September is NICU awareness month, today Emma Cater tells us about her daughter Ada-Grace, who spent 2 weeks in NICU after she was born. Beep…beep…beep You know, that probably doesn’t sound that menacing or a big deal to most. But if you’re a NICU mama, if you’ve had the experience of your precious bundle of Read more about Beep…beep…beep[…]

September is both sepsis awareness month and childhood cancer awareness month, today Donna Self tells us about her son Andrew, who developed sepsis whilst on chemotherapy for leukaemia. When Andrew was two years old he was diagnosed with a myelodysplastic syndrome which had the possibility to evolve into Acute Myeloid Leukaemia. Unfortunately this is what Read more about Andrew[…]

This week on the blog, Caroline Gannon pays tribute to her brother, Johnny, who sadly passed away earlier this year due to Covid. Thank you so much to Caroline for sharing this with us. Johnny was born in 1966 to my 16 year old mum. She fell in love with him straight away and went Read more about My Brother, Johnny[…]

Congratulations to Oliver, who has recently become a big brother to baby George! Mum Corinne tells us how he’s taken to it. For 2 and a half years Oliver was our only child. When we found out we were pregnant with George I was scared of how Oliver would react to being a big brother, Read more about Becoming a big brother[…]

Then you were 4, and next week you start primary school.  When you were born it was one of those milestones that I thought might look so different.  Something I thought we might ‘miss out on’.  But we’ve got your uniform.  We went to get the school shoes (you picked them yourself).  We’ve been to Read more about Starting School[…]

WCAT ambassador Ivan and his mum Simone tell us a bit about what he’s been up to this summer. Ivan went away for the evening with a charity called Project 21, he doesn’t stay away very often and went with new bunch of friends. He also tried some of the activities there so he’s done Read more about Ivan’s summer[…]

Donna Layne tells us about her son, Darrion and one of his recent achievements, learning to brush his teeth independently, nice one Darrion! We found out that Darrion had Down syndrome postnatally. Shocked as you can imagine, I (mum) cried for a week and went through what seemed like a grieving process. Within 24 hours Read more about He teaches me not to stress the little things[…]

Kirsty MacCuish I know (obviously) that Amelia has Down syndrome, and with that comes a learning disability. I know Noah, is what you call a ‘typical’ child. I knew at some point Noah would overtake Amelia in certain aspects of learning. I did not expect it to happen at 30 and 15 months. And I’m Read more about The tortoise and the hare[…]

Tina Carr When you hear the words respite or hospice it can be quite scary. Statements like ‘life threatening illness’, ‘not expected to reach adulthood’ and ‘end of life care’; all of these things make it completely understandable as to why some people may not want to engage with the service. But when you see Read more about What respite means to me[…]

On the 6th July, Heidi Crowter and Aidan (with mum Máire) are going to the High Court to challenge the law that allows termination to full term if a baby has a diagnosis of Down syndrome. Jamie McCallum, chairman of Wouldn’t Change A Thing and dad to Rosie who has Down syndrome tells us why Read more about THE BALANCING OF RIGHTS[…]