funds raised will be used for neonatal study days (plus other educational days to promote the services they are able to offer to families) and to purchase items to help memory making which we benefitted from so much. 

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.