Ronald Mc , APH Neonatal Unit & Claire House

Hi, our names are Emma and Chris . We are the parents of Zachary Christopher Neal. Zachary was born very prematurely. Due to this and other complications during pregnancy, he was born with severe chronic lung disease. At 18 weeks and 5 days, after Arrowe Park Neonatal Teams and Zachary’s best efforts, he sadly passed away on 15th April.

During this period, we took permanent residence at Ronald McDonald Housing, which is situated above the Neonatal Unit at Arrowe Park. This meant we could be as close as possible to Zachary without the need to leave the hospital. Without the support of both the housing itself and the staff we would’ve found this difficult situation even harder.

Claire House have not only supported us after we lost Zachary, but have been there through our whole journey, offering memory making, complimentary therapies for Emma and emotional support throughout. After losing Zachary, they provided us with the facilities to be able to have him home with us to spend precious family time together before the service.

After spending 5 months in Intensive Care and High Dependency at Arrowe Park, seeing how small the Unit is, and how parents are cramped next to their critically ill child, they are desperate for a new Unit, for the nurses and doctors, the parents, and most importantly, the babies.

Raising money for the 2 charities above will allow them to continue supporting families that are in need of help like we were. Raising money for the Neonatal Unit will contribute towards acquiring the essential funds to build a new unit which they so desperately need.

We would like to honour Zachary’s memory, and feel that raising as much money as we can for our chosen charities and Neonatal Unit will help to do this. We are so grateful for anyone who does donate, it means the world to both Emma and I, and of course Zachary xxx