My Story

When Roonie and I decided to try and start a family, we naively never imagined the possibility of anything other than a healthy baby.  Each midwife appointment and each scan we went to, thanks to the wonderful NHS was thorough and encouraging.  During our fourth pregnancy we attended the standard 20 week scan where the sonographer was not content that the heart arteries on the baby were developed in the 'normal' way.  We were immediately made aware of a possible anomaly and counselled by the assessing midwives to expect the worst.  We were told we would be referred to The Evelina Childrens Hospital Fetal Cardiology department immediately.  This is where the Evelina Childrens Charity came into our lives and to which we hold so much gratitude.  An incredibly stressful few weeks of testing and waiting for results followed.  Those that cared for us were unbelieveable and were always available to answer all our questions, while being completely honest and factual.  I genuinely do not know how we would have coped during this time without these very special people.

We count ourselves as so very fortunate as our fourth baby, a beautiful baby girl, Mabel, arrived on her due date.  She is currently thriving and healthy and remains under the care of the paediatric cardiology department at the Evelina, who have been brilliant.

So many of our friends and family have a story to tell on their own journeys to building a family and charities like the Evelina just make these times a little easier, and help support the clinical processes which go on around any difficult situation.

I am running the marathon to help try and raise as much money as I can to enable the Evelina to continue to provide the service to as many other families and children that need them.  So that they can deliver the care, compassion and clinical excellence to someone else in their hour of need.

I am also running to support my wife who is taking on her first marathon while turning 40 the day before!  This is my present to her!!!