Thank you for taking time to visit our Just Giving page, in December 2021 and September 2025 my brother Matthew (Leggy) and sister-in-law Rhiannon were faced with the devastating news that no expectant parent wants to hear, “your baby has stopped developing,” and “there’s no heartbeat.” In 2021 after a long time of trying they had a positive pregnancy test following a round of IVF and an operation for Cervical Stenosis but sadly at their 12 week scan they found out that their baby had stopped developing three weeks prior to that. In 2022 they were a little shocked to see a positive test just 2 days after they became husband and wife, especially as they had conceived naturally and in November 2022 they give birth to their beautiful son Ellis who is just perfect. They then decided that it was time to give Ellis the chance of being a big brother and again after a while trying they were again seeing those 2 magic lines in July 2025, Ellis was about to get his promotion and all was looking well when they needed an early scan at 9 weeks. However at their 12 week scan they again faced the devastating news that their baby had stopped developing and their heart had stopped. It was at this time while in hospital Rhiannon was offered an Aching Arms comfort bear and at first declined the offer before later accepting it and was actually surprised at how much comfort that little bear actually brought her in one of her darkest times.

You can read their full story here:

https://tinyurl.com/LeggyandRhiannon

The Challenge

On behalf of Matthew, Rhiannon and our little Ellis, Noah (my 8 year old son) has chosen to ditch the technology for an hour or two every day for a month and we have agreed to walk 100 miles throughout January (a minimum of 50 miles each either outdoors or on the treadmill, depending on weather/work/school.) Noah hopes to raise enough money to donate a number of comfort bears to other families going through the same difficult time in memory of our little baby Jones’ who we never got to meet.

The Charity

Aching Arms is a charity that provides comfort bears to over 190 hospitals in the UK for midwives & nurses to offer to bereaved parents. As well as hospitals they work with other organisations who support families through baby loss and will also provide a comfort bear to families who request one directly from them. According to their website over 5,000 bears were donated to bereaved families last year and each bear comes with a dedication tag with the name of the baby whose family has made the donation. While these bears can never take away the pain that comes with baby loss they provide comfort in an extremely difficult time and serve as a reminder that you are not alone. Aching Arms also provides bereavement support (Supporting Arms) for mothers, fathers and siblings as baby loss affects the whole family and fundraising is vitally important to allow them to continue their bereavement care research in order to support more families through a difficult time.

You can read more about the charity here: https://www.achingarms.co.uk/

The first £100 raised will donate 6 comfort bears to bereaved families and money raise over this will be put towards various projects supported by Aching Arms.

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