Lyla Irwin - Our forever baby and little star

As you all know, our beautiful daughter Lyla was born sleeping on 27th January 2024. We’ll never get to experience the life we had envisaged from the moment we found out about our little surprise, the best surprise. However, we would like to continue to honour her by ensuring her impact on the world is forever positive by helping others and you can help too!

I’d like to keep this short and to the point, but I also I have so much to say.

We will be walking the marathon, alongside some friends to fundraise for two special charities who’s support, and services have been invaluable to us.

Firstly we are fundraising for a cold cot via Abigail’s Footsteps to help support other families who’s babies are born sleeping or pass shortly after birth. Our cold cot was invaluable to us as it gave us the gift of time. Without it we wouldn’t have been able to have cuddles or spend the precious time we did with our beautiful baby girl.

The second wonderful charity we wish to support is Remember My Baby who’s volunteer photographers provide parents with captured memories. Not only did they take some beautiful professional black and white photos, but without the suggestion from the photographer we wouldn’t have taken all those cherished coloured pictures and videos ourselves.

We are extremely grateful to both these charities for all the precious moments, memories and support they afforded us. We will treasure every memory we made from the short time we had with our baby girl for a lifetime.

Due to the overwhelming success of the fundraiser, I have included three more wonderful charities who continue to support us after Lyla; Tommy's Baby Charity and SANDS (Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Society) and the LFMNT (Little Forget Me Nots Trust)

The information available and support networks have been invaluable to our decision-making as we try to get through a time of our life that we can't comprehend.

Tommys is a pregnancy charity working to make the UK the safest place in the world to give birth, supported by people who refuse to accept that a baby's death is just 'one of those things'. They fund and work towards reducing the rate of baby loss due to lack of research and information around pregnancy issues. Our hope is that this doesn't happen to any family again, but if they can help reduce it or save one more baby and family from this pain, it's a step in the right direction - Lyla will forever be a part of trying to save other babies lives.

SANDS exists to reduce the number of babies dying and to support anyone affected by the death of a baby, before, during or after birth, for as long as they need. Before bereavement midwives existed, years ago this was the only place mothers had to turn for support and acknowledgement of their baby's existence and death.

Little Forget Me Nots Trust (LFMNT) is a charity that supports parents grieving the loss of a child, including pregnancy loss.

They use creative tools to help you process life's lowests points through their Just Be Cafes, enabling you to meet other families experiencing child bereavment with no pressure to talk and reducing the anxiety through activities such as embroidery so you can "just be."

Giving you the option to listen or express your feelings, tell your story in a safe space, and talk openly about your baby.

They also raise funds to provide online and inperson workshops and programmes to support bereaved parents.

*If you’ve read this far thank you! Below will further detail how the funds will help along with a snippet of our story*

When our beautiful Lyla was born it was the best day of our lives – the unconditional love and overwhelming happiness from the moment we saw her and held her is the most indescribable feeling. A feeling that only other mummies and daddies who have been lucky enough to experience it will understand. A moment I will think about forever.

Whilst in the hospital, we were provided with a specialist cold cot for babies who have passed. All cold cots are donated via charities by parents who sadly have had the same experience as us. Lyla’s was donated by another baby via Abigail’s Footsteps. Cold cots are invaluable as they enable parents to spend more time creating memories and bonding with their baby than would normally be possible. Without this cot, it would have been impossible for our family and us to spend those absolutely precious seconds, minutes, hours and days with Lyla. Being able to lift Lyla in and out of bed, cuddle her, hold her, touch her and have her sleep beside us at night like every Mummy and Daddy should.

Knowing we want give back and support others how we have been supported, I spoke to my community and bereavement midwife about fundraising for a cold cot. Given the Belfast Royal Maternity works alongside The Children’s Hospice, this is where we were directed too.

Unfortunately, The Children’s Hospice does not currently have a cold cot. They have cuddle cots which are similar but lower standard, limiting the already short amount of time a parent can spend with their baby. I was told parents access the hospice for a range of reasons for example, if they are not ready to return home with their baby, if their baby is born with an extreme illness both expected and unexpected or if they aren’t as fortunate as us to have family support etc.

It breaks my heart to know other families won’t be as lucky as us to access a cold cot making a tragic situation even more so. Therefore, we will be fundraising to try and provide one for this fantastic facility to help ensure every parent gets to spend as much time as possible creating memories with their little baby.

Furthermore, we wish to acknowledge the important work of Remember My Baby, who provided a volunteer photographer to take professional photos of Lyla along with photos with her Mummy and Daddy. This is something we hadn’t even thought about and wouldn’t have thought about in those moments if we weren’t offered it. We are so glad for their lovely work and for their suggestion to take our own coloured pictures. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have a photo of our gorgeous, perfect girl to frame or share with the world. Therefore, we’re also fundraising to help them continue this generous and thoughtful service.

If you wish to donate anything at all in Lyla’s memory, we will be forever grateful to know our Little Bean’s impact on the world extends beyond us – hopefully through her, we will raise enough to help support other families in this unfair and heartbreaking situation and make a painful time a little less so.

The cost of a cold cot is £3300 (£2800 plus £500 courier fees as we’re outside the UK mainland). We are so overwhelmed and thankful at exceeding our original target, as it means we can definitely provide a cold cot for another family in Lylas name which brings comfort to our hearts. However, we would love to give back more and so we’ve changed our target to £7500 so we can donate a further £1200 to Remember My Baby and £1000 to Tommy’s, SANDS and LFMNT.

We are extremely grateful for all the support so far and appreciate all donations, no matter how big or small, made in memory of Lyla.

Lots of love,

Carla and Jonathan

Forever Lyla’s Mummy and Daddy

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