Please be aware Ellie has chosen to share photos of baby Maeve in an incubator with her story. 

Myself and my partner were so excited to find out we were expecting our first baby. We found out on November 6th 2022, she was due on July 13th 2023.

My pregnancy was pretty straight forward, no morning sickness, just very tired and some pelvic pain, until we went on holiday in April 2023 to Spain. Whilst we were in Spain, I started with contractions one morning which resulted in a trip to the hospital where they advised our baby was ready to make her arrival 12 and a half weeks early. I was given medication to try and stop the labour but unfortunately it didn't work.

At 4:43am on the morning of 17th April 2023 our beautiful Maeve Florence Sproston was born, weighing a tiny 1.1kg.

She was rushed straight to the NICU where they carried out an X-Ray straight away. The results came back showing Maeve had a congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH), something that hadn't been picked up on her scans and sadly very rarely is. 

CDH is an opening in the diaphragm which allows the intestines to travel upwards restricting the lungs from growing to their full capacity.

When she was one week and two days old she underwent surgery to correct the hernia, this was a partial success as her abdomen was too small to accommodate all of her intestines. This meant that she went a few days with parts of her intestines outside her body and each day they'd try to put some more in, until four days after her initial surgery she had to undergo emergency surgery due to an perforation in her intestine. This surgery was a success, and they managed to insert the remaining parts of her intestines.

As a result of the CDH, Maeve developed Pulmonary Hypertension, she received multiple different medications to try and treat this however, nothing would work. 

The doctors told us we should start preparing for the worst and it was time for us to start holding her, we got to hold her for the next three days which I'm so thankful for even though we should have had a lifetime.

On 16th May 2023, four weeks and one day after she arrived into this world she passed away in the arms of her mummy and daddy.

There is no greater pain in this life than losing your child. 

We spent every day and night with Maeve sleeping in the chairs beside her incubator only leaving to shower and eat.

All of the nurses in the NICU at the hospital in Spain always made comments about how strong Maeve was and I can truly say she was so inspiring putting up with so much in her short but beautiful life and always will be.

We chose to do the 100km Dog Walk throughout September 2023 in honour of Maeve Florence and to raise awareness, as people who haven't been through something like this don't tend to know how to approach the subject. We love talking about Maeve. It also allowed us to raise money for Sands who do a brilliant job at supporting people through these tough times💙🧡

Maeve is loved and missed by us every single second of every single day and will always be remembered. 💜🦋👼🏻