Hugo's Legacy

  • Active Every Day Challenge – Completed!

    My Active Every Day Challenge – to celebrate Hugo’s fourth birthday, and me being alive, as well as raise money for Tommy’s and First Touch – is complete! A huge thank you to everyone who has supported me during the challenge, whether through cheering me on via social media, or making a donation. My JustGiving […] Read more…

  • Active Every Day Challenge

    To celebrate Hugo’s fourth birthday; my little boy’s life; and to commemorate surviving the past four years I am doing a daily activity challenge. Hugo’s birthday (20 February) is also the fourth anniversary of the day I nearly died but didn’t.  I nearly died of multiple organ failure caused by HELLP syndrome, the rare pregnancy complication […] Read more…

Maternity Experience (#MatExp)

Perinatal Mental Health

  • EMDR Therapy, Survived

    The cupboard door was opened. All of the contents, stuffed in the cupboard haphazardly and the door forced shut, tumbled on top of me. I felt suffocated, paralysed. But I emerged. I survived EMDR therapy. I survived EMDR therapy when at one point I thought it was making my symptoms worse, and that it was […] Read more…

  • What EMDR Therapy Feels Like

    After my serious illness and the death of Hugo I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD happens as the result of trauma. Part of PTSD means that parts of the brain that deal with threats, memory, and decision-making (as well as the links between them) are damaged, meaning it is difficult to distinguish […] Read more…

Neonatal

  • Two Years of Hugo’s Legacy

    Today marks two years of Hugo’s Legacy. I was reminded of this by a Facebook memory this morning, which prompted me to think about everything that has happened since I hit ‘publish’ on that first post. In April 2014 I was in that stage of raw, visceral early grief. I was confused, angry, frightened. Full […] Read more…

  • Don’t Stop, Continue: Bereaved Parents’ Voices Matter

    Every so often I get a song lyric going round and round in my head, burrowing in my brain. The most recent one is Don’t stop, continue It’s from Give It Away, one of my favourite songs by Red Hot Chili Peppers. Events this week have intensified my passion for making sure the voices of […] Read more…

Fitness

  • January didn’t turn out the way I had planned…

    January started with such positive good intentions. Life doesn’t always turn out the way you plan though… I had planned to be active every single day by participating in MIND (Run Every Day) Red January, and making a good start on #NHS1000miles, building on my December running progress. New Year’s Day even began well with […] Read more…

  • Christmas Day ParkRun

    This year’s Christmas demons were banished by running my very first ParkRun! So, what on earth possessed me to get out of my nice warm bed early on Christmas morning? The prospect of being proud of myself, having achieved something…and taking positive action to be in control of my day, my feelings, not feel sorry […] Read more…

Just For Fun

  • On Learning To Not Be A Book Snob

    I am a book snob. But I am trying to not be. I love books, always have done, since I was a little girl. And I haven’t always been a book snob: growing up, I wasn’t too fussy about what I read. Enid Blyton books were a firm favourite, and I devoured the Famous Five […] Read more…

  • 40 Thoughts for My 40th Year

    Tomorrow is my birthday, and I shall be 39. The last year of my 30s! I know, I can’t believe it either… The thought of being 40 next year is nowhere near as scary as when I was 29, and looking ahead to my 30s. Age doesn’t really matter that much, and the events of the […] Read more…