A few weeks ago we were invited into St Mary’s hospital for a pleasant reason for a change. We were one of 180 sets of parents to be invited to attend Tommy’s the Baby Charity’s afternoon tea party for all the rainbow babies born in their care in 2018.
The parents and families (some siblings came along too) and 180 little rainbow babies all born in 2018 gathered together for the first time to celebrate life. It was so magical seeing all the people that had been helped by the charity.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the charity it was set up to initially help those who had suffered stillbirth and multiple miscarriages. The charity spearheads research into the conditions and looks at preventative measures to try to safeguard pregnancy ensuring a healthy outcome for mother and baby.
This weekend I visited the Leonardo Di Vinci exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery and highly recommend it, as it is amazing. I always knew Leonardo was a genius but I discovered in this exhibition that his work actually led to changing the perception of how babies develop in the womb and he was the one that figured out that the umbilical cord feeds them too. He also discovered that the heart circulates blood around the body in the 1480’s and looked at how it feeds the main organs.
Without Leonardo we wouldn’t have had the foundation for midwifery and then institutions like Tommy’s. What is a surprise I found is how little we have actually progressed since his discovery in the 1500s as the questions as to why babies die or why women miscarry are still needing to be answered today and those answers are being discovered thanks to Tommy’s.
Tommy’s Manchester clinic offered me careful monitoring during my pregnancy with Aurora, after our 20 week scan, to closely keep an eye on her but also to help me to manage my stress levels too. The aim is for those child loss victims, who have lost several babies, to get reassurance that any issues or changes can be spotted by regular scans. They also checked things like blood flow through the umbilical cord, that the placenta was working ok, checked the Aurora’s growth, fluid levels in the womb and in my case, because of my broken heart, the blood supply into the womb too.
All of these checks helped to give me peace of mind during what was an extremely stressful and worrying time. I lived life while I was pregnant from one milestone to the next so each 3 weeks until my next scan was a mini countdown and we celebrated after each one gave us positive news. Although it still didn’t make me worry less as of course we had been told previously by experts during Arthur’s pregnancy in early scans that things were ok and also by Violet’s cardiologist that her heart was ok “nothing to worry about” and then it contributed to her death. So to say I was skeptical about what “experts” told me was an understatement but you know what? The Tommy’s experts or as I like to call them Angels were right!
So the afternoon tea enabled the midwives, who had taken good care of us, and the head of the Tommy’s clinic Doctor Alex to finally meet Aurora in the flesh. The last time they had seen her she was on a black and white screen during ultra sound scans. It was great for then to finally get to hold and meet her. To find out that the little hyperactive baby on their screens was a fidget in real life too.
Tommy’s also have places in the Manchester 10k so if any of you out there would like to run for them and raise some money to help others like us then we would be very grateful you can get more information to register here.
Unfortunately with my poor heart health we’re not in a position to be able to take part so we have pledged to raise funds for them after we hit our Alder Hey fund target in some other way instead. Would you come to a tea party in the summer perhaps and help us to thank our Tommy’s angels?
Also make sure you visit the Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition more details click here.
Love
Sarah xx
