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My Plea:

Amy’s beautiful heart stopped beating at 16 weeks, That day my heart truly broke, hearing those words ‘I’m sorry, there is no heartbeat’ stick with you for the rest of your life.

Your whole life, dreams and aspirations are gone within a matter of seconds from hearing those words.

I found myself entering a whole new community, a community I had never heard of before and knew very little about. It is a very scary place to be on your own, I knew I needed support to help me through this. I found support at Angel Wings Baby and Child Loss on Facebook.

My one regret is not being able to spend extra time with Amy, my heart hurts still to this day for not being able to make precious memories with her. It was not until I found Angel Wings that I heard about Cuddle Cots.

I started fundraising for Angel Wings to provide my local Funeral Directors with a Cuddle Cot in memory of Amy. I wanted to achieve this as soon as I could, as I didn’t want another family not being able to have that choice and regret like I did. I worked really hard and in 2 weeks I had raised just over £1,600, the support was amazing.

I didn’t want to stop there and continued fundraising for a 2nd Cuddle Cot in memory of the local funeral directors little baby girl she had sadly lost 30 years ago.
It took 4 weeks to fundraise £3,200 for the 2 Cuddle Cots.
My passion of these vital pieces of equipment grew stronger and I continued to fundraise.

Amy is my motivator, my inspiration, my want to help as many grieving families as I possibly can. Raising as much vital awareness and funds for baby loss and Cuddle Cots themselves.

The past 12 months have been non stop with raising awareness and fundraising.

I have organised 2 ‘Walk to Remember’ events for all aspects of Baby and Child Loss. A special walk to remember all our little ones who left us with their beautiful Angel Wings far too soon. Wondering whether anyone would turn up, with it being such a taboo subject. The time had come – we had over 80 families join us, I was truly blown away. My heart sank, knowing that everyone of these families were here for the same reason.

When everyone arrived, I gave them a wooden heart where they could write their angels name on and a message if they wanted to and all hearts were going to be hung on a tree at the end of the walk.

We began the walk around a beautiful woods in Wendover in Buckinghamshire, the walk lasted around 45 minutes, I was stood at the back of the walk and I watched everyone walking for their beloved Angels. All sharing their stories along the way. It was a beautiful yet heartbreaking image. Seeing just how many babies lives had been lost.

At the end of the walk we stopped at a tree where everyone hung their hearts with each baby’s name. We also had a celebrant say a few words and poems, who then read out every single one of the Angels names hanging on the tree. It was a very moving moment and everyone came together for each other, families who didn’t know one another, supported each other.

We finished the walk off with a Dove release which was sponsored by our local Co-op Funeral Directors in Wendover. It was beautiful and a perfect end to the walk. We all headed back to the gazebo where we supplied a BBQ for everyone.

Everyone asked for the walk to be annual, as we didn’t have anything like that locally. Lots of lifelong friends were made that day.

Local organisations offered to arrange Quiz nights for us, let us have stalls to raise awareness and raise funds. Lots of raffles.

In May 2017, I set up Amy’s Wings to work along Angel Wings Baby and Child Loss, I started making precious keepsakes, like bracelets, keyrings, baubles, notebooks and plaques with 100% of all proceeds going to purchase Cuddle Cots around the UK.

I have one Cuddle Cot in memory of Amy, all the other Cuddle Cots are dedicated in memory of other families Angels. To have a vital piece of equipment in Amy’s memory meant the absolute world to me and its with thanks to Angel Wing’s for giving me this opportunity to help others out.

I know it mean’s so much to them:

Gemma Whittington:
Allie from Amy’s Wings recently helped me fulfil my fundraising mission to provide my local hospital with a cuddle cot in memory of my Angel Logan.

I lost my son Logan last year on his adjusted due date, and I received such great support from the hospital and their staff. I then found out that they only had one cuddle cot and it broke my heart that had anyone else had to say goodbye to their baby during the time we were using it with Logan that they wouldn’t have been able to spend that precious time together with their baby.

I had help setting up a fundraising page to help get money together for a cuddle cot and did various things to raise the money, all the time I was chatting to and having help and support from Allie, and I’m lucky enough to have her as a friend.
Earlier this year I was informed by Angel Wings & Allie that her fundraising page was going to help me by putting in the last amount of money needed to get Logan’s cuddle cot ordered for the hospital. It was so overwhelming knowing that Allie was helping us and making a difference to even more families, she’s an amazing lady and is helping families all over the country to have precious memories with their little ones who are taken far too soon.

Stacey Downie:
I lost two of my Angel girls 9 months apart from each other. Without the help from Angel Wings & especially Allie who founded Amy’s Wing’s in memory of Amy. I would never have been able to achieve my dream & goal of getting a Cuddle Cot in memory of my two Angels, which means they’re names will always be remembered & l couldn’t be more thankful to Allie. Word’s are actually hard to describe the way I feel but when I got told the rest of my Cuddle Cot was getting funded with the help from Allie’s fundraising, I cried all night and just couldn’t believe it, until i saw the plaque with my girls names on. Having something to always have in memory of them will always remain a massive part of my life and without Allie this wouldn’t have been possible. This has put a massive smile back on my face and feel much appreciated.

To date (September 2018), I have raised £22.5K in 17 months which has enabled a total of 14 Cuddle Cots to be purchased. It absolutely breaks my heart doing this, but I don’t want another family to feel the way I did. I will do everything in my power to continue raising awareness and funds for baby and child loss and Cuddle Cots.

Knowing I am helping grieving families to spend that extra precious time with their Angels to make special memories with them is all I want to do. I want them to have the ‘choice’ to use a Cuddle Cot.

Amy’s first Cuddle Cot that I fundraised for – in just one year has been used 14 times!! That is…
14 grieving families
14 babies who have sadly gained their Angel Wings far too soon
14 families having the all important precious time to spend with their little ones

Hearing this really upset me, BUT….. if this one Cuddle Cot was not available- then those 14 families would not of had the chance, precious time to make those treasured memories and cuddle their Baby’s before laying them to rest.

… and that’s just 1 Cuddle Cot.

This is why I will continue to do this. Its blimming hard at times but its my goal to help as many families as possible and provide funeral directors and hospitals with this vital piece of equipment.

Thank you so much for everyone that nominated me, over a year a go I never thought I would find myself up for a ‘baby loss’ community award.

Thank you everyone at Angel Wings for taking me in and supporting me and helping me be where I am today, for my amazing friends and new family for being there for me and to my most beautiful Amy – you melt my heart everyday, I am doing this for you Sweetheart!!

What Other’s Have Said

“I lost my baby girl last year and I had never heard of a Cuddle Cot before, the funeral director that was doing my daughters funeral didn’t have one. My Funeral Director contacted Allie, who had supplied 2 Cuddle Cots to the local CoOp Funeral Directors, within minutes Allie had replied to the messages and was able to supply a Cuddle Cot to Hertiage and Sons so I was able to spend extra time with my little princess. I cannot tell you how much this meant to us.Allie had not only fundraised locally but also around the UK and has raised in under a year nearly £20k.”