From the moment our baby girl was born, she showed us what it truly means to be brave.

Ivy Rae was born at just 31 weeks on the 26th of May, 2025, and she fought tirelessly for every single breath — every single day — to stay earthside with us.

For five beautiful weeks, Ivy grew with a strength and determination that left us all in awe. We thought that, with a little more time and patience, we would soon be bringing our precious baby girl home to her very excited and very proud big sister, Willow.

However, at six weeks old, Ivy began to have seizures, and our lives were turned upside down. Though every test — prenatal scans, newborn screening, metabolic and genetic investigations — came back normal, Ivy was later diagnosed with infantile epileptic encephalopathy, a rare and currently incurable form of epilepsy.

Despite our best efforts, our advocacy, our deepest hopes, and our willingness to try anything that might help, we knew our perfect baby girl was growing tired.

With broken hearts, we decided as a family to transfer Ivy away from the intensive care unit, to spend our last moments — whether minutes, hours, or days — surrounded by love at Helen & Douglas House in Oxford.

The women we met there were nothing short of angels. Nothing was ever too much; no request was too small. It truly felt like a home away from home — and those lovely ladies felt like family.

We will be forever grateful for the most precious gift Helen & Douglas House gave us: time. Time together as a family. Time with both of our girls for the first time since Ivy was born.

Please, if you can, donate to support these angels on Earth. Our family will be fundraising for them for the rest of our lives. No amount will ever be enough to repay what they gave us — but for them, and for Ivy, we will try.

It’s our turn to be brave now.

Ivy Rae, we will honour your legacy in the best way we know how — by helping to give other families the precious gift of time with their babies.

We hope to make you proud, our beautiful girl. We love you to the moon and back.