When Tommy was two days old, he became really unwell due to his blood sugars dropping very low and he had to be flown to Aberdeen by air ambulance. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to accompany him and there were no commercial flights available that day, so we had to get the boat to Aberdeen, which meant being away from him overnight and only able to see him again the next morning. Horrible! He spent two weeks in the Neonatal unit at Aberdeen Maternity Hospital, where the staff were incredible - so good with Tommy and with us. It was a tough time that involved an absolute rollercoaster of emotions, but he/we couldn’t have been better looked after.

The Archie Foundation is the charity that supports the NNU, as well as the Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital. They fund loads of extremely worthwhile things, several of which Tommy and us benefited directly from. Have a look here https://archie.org/what-we-do/ and here https://archie.org/donate/ to see where your donation might go.

Something not mentioned on the website is vCreate, an Archie-funded platform that allows the staff to keep parents who aren’t able to be with their babies updated with photos and videos. This was invaluable for us when we were separated from Tommy on the long journey down. I’ll never forget opening up that vCreate photo (at the top of this page) in our Northlink cabin as we sailed into Aberdeen.

I’m taking part in Marathon March for Archie, which involves moving at least a mile every day throughout the month. I’ll be aiming to do at least 3 miles a day. Please, if you can, sponsor me to raise money for this brilliant charity.