‘We thought we’d be taking our baby boy home in a car seat’ – grieving Dublin couple raise funds to help bereaved parents

Gillian Lee, from Donaghmede, and her partner Cathal O’Brien are trying to turn their family’s loss into something positive by raising money in aid of Féileacáin and A Little Lifetime Foundation who helped them during their loss.

Gillian and Cathal lost their baby boy Daniel (Danny) on October 14. They already have two beautiful girls, 15-year-old Ellarose, and her little sister, 15-month-old Claudia.

“We were absolutely over the moon when we found out we were pregnant so soon after Claudia,” Gillian said.

“There’s quite a large age gap between our two girls, and the bonus this time round was that, as well as our two beautiful healthy daughters, we were going to have a son.

“We were going to finally have our very own, much-awaited ‘five-a-side’ team! Life, at that time, literally could not have been more perfect.”

However, on October 10, Gillian was told her baby boy’s heartbeat could no longer be detected during a routine scan.

“Our world just fell apart. We didn’t know how we were ever going to cope,” she said. “There are no words that I can find to explain to you what it was like to say both hello and goodbye at the same time to our infant son.

“We thought we were going to be taking our baby boy home in the car seat; instead, we laid him to rest in a tiny white casket.”

While in the hospital, the grief-stricken couple were visited by “wonderful representatives from Holles Street Hospital’s bereavement team”.

In addition, Féileacáin provided them with a cold, cuddle cot and a memory box which contained treasured items from A Little Lifetime Foundation.

A cold, cuddle cot is a cooling mattress which can be used to allow bereaved parents and family members time to stay with their child before they are laid to rest.

“We were so grateful to Féileacáin for providing us with the cuddle cot. It gave us precious time with Danny,” Gillian said.

“We also appreciate their beautiful, much-treasured memory box, and much-cherished pictures of our darling son.

“Féileacáin also took casts of baby Danny’s little hand and footprints. We cannot thank these charities enough. They were there when we needed them the most.”

Due to a lack of availability, it was 36 hours before a cuddle cot became available for the couple.

“By that time our little angel had deteriorated, and that meant we got to spend less time with Danny than we would have hoped,” Gillian said.

“We had to let our precious boy go sooner than we wanted to. Cathal and I don’t want any other parent to go through this.

“For that reason we’ve set up a Go Fund Me page in Danny’s name to purchase another cuddle cot and to donate to A Little Lifetime.”

Around 300 infants die by stillbirth in Ireland each year. That’s 300 families devastated by the loss of an infant.

In addition, a stillbirth can prove to be physically challenging for the mother, with Gillian requiring follow-up in-patient hospital care.

To date, the fundraising initiative has raised over €10,000 and both Gillian and Cathal cannot thank the generous people enough who donated.

“We are beyond overwhelmed by people’s generosity. One anonymous person donated €4,000. It’s phenomenal,” Gillian said.

“We get to see who donated and we have personally replied to everyone to say thank you. People are amazing.”