On February 11th 2006 at The Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton I gave birth to my beautiful second son Rory Allan Goodall. My waters had perforated at 29 weeks and I had been on bed rest ever since. At 31 weeks and 3 days the doctors decided they needed to induce labour as they were worried my baby had an infection. Rory was a whopping 5lb 12 and infection free. I suspect he’d of been 10lb had he got to full term. He spent the first two weeks of his life in SCBU up on the 14th floor in the Thomas Kemp Tower at the hospital. He was initially given my milk through a feeding tube, by day 5 he learnt to latch on and was none stop feeding! Apart from some apnoea episodes he was doing great in hospital. Two weeks after he was born, he came home.We had a magic few days at home, finding our feet as a new family of four. Daddy Lee had come back early from NZ following Rory’s early arrival. Little did we know at this point how massively precious these days actually were. On Rorys fourth night at home I’d fed him at about 2.30am and set my alarm to wake at 6am to feed again. When I awoke at 6am he lay lifeless in his Moses basket. What I didn’t know then was it was to late, he had already gone. I gave mouth to mouth spoken through it by 999 operator. The ambulance tried to resuscitate him for nearly an hour and he was finally pronounced dead in the a and e department, aged just 19 days old. It was the single most horrifically tragic traumatic experience of my life! To say we were devastated is an understatement. I literally didn’t know how I could possibly carry on. My little sunshine Louie was just 17 months old himself at the time and I honestly don’t know if I would have been able to carry on if it wasn’t for him and my selfless amazing mother and all my family and friends that nurtured us with so much support and love. They were really dark days that followed and it was a long grieving process that still goes on in the background and probably always will.  I passed through, the shock, denial, guilt, anger and finally many years later started to accept the reality of what had happened.  In hindsight I can clearly see he was discharged from hospital too early, his large size masked his vulnerability as a premature baby. He had apnoea attacks just a few days before being discharged. We weren’t given a monitor to alert us if he stopped breathing or any preparation for what to do if he had an apnoea attack at home. Following Rory’s death I complained to the hospital and whilst they wouldn’t accept responsibility they did apologise and change their discharge policy. In future any baby being discharged who had been prone to apnoea would be discharged with a monitor and parents would be given resuscitation training before discharge.  I have learnt so much about life and myself through and after this experience. I honestly whole-heartedly believe now that those 19 days were Rory’s time and no matter what I or anyone else had or hadn’t done, that would still of been his time. 

 ❤️

Skip forward nearly 16 years and here we are. Life has been much kinder to me in recent years and I’m definitely in a happy place despite the world going insane in the background 🤣 I remember my befriender (from FSID The Lullaby Trust)  on the end of phone  at some of my darkest hours. I can’t  explain how helpful it was  to feel heard and to know other mothers had been through the same and were further ahead  and ok. That is exactly why I would like to try and give something back to this awesome charity by jogging 50k over the month of February 2022  In memory and honour of my beautiful boy Rory who would have been 16 on the 11th of Feb this year.... so please  if you can  afford, donate…… Thankyou 🙏

Wise words by Rachel Naomi Remen
“Every great loss demands we choose life again.We need to grieve in order to do this.The pain we have not grieved over will always stand between us and life..When we dont grieve part of us becomes caught in the past. Grieving is not about forgetting . Grieving allows us to heal and remember with love rather than pain. It is a sorting process. One by one you let go of things that are gone and you mourn for them.One by one you take hold of the things that have become a part of who you are and build again”