Following the success of last years coffee morning to celebrate World Prematurity Day and to help raise funds for the Little Roo Neonatal charity, we have decided to hold another coffee morning. This years event is a little more organised! There will be lots to keep the little ones entertained; a bouncy castle, face painting and children's games. And for the older ones amongst us there will be prosecco, coffee and of course lots of cake!

In addition to raising what we can to help the unit, we are setting up a bookshelf with books that parents can read to their baby/babies. We appreciate that your old baby books are precious to you, but if you have any that you would like to donate, please bring them along to the coffee morning. 

Details of the coffee morning: 

- Lawnsmead Hall in Wonersh, Surrey

- Saturday 17th November, 09:30-11:30 

For those of you who don't know why the NICU at St.Peters hospital in Chertsey is very special to us, please read on.

On the 5th of January 2017, my husband and I said hello to our beautiful baby girl, Camelia, eight weeks earlier than scheduled at just 32 weeks gestation.

Camelia was born early as I had a rare condition, which meant that had she not been delivered early via caesarean, she wouldn’t be here with us today. As Camelia was premature she needed to stay in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at St. Peter’s Hospital in Chertsey for nearly a month, where she received incredible care from the doctors and nurses who work tirelessly to ensure that premature babies have every chance in the world they aren’t quite ready to be in. We owe them more than we can ever give.

Giving birth to your baby and being unable to take her home, or do the first nappy change, as she had to be whisked off by a team of doctors and nurses, is unbelievably hard. Thankfully the team at St. Peters NICU are compassionate and caring beyond belief and they didn’t just take care of Camelia, but of my husband and I as well. Needless to say I went home a wreck each night as I hated leaving her in the hospital and in the care of people who aren’t her Mummy or Daddy, but it helped so much to know that she was being cared for by people who understand how hard it is to say goodnight. Better still and by pure chance my husbands’ Auntie worked there as well, so we where lucky to have a friendly face during this difficult time. It was never too much trouble if we phoned in to check up on Camelia during the night, or to stop by at three in the morning because we needed to deliver expressed milk; they never ceased to amaze us throughout.

St.Peters hospital are one of only a few level three NICUs in the country and it costs in the region of £80k for each neonatal intensive care cot, £60k for a premature baby ultrasound machine and they are in continuous need of donations to continue purchasing specialist equipment and training, which the NHS can’t provide funding for.

We’re not looking to raise thousands and thousands of pounds but we are holding the coffee morning to raise whatever we can for this great charity. If we can get even a few hundred pounds together it’ll enable them to buy a new chair for the intensive care unit, which might seem insignificant, but when you spend over twenty hours a day sitting, eating and sleeping next to an incubator, you become very grateful to the person who raised the money to enable them to buy a nice comfy chair for you to share every moment of the day with your tiny little baby.

Most, if not all of you, have met Camelia by now and we are so thankful that despite her early and unexpected start she didn’t have much in the way of complications, and she is busy keeping us exhausted as any toddler should! 

Thank you 
Victoria and Jamie x