Cameron's First touch Marathon!
My Story
Hello and welcome to my fundraising page for the neonatal charity of St George's hospital, First touch.
First touch supported us so much on our journey through neonatal. At times we were travelling 1100 miles a week between various hospitals as the twins also became separated. First touch paid fuel receipts, offered endless refreshments for parents on the unit, sorted us with accommodation for the odd nights last minute when Ronald macdonald could not accommodate, provided a quiet family room for us when needed, and even went as far as donating equipment such as high specification breast pumps and incubators for the best possible care.
Our neonatal journey is summed up below for those that may not be aware.
When we found out we were having identical twin girls the excitement was soon put into the reality of how complicated a pregnancy can really be, let alone identical twins sharing a placenta. The girls (and Bethany) fought through such rare conditions of TTTS and TAPS surgeries successfully carried out by those known as some of the best Fetal medicine Professors and Doctors in the country at St George's hospital in London. Post surgeries, we had signs of them appearing at 24 weeks with more hospitalisation and then again at 29 weeks on Christmas Eve, which was closely followed by early contractions and subsequently an emergency C - section.
On the 28th December 2022 we announced the unexpected birth of our beautiful twin girls at 29+4 weeks; Marnie Rose Davis weighing 2lb13, and Penelope Faith Davis weighing 1lb13 at St George's hospital in Tooting.
Post birth they spent weeks in intensive care and high dependancy, and were moved between 3 different hospitals due to various investigations and complications involving 7 neonatal ambulance transfers. Penelope had to be under the care of St George's again, and so ended up back there with First touch supporting us yet again.
The girls finally came home on the 6th of March, with Penelope on oxygen until her lungs matured.
Brain MRIs and heart scans showed no anomalies and now at the age of 13 months, they make us so proud of just how strong and resilient they have become, constantly pushing boundaries in their development.
We owe everything we could possibly give and their lives firstly to Frimley park hospital for referring us onto St George's at 16 weeks, and to St George's absolutey incredible fetal medicine team with their ground breaking research doing their very best on a daily basis and defying all odds.
First touch supported us throughout our time at St George's, and I look forward to be able to support them in return for the lifeline they continue to give parents in these worrying times, on a daily basis. Their work can only continue, and the life saving equipment they donate can also only continue, with crucial fundraising.
So far my training has seen me needing an Xray on my right foot, pain around my left lower knee needing physio, and a third setback of contracting viral menengitis and subsequently taking a visit to hospital again but I'm now back running third time lucky! It hasn't been easy 😂🙏
Please help me and my family achieve this target.
Thank you so much for reading our story.
Cameron, Bethany, Marnie and Penelope X