The Olivia Mae foundation was set up after spending three weeks in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) at the Freeman hospital in Newcastle with our baby daughter. During this time we saw many children on the ward, most of them there for planned surgery to correct both simple and complicated heart and lung defects; though occasionally, as in our case, some children arrived as an emergency. Some children spend hours on the ward and some spend weeks and months. Each child and their story is different, but the one thing they have in common is that the child needs life saving treatment.

Staff in the hospital are amazing and each child is tended to around the clock by a dedicated team, while consultants and surgeons try to fix whatever isn't working right, with a common goal to get the children back home with their families.

We were very lucky with the support from our friends and family, my sister took care of my son who celebrated his second birthday in the hospital cafe. We stayed in hospital accomodation and so could spend our time with Olivia, doing the simple things like changing her nappy and signing nursery rhymes to her.

Not everybody has that support and situations like this can really stretch a family, both emotionally and financially. Trying to juggle home life and spending time with the child in hospital.

Our story didn't have the ending we hoped for and Olivia Mae died at the very tender age of 9 weeks, after her team had exhausted every option to fix her. Losing a child is incredibly difficult but it's in memory of Olivia Mae that we decided to set up the charity.