The phone calls that you get at 2-3 o'clock in the morning generally aren't ones with good news.. April 2010 my sister was 25 weeks pregnant with their 1st child (a boy, they had found out at their 20 week scan.) My brother in law rang me from hospital, she was in labour & being taken by ambulance to Portsmouth the closest facility with neo-natal care.

Long story short, Freddie was born about 36hrs later 15 weeks early weighing just 2lbs. He spent the next 13 weeks at The Queen Alexandra hospital a brand new facility and a centre of Excellence in Europe for neo-natal care. The fantastic team of doctors & nurses there saved his life with the help of course of the state of the art equipment available to them. 

This is of course simplifying the story hugely and doesn't begin to described the 13 weeks of hell my sister & brother in law went through to the point of bringing their baby home. Parents of premature babies in hospital lead a weird half life of hospital by day, overwhelmed by medical jargon and fear, still very much in shock at the early arrival, trying to bond with a baby that they have very limited physical contact with. Then they return home at night (if that's close enough by) without their babies in their arms, which at the time as a new parent myself was an unbearable thought. Left to the care of strangers, dreading that night time call..

More & more babies are born prematurely or very sick. Even new facilities like QA can't cope with numbers at times & don't have enough of the vital equipment needed to keep these babies alive. Ickle pickles was set up by parents to help buy this equipment to help babies get big enough & well enough to go home - simple.

For a better idea of the equipment needed and the costs involved have a look: http://www.icklepickles.org/Neonatal/Equipment.aspx

So I'm rowing from London to Paris for Freddie, my sister Fiona & her husband Neil in acknowledgement of their personal battle and for all the babies now that need help and the ones in the future that will need help.

It's going to be an incredible challenge and for those that know me you know I am far from a super fit gym freak! I am a mother of two gorgeous girls, my littlest is only 14mths old and apart from my university rowing days a long time ago I am / was what you would call 'inactive' apart from the odd dog walk!

BUT 6 days & 6 nights, 2hrs on 2hrs off, the equivalent of 20 marathons back to back - probably quite hellish, but nothing in comparison...

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