In November 2020, our whole world was shattered. Our beautiful baby boy Theodore was stillborn.

No parent should ever have to attend their child’s funeral, yet in January 2021, that is exactly what we had to do. To this day I have no idea just how we survived that day, and the absolute despair and heartbreak of losing our baby Teddy.

Having suffered a missed miscarriage at 9 weeks in our previous pregnancy, there was a feeling of ‘this is our time’ and despite a lot of uncertainty and scares throughout the early stages of Teddy’s pregnancy, at 20 weeks we were given the all clear and were officially classified as ‘normal risk’. We lost him 7 weeks later.

Despite the hospital’s best efforts, we will never know just why we lost our baby boy, and that is something we have to live with every day. With the work of charities like Tommy’s, perhaps one day in the future this will not be the case and more babies will be born alive and healthy.  

We somehow found the courage and strength to try again in May 2021, but heartbreakingly suffered another miscarriage. We are now into our fourth pregnancy and are currently at 37 weeks, and just days away from the arrival of our baby girl. I cannot begin to tell you how incredible it feels to write those words, and just how ready we are to meet her. 

The support we have received from friends, family, and our local hospital has been absolutely incredible, and we are so blessed to be surrounded by some amazing people, but still, it took every ounce of our strength to survive losing Teddy. I often find myself thinking of others in our situation who might not be so fortunate to have such an amazing support network, and that is where charities like Tommy’s are absolutely invaluable and in some cases, life-saving.

Since losing Teddy I have felt an immense need to try and do something to help others in similar situations, so I have decided to attempt to run the London Marathon in October, in Teddy’s honour, to raise money for Tommy’s.

I can’t currently run 1km, and I’m sure baby girl is going to offer up some serious sleep deprivation, but come October 2nd, I’ll be ready.