Arabella's Story

On January 12th, Tamsyn went to Epsom Hospital for a follow-up blood test, anticipating a quick return home. However, after urgent assessments, she received a diagnosis of severe preeclampsia and was swiftly transferred by ambulance to St Heliers Hospital. In the following days, medical staff worked to stabilise Tamsyn's high blood pressure, aiming to sustain the pregnancy until at least 30 weeks.

However, on Tuesday, January 16th, following a scan, it was confirmed that the placenta was failing, and the baby was no longer moving. Four hours later, Arabella was delivered via emergency C-section at 27 weeks and 5 days gestation, weighing a mere 800g. Classed as an extremely premature birth, Arabella still let out a little cry straight away before being taken by the neonatologists and transferred immediately to the Neonatal ward for support.

Arabella was doing well during her first 24 hours on just CPAP ventilation, but during the night of January 17th, she had to be intubated and therefore moved from St Heliers (a grade 2 neonatal ward) to St George's (grade 3) for the highest level of neonatal support in ICU. Luckily, Dad arrived in time to be blue-lighted with Arabella to St George’s, while Mum had to wait for her own transfer a few hours later. Since relocating to St George’s, we have received consistent support from First Touch, who have been exceptional—providing accommodation, guidance on expressing milk, and various other forms of assistance. Arabella has since come off intubation and is doing well. We are nowhere near going home, but we are grateful every day for the incredible support we are receiving from First Touch.

First Touch supports parents at the St George's neonatal unit, providing accommodation, snacks, drinks, and, importantly, key medical equipment to help support sick and premature babies. They also provide services such as VCreate, a service that allows nurses to send parents pictures of their babies when they aren't at the unit. VCreate has been particularly reassuring for us, receiving photos of Arabella during times we are unable to be with her.

Chris, Charlotte, Todd, and (subject to Arabella’s status - Al) will be running the Kew Gardens Half Marathon on March 31st in support of First Touch and the incredible work they do at St George's Hospital. Following on from this Tamsyn and Alasdair will be running Royal parks half marathon in October. We have set an optimistic goal of £10,000 to raise for them, which would help fund a service like VCreate for over a year or help to buy key medical equipment for the ward such as apnoea monitors, ventilators, and more. Anything you can contribute would be hugely appreciated and will make an immense difference in helping babies like Arabella across the unit

NICU UPDATE 20/3

A huge thank you to everyone who has donated so far. Your support has been immensely appreciated. We have attempted to reach out to individuals where possible, but the sheer volume of donations has been overwhelming – if you haven’t heard from us, please consider this update as a heartfelt thank you from our entire family. Your support has allowed us to focus our energy on doing some good during this enormously challenging time.

Arabella has made significant progress in recent weeks and months. 21st March marks her 37-week gestational age. We are now much closer to home, both figuratively and literally, having been transferred from St Georges to St Heliers. At St Heliers, Arabella continues to receive excellent care. She has been significantly weaned off her breathing support and is tolerating this well. We hope to have her completely off breathing support by her due date, all being well. We have been incredibly fortunate that all her tests have shown a generally good health picture, with the exception of the usual challenges of breathing and feeding associated with extreme prematurity. These are hopefully the final barriers we will overcome in order to bring her home.

First Touch has also extended a big thank you to the supporters of this campaign. To give you an idea of what this money will be used for, they have shared details of a fundraiser they have launched for a video laryngoscope, which is used to intubate babies needing ventilation. Intubating such small babies is a high-risk procedure, something which Arabella had to undergo twice.

From First Touch:

First Touch has been asked by the neonatal consultants to fund this vital piece of equipment, which will be in regular use at the NNU for many babies. The full cost is just over £22,000, so the sponsorship money will provide a significant boost to this campaign. We will add a plaque to the equipment when we purchase it to thank your team and other major donors.

Thanks to recent donations from a local charitable trust and from First Touch being chosen as the Captain of Wentworth Golf Club’s charity, we have reached our targets to fund a BabyLeo incubator, 4 apnoea monitors, and 3 electric milk warmers. These have just been ordered for the NNU.

FINAL NICU UPDATE 28/04

We are pleased to say that after a long and challenging 3-month journey, Tamsyn and Al were finally able to bring Arabella back home on 16th April - 5 days after her original due date. She’s been doing fantastically well, and Mum and Dad are now getting used to the more everyday concerns of normal parenting.

A massive thank you again to everyone for donating to this campaign. The money has gone to support the purchase of a new video laryngoscope which will be marked with Arabella’s name. As mentioned previously, this is a vital piece of medical equipment for St George’s neonatal unit and will help to save the lives of babies in similar situations to Arabella.

Our team completed the Kew Half Marathon on the 31st of March, with Lottie successfully completing her first-ever half marathon in under her target time.

Again, a huge thank you to all the medical staff and wider support received from family and friends. It has been a huge team effort to get us to this point.

We will keep this page open until the end of the year - as Tamsyn and Al hope to complete the Royal Parks half marathon in October, and the donations will be added to this page.

ARABELLA 8 MONTH UPDATE 16/09

Arabella is now 8 months old! She is a very happy and content little one who loves to roll and desperately wants to stand up. She will continue to have regular checkups until she is around 4 years old to make sure she is developing as she should.

Arabella has been joining us for Parkruns (walks) since her first week home. Tamsyn and Al are hoping to be able to take Arabella on a couple of training buggy runs as she will hit 6 months corrected age just before the Royal Parks half!

Thank you again to everyone who has donated to this fundraiser the video laryngoscope is now in place at St George’s and further funds raised will go to other projects we are hoping to raise as much as possible for this incredible charity who helped our family so much.