Walking the Tongariro Crossing In Memory of Little Lives Lost

In 2007 our first child was stillborn at 22 weeks gestation. We were devastated. Walls came crashing down and our world changed forever. The grief we went through certainly re-wrote our address book, and the death of a child is almost a taboo subject and little talked about.

We had an amazing team at the hospital helping us through the process, and we knew that the time we would get with our son would be precious but short. So we had to make the most of every minute. We made as many memories as we could, after all, this is all we would get to take home. We have handprints and footprints taken by the hospital staff and plenty of photographs.

We were provided with plenty of support information from the hospital, none of which we ever wanted to read, it was all too hard. However we needed to find other people that had been through similar experiences, people we could talk to and that would understand us and our emotions.

One of the information packs given to us was for Sands. Sands is a registered charity made up of bereaved parents and through attending support groups we were able to chat openly in a world where people “got it”. We made some great friends who we are still in touch with regularly.

In 2010 I had a subsequent pregnancy, and our second son was born healthily at full term. Sands was on hand again to help through the stress and worries during this pregnancy. He is our world although he will never be a replacement for Joshua.

Even though I volunteer some of my time in helping others through Sands, it still never seems enough. This year I decided I needed a focus, and something I have always wanted to do is the Tongariro Crossing. This is a 19.3km walk and will be a great challenge for me as I am no gym bunny but enjoy walking. So will be completing this walk on 9th April 2016. (NEW DATE DUE TO BAD WEATHER ON ORIGINALlY PLANNED DATE)

As Sands is a non-profit organisation, and operates purely on grants on donations I have decided to raise funds to help families in creating additional memories. The money raised from my walk will go to purchasing Growing Memory Cards, which would be given to each family for planting in memory of their lost baby/child.

So forgo that extra takeaway coffee this week – instead that money, if donated could go to helping at least two families through their grief journey