I was climbing into an ambulance at around 7am on a cold Thursday morning wondering how this had all happened. My son, who had been born just 4 hours earlier at 25 weeks gestation, was being loaded into the back and we'd had to leave my wife still critically ill in her hospital room. We were about to start our hour long drive to the Bristol Neo-Natal unit and the ambulance driver was telling me that they were going to try and take it steady but would put the blue lights on if they thought my son was deteriorating.

As we started the short drive to the motorway I could never have known that we would not be transferred back to our local hospital for almost a full year, nor that my son would not be discharged from hospital to return home until he was 16 months old.

A few minutes into the drive, I heard a call from the back and saw the driver lean forward to turn the sirens and blue lights on. Trying not to think about whether I would see my wife or son alive again, I once again started to wonder how this had all even happened.

The answer was a word I had never heard of until the day before:

Pre-Eclampsia

Pre-eclampsia is the most common of the serious complications of pregnancy and affects 1 in 12 women. It is caused by a defect in the placenta, which joins the mother and baby and supplies the baby with nutrients and oxygen from the mother’s blood. It is usually mild, but can be severe and can occur very suddenly. If not properly managed and diagnosed it can be fatal for both mother and baby.

Action on Pre-eclampsia (also known as APEC) aims to raise public and professional awareness of pre-eclampsia, improve care, and ease or prevent physical and emotional suffering caused by the disease. They do this by providing information and support to members of the public who are affected by pre-eclampsia and support research into finding a cure.

To raise money for APEC and to symbolise the journey my son went on to get home I am completing a walk on the 27th of May from Bristol to Taunton over two days, with the route we are taking meaning we will have to walk almost 30 miles a day.

I am completing this walk with my good friend Al who's son also spent a considerable amount of time in hospital alongside Ethan. He is raising money for Jessie May, please click the link for more on his fundraising efforts https://www.justgiving.com/page/alastair-mcarthur-1682673869173?newPage=true.

Thank you in advance for your support.

Ok, I won't leave you on that dramatic cliff hanger. After delivering our son my wife did soon start to recover and after a few days was well enough to be transferred to Bristol herself to be reunited with our son Ethan.

Ethan was a very happy little boy but unfortunately had significant lung issues due to being born so prematurely meaning he required a ventilator for a significant period of time. He was still in intensive care at seven months old when he got really ill from an unknown bug which developed into suspected Sepsis.

Despite his already weakened state he fought his way through but the fight took its toll, leaving him with global brain damage with life changing knock on effects. The outlook was extremely bleak however Ethan continued to surprise everyone with his strength as he firstly managed to finally move off the ventilator and then become strong enough to be transferred back to our local hospital in Taunton just two days before his first birthday.

After four months in our local hospital he was strong enough to come home where my wife became his full time carer. Quite the ordeal for us all and there would be many more (thankfully smaller) ordeals to come but after two days of being home Ethan did something that made everything worthwhile, something he had not been able to do since the brain damage had knocked out the majority of his muscular abilities:

He smiled in response to his mum.

He has not stopped smiling since and his happiness infects all around him.

Pre-Eclampsia has without a doubt impacted ours and Ethan's entire lives but it can be managed safely during the pregnancy and even if the baby does have to be delivered early, there are medications that can be given before the birth that will greatly help the development of the baby post delivery.

Unfortunately due to the speed at which Ethan had to be delivered following my wife being diagnosed with Pre-Eclampsia, he was unable to have these drugs but if we were aware of the symptoms and had got diagnosed earlier things could have been very different.

Even if you are unable to donate to this great cause at the moment please just share to raise awareness of this disease and hopefully help another family.

Thank you.