Liverpool Women's Neonatal in Memory of Pippa Gillibrand

Pippa’s Story

On the 25th August 2024 our whole world changed when our beautiful daughter flew into this world and entered in true diva fashion, just like the little drama queen we always knew she would be.

Pippa Isobel Waller Gillibrand, our perfect little chunk arrived at 10:38 weighing a healthy 8 lbs 5 ounces, unfortunately there was a complication with the placenta right at the end of what had been an amazing labour (with Mum managing to get to 10cm dilated without any pain relief, although Dad did need some for his ears!). Pippa went without oxygen for a period of time and as a result our brave little girl suffered severe brain damage and multiple organ failure. Pippa was diagnosed with Hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy (HIE).

Pippa and Mum’s care was transferred to the amazing neonatal team at Liverpool Womens hospital where we were able to stay by her side for the next 12 days.

While those 12 days were the most difficult, gut wrenching, heart breaking days we’ve ever experienced, they were also, at times, the most beautiful, most special and most precious days of our lives as we held, cared for and above all, loved our brave and beautiful little girl.

In that short space of time Pippa’s character shone through and she was adored by everyone on the neonatal unit and touched the hearts of many, we always knew she was going to be a little heartbreaker with those bright blue eyes, long eyelashes, perfectly plump lips and long locks of hair (which surprised us both!) but never did we imagine our girl would break hearts quite like this.

Liverpool Women’s ensured Pippa had a beautiful last day on earth, able to feel the fresh air on her face and see the sky above. There we sat with cups of tea and cake, which was something we very much looked forward to doing with Pip throughout our pregnancy. We read her stories and sang her favourite songs, such was the love for Pippa she was also serenaded with a viola performance of ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’ which was incredibly special.

On the 5th September, Pippa passed away peacefully in our arms, surrounded by love and in the care of her two favourite nurses, Jess and Rachel who she promoted to ‘Auntie’ status after affectionately pooping on them.

Truthfully, an infinite amount of time with our Little P would still never have been enough and while it will always be painful not knowing what her smile, her laugh or her voice would have looked and sounded like and all the other firsts and milestones we expected to share with our beautiful daughter, we take great comfort in the fact Pippa is now at peace, free from pain but was, and always will be loved.

We missed you when we held you in our arms so heaven only knows how much we will miss you now you’re gone. We have never felt pain like this or knew it even existed as our arms and our hearts feel so empty. We have this abundance of love we never knew was possible and no one on earth to give it to, honestly, we do not know how we will recover from this but the strength our little girl showed to hang on for so long is truly inspiring and we hope this can pull us through.

We cannot begin to describe the amazing care Pippa received at the Liverpool Womens Hospital, the compassion, care and love from all the staff really brought light and laughter into some of our darkest days.

The staff at the Women’s ensured we were deeply involved in Pippa’s care and able to do all the trivial things that you’d otherwise take for granted, things like changing her nappies, feeding her mummy’s milk, giving her top to tail bed baths and most importantly, having hours and hours of cuddles and kisses, a far cry from our initial thoughts of only being able to hold her hand through an incubator. The doctors and nurses helped us learn all about her condition, medication and care and involved us with every step of her treatment . We were taught to navigate our way around all her tubes and wires ensuring she got to feel our loving touches. For that, we are truly grateful and we are already looking at ways to give back to Liverpool Womens hospital.

We would love for Pippa’s memory to be honoured through donations to our Go Fund me page for Liverpool Womens hospital.

During our time in the neonatal unit we were given bonding squares to use with our beautiful daughter Pippa. Parents are given two squares, one is kept with the baby and one is kept on mum's or dad’s body and every 12 hours they are swapped. They help the parents and baby bond through smell in the unfortunate cases where parent and baby have limited, or are completely unable to bond physically by touch and skin to skin.

Mums are able to place the bonding square in their bras for safe keeping but we found that Daddy’s kept falling off his shoulder onto the floor. This was really upsetting as it meant the squares could not be used as it needed to be washed. Mum had the idea to have some hair slides bought from home so that Dad could clip the bonding squares to the collar of his T-shirt.

Everyone on the neonatal unit commented on what a great idea this was and so we started to form the ideas of making ‘Pip’s Clips’ which we hope to see given out to all families with babies on Liverpool Women’s Neonatal Unit. The clips will come in a little bag telling the story of how the clips came to be in honour of our little girl and wishing them well on their neonatal journey.

We also hope when we are strong enough that we would like to set up a celebration of life event for our Pippy, which we will also turn into a fundraising event with all proceeds going to Liverpool Women’s Neonatal Unit.

Tom is hoping to organise a charity golf day in the near future to honour our beautiful daughter.

Any donation big or small is greatly appreciated.

Love Tori, Tom & Pippa