Thankyou for all donations received so far, due to what Oliver has will require repetitive surgeries, any further donations will get put to one side for future hospital stays to help us.

Hello, my name is Alice, my husband is called Toby and we have an amazing little boy called Oliver who is 6 months old, and this is our story.

Just over a year ago we found out the most amazing news that I was pregnant, for us this was a miracle as I got told I wouldn’t have children due to having PCOS, we were both over the moon and couldn’t wait for our little miracle to arrive, I found out early on that I had gestational diabetes and had ongoing treatment for this, at 21 weeks we found out that our little miracle was a little boy (very obvious as he had everything on display), the weeks went on and my bump got bigger and bigger, then when I was 5 and half months pregnant Toby and I got married, unfortunately not everyone could be present for this, I lost my dad 9 years ago so was difficult not having him walk me down the aisle to share my special day, also my mum couldn’t be there due to being in hospital, this brings me to the next part of our story.

My mum went into hospital beginning of August for a pain in her hip, she was in the first hospital for around 10 days where they found she had blood cancer, they said this could be treated by doing a treatment of cleaning the blood, this all sounded great and she was ready for it until she caught Covid, because of this she couldn’t have the treatment, she then got transferred to another hospital once she had recovered from Covid to start the treatment but she wasn’t able to due to having a spinal fracture which left her unable to lie flat on her back, and couple of days later she developed pneumonia, from this she got worse and worse, she was put on oxygen and strong antibiotics to clear it up, we went to see her on the Friday in hospital and she didn’t look very well at all but we had a good time with her and she even got to feel our baby boy kick, she was really looking forward to meeting him aswell, I was ringing the hospital daily for updates as the medication and pain relief they had her on made her not make sense on occasions, until on the Tuesday I rang for an update to be told nothing was working and that she was now on end of life care, I was absolutely devastated, we quickly went to the hospital the next day and to see how much she had deteriorated in a few days was heartbreaking, we spent several hours with her and left knowing that it would be the last time I would see her, shortly after midnight on the Friday I got a phone call to say she had passed away, my darling mum had gone and she wouldn’t get to meet her grandson, we had her funeral a month later when I was 7 months pregnant and finished sorting her house out due to being council it needed to be done quickly, all of this was done alone with no help from her partner, to make matters even worse he also stole part of my inheritance from me, and also removed and stole a gold chain with a cross on from her after she had passed away, I was planning on keeping and wearing this at the funeral and he was adamant it was put in her personal belongings from the hospital which he had given me, it was not in there, I questioned him for months wear it was as it was a sentimental item and I just wanted it back, 7 months later he finally admitted he had it and agreed to give it me back.

This brings me to November when I went to the hospital to be induced with our little boy, I was induced at 37 weeks due to being a high risk pregnancy and having high Doppler readings throughout my pregnancy, the days leading up to him being born were ok, the staff were lovely and everything was going to plan but 4 days in I hadn’t dilated enough and had to have an emergency c section, our little boy was born weighing 7lb 13oz, he was absolute perfection, 4 hours after he was born I was transferred to the ward, we then noticed he had a bit of a temperature and was taken to special care to be checked over, they informed me he would be staying there as he needed a few things checking as they were suspecting a few different problems, I went to see him several times over the next 18 hours, then 24 hours after being born he was being transported to Birmingham children’s hospital with suspected heart conditions incase of emergency surgery, I unfortunately couldn’t go with him as I had to wait to be discharged, we didn’t get to see our baby for 2 days, when we arrived we got told he had been diagnosed with pulmonary atresia with ventricular septal defects and mapcas, we were heartbroken, how could something so perfect have so much wrong with him, we were with him there for 2 and half weeks under observation and then they let us come home with a weekly nurse for checkups, this was perfect as we could finally become full time parents, the time we were there crippled us badly as we were spending money we didn’t have on living somewhere else and still having bills go out at home, in the time we were there we spent £2000 that we didn’t have and ended up racking up the credit card even though we got to stay in the Ronald McDonald house 4-5 days after we arrived there were still other expenses, 2 weeks went by and Christmas Day arrived and another blow, our baby was grey and floppy and barely taking any milk, we knew something wasn’t right, so we took him to the hospital where his oxygen saturation levels were at 54%, he had tests and swabs done and got told he had RSV, we spent 5 days in hospital with him over Christmas, this affected him badly as the heart conditions he has affects his oxygen levels anyway and it took him a while to recover.

We knew at some point our little boy would have to have surgery for his heart and the day came for us to have the start of it to check pressures and sizes, we have now been told he will have his first heart surgery in the next 8 weeks and to expect to be there for at least a month but could be longer, for the duration we are there Toby will not be able to work and bring in an income being self employed he won’t even be able to get paid leave, financially we are really struggling and unable to get any financial help and the business is not profiting, our sole purpose is to make sure that our little boy is ok and well, but also we need to make sure we have a home to come back to, we are still trying to repay the credit card and are already in debt with other bills and this is only going to get worse.

I am not the sort of person to open my heart and life like this but we need help to get through this, any money donated will help us get by while he is in hospital and pay for bills at home, if a substantial amount of money is raised then we will donating some of it to the children’s hospital.

Thankyou so much for taking the time to read all of this, if you can find it in your heart to help even if it’s just minimal then anything is very much appreciated.

The Mason Family

Alice, Toby and Oliver X