Jesse’s Story

Hi, we’re the Ince family, Chris, Megan, Percy & Jesse. And we’re raising money for The Sick Children’s Trust Charity.

In August 2024 our baby, Jesse, was born 5 weeks early at Jessop’s Hospital. We knew at 32 weeks pregnant that Jesse was seriously ill and that he would need surgery within the first weeks of his life.

When Jesse decided to make a surprise appearance earlier than planned, this added to his complications, things became more serious and Jesse became more ill.

For anyone, bringing a new baby into the world is meant to be a happy and joyous time. But for us, our days just seemed dark, long and full of worry. Our baby was poorly and there was nothing we, as parents, could do to help him.

Our mental health took a huge dive. It was a massive struggle, day in day out. We spent most of our time full of tears, sadness and we had very little hope. We just kept asking ourselves, Why? How has this happened? Why our baby? What’s going to happen to him? Are we going to be able to take him home? What happens now? When can we hold him? Why isn’t he getting better? Why us? Why him?

And not only did we have a poorly new born baby living on the NSU ward at Sheffield Children’s Hopsital. But we also had our other son, Percy, living miles away at his Nanna & Grandad’s house, asking questions like ‘when is my mummy and daddy coming home’ ’when can I see my baby brother’. And sometimes, phone calls & FaceTime just aren’t enough.

We were longing to be home together as a family, just as we imagined we would be. Everything normal, everything fine, just, at home.

This is where we will be forever grateful for The Sick Children’s Trust. They gave us a room to stay at their Magnolia house in Sheffield. Just a quick 2 minute walk away from the NSU ward. And we could stay here, for free, for as long as we needed. We had a bed to try and rest our heads after the long hospital days. We had support from the staff who were there for chats about our worries or just chats to take our mind off things. We had a kitchen to be able to prepare food and a dining table to eat at. We had bed linen provided, towels, toiletries, places to do our laundry, a cleaner, a living room with sofas & a tv.

We had a ‘Home from Home’ and the best part… We had a place where Percy could come and stay with us and be together as a family. Which is just what we needed.

We spent the first few weeks of Jesse’s life at the Magnolia House. And we stayed again for a few days when we had to go back for his surgery and while he was in recovery.

The Sick Children's Trust's mission is to provide high quality 'Home from Home' accommodation for families whose children are receiving hospital treatment for serious illnesses. And that’s what we had, we had a home.

To help raise money for this charity that will forever be important to us, we’re going to be taking on a challenge of walking 100 miles in 1 month.

Starting on the day of Jesse’s 1st birthday! Sunday 10th August.

Us and the charity are grateful for any amount of money raised, to go towards helping other families in need, just like we were.

So please, donate what you can and help other families just like us.

Thank you to all the staff at Sheffield Children’s, NSU ward.

and thank you to The Sick Children’s Trust, for everything.

You never know charity’s like this exist until you’re the one who needs them.

This one’s for you Jesse x x x