Worthing parents set up GoFundMe page to help pay for visits to see premature son

Marie Miller, 29, was not due to give birth to her son, Riley, until August this year but she believes due to large amounts of personal stress, her waters broke earlier this month.

Marie said she was transferred from Worthing hospital to Queen Alexandra Hospital, in Portsmouth, where Riley was born on April 8.

She added: “I started having contractions on the Tuesday night so I went to Worthing hospital, but because that hospital doesn’t deal with premature babies, I was transferred to Queen Alexandra in Portsmouth at five in the morning the next day.

“The hospital checked me over but found no signs of infection or any reason why Riley would have come early.

“Myself and my partner, Chris, think it’s due to a lot of housing issues we were having around that time. I was served an eviction notice in December due to not being able to pay my rent because of the pandemic, and we are having a lot of issues trying to find somewhere to live. Right now we are living with my mum.”

A woman normally carries a baby to around 40 weeks, but Marie gave birth to Riley in the 23rd week of her pregnancy.

She said: “Riley had to be resuscitated when he was born and if he was born any earlier, the doctors wouldn’t have resuscitated him.

“At the moment, Riley is in an incubator which is humidified and the same warmth as the womb, he has a special UV light to develop his skin, he is on a ventilator, he’s had two blood transfusions and he’s got lines in his arms as the umbilical cord has died. The lines give him nutrients as he isn’t being fed.

“Riley will be in hospital until his due date, which is four months away, and maybe even longer if he doesn’t reach the milestones the hospital sets for him.”

Marie and her partner Chris Harris, 33, decided to set up a fundraising page in a bid to raise money to see them through these next four months, and perhaps longer.

Marie said setting up a fundraiser was the last thing they wanted to do but felt they had no other choice.

She added: “To visit Riley is a 38-mile journey each way and with all the petrol prices rising, it costs so much for us to get there every day.

“We only set the page up just to see, we didn’t know we’d actually get donations. It was hard for us to do but everything is just so expensive at the moment.

“But, there is absolutely nothing we wouldn’t do to be able to go up and see him, we wouldn’t want to spend a day not going up to see him, sometimes we can’t as money is tight and with me now being on maternity, we pretty much just have one wage coming in.

“We can’t believe how much we’ve got so far. The help we’ve been given is just unbelievable, we don’t really know how to think or what to feel, it’s just so lovely what everyone is doing.”

So far, Marie and Chris have received just over £1,000 in donations.

If you’d like to help, you can donate to Marie and Chris on their GoFundMe page.

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