My name is Brigid-Anne and I'm creating this fundraiser as a way for us to honour the life of our beautiful daughter Róisín by raising money for six weeks for two organisations that assist children who live with congenital heart defects: Chain of Hope Jamaica and Heart Kids New Zealand.

Róisin Ava Julie Blair was born very fast on the evening of January 17th 2025 in Berlin, Germany. It was a Friday, I had been in the hospital since Monday 13th as they were trying to induce me in order to offer her the best care when she arrived.

At our 12 week scan, we were made aware that Róisin had an abnormal heart, and after more tests, around week 18 it was confirmed that Róisín had Hyperplastic Left Heart syndrome. This condition is a severe congenital heart defect where the left side of the heart (left ventricle, mitral valve, aortic valve, aorta) is severely underdeveloped, making it unable to pump blood effectively to the body. Big breath in. I can't tell you how hard this news was for us to hear and accept.

With conversation and consultation from doctors, her father Gavin and I continued the pregnancy with determination to give her the best possible chance we could. And we had a lot of things in our favour:

Despite having the best opportunity, the best care, we had to say goodbye to our beautiful girl on the afternoon of Sunday 2nd March 2025. She had heroically recovered well from two open heart surgeries in the first four weeks of her life. She had even just started smiling - real smiles! not gas! - just in the last week we were with her. But as can be the case with children who have HLHS, her lungs were weak and on Saturday 1st March, she stopped breathing. The team did absolutely everything they could to find a path back to stability for her, but unfortunately, she wasn't meant to stay with us.

We were able to be with her all the way till the end, and the hospital offered every support to make sure we had that time with her in those moments, and afterwards. Even now a year later, still deep in grief and still finding a way forward, there is so much gratitude for the security, the safety and the support during this deeply painful time in our lives.

Not every family in the world who is confronted with the journey of a child with a CHD has this kind of stability afforded to them. We couldn't imagine a better way to honour Róisín's life and spirit than being able to support other families embarking on similar journeys. We chose organisations in New Zealand and Jamaica, where both myself and Gavin are from, as a way to bring Róisín home to places she never made it to.

Chain of Hope Jamaica operates out of Bustamante Hospital in Kingston, Jamaica. Their primary goal is to develop a sustainable paediatric cardiac service at Bustamante Hospital for Children, and since 2007 1200 children have been treated with the assistance of their "Mending Little Hearts" programme.

Heart Kids NZ are the only national organisation in Aotearoa NZ that provides free, lifelong care and support for children, teens, adults and whānau (family) impacted by childhood heart conditions.

This fundraiser will run from the day her birth, 17th January, to the anniversary of her death, 2nd March. Once it closes, we will split the money equally between Chain of Hope Jamaica and Heart Kids NZ.