I’ve decided to sign myself up to something huge (as a non runner).. I will be doing a half marathon in October of this year to raise money for a charity very close to myself and Tim’s hearts - Keep me close. As some of you may know, our beautiful little boy Oscar was born with a hypoxic brain injury. Without the SoNAR team and Derriford NICU, we may not have been as fortunate as we are today. SoNAR are the Southwest Neonatal Advice and Retrieval service (SoNAR) has their regional base in Bristol with a second hub in Plymouth. They are who transported Oscar on a life support machine to Derriford NICU the evening he was brought into the world along with doctors and nurses in the transport.

Keep me close is a separate charity who provide rooms nearly touching the NICU unit for families who are a long way from home like us for as long as required. It’s free to the parents but ONLY because of the money raised for the keep me close charity. Tim and I couldn’t have survived this period without this room, to be so close to Oscar. We were 100 miles from home and it was just us two and Oscar whilst our family and friends rallied together to care for our 16month old little Darcie. We will never be able to give back in a way that truly shows how much these two charities mean to us, but this is my way of trying to show just a small part of my appreciation.

The care of extremely premature and sick babies turns families lives upside down. It is emotionally, physically and financially demanding, placing people under incredible pressure. The best support we can give to parents is the freedom to stay near their newborn child.

The Keep Me Close Appeal opened a home-from-home on 15 November 2019 for the families of babies who are in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Derriford Hospital.

It is nearby, it provides our families seven en-suite bedrooms, with a fully functioning kitchen, comfortable communal area and access to laundry facilities. To date (June 2020) we have been able to give 22 families 680 nights of accommodation at no additional cost to them or the hospital.

We need to keep this going.

They need £70,000 per year, or just £33/night/bedroom* to allow peace of mind to parents who are under extreme stress.

Thank you for being involved.