A BUTTERFLY FOR NATASHA

Leading children’s cookery author and Julia’s House patron, Annabel Karmel, is giving her support to Forever Butterflies as she knows only too well the pain of losing a child.

“Julia’s House is a charity close to my heart because of losing my daughter, Natasha. Losing a child is the worst thing that could ever happen to a mother. Natasha was born healthy, but she died aged three months of a viral infection which went to her brain.”

Annabel continues: “It all happenened in a matter of days. I became worried about her and she was admitted to Great Ormond Street Hospital because doctors thought there was something wrong with her brain. She ended up in intensive care on a ventilator.

“Eventually we were told there was nothing more they could do, so she was taken off the ventilator. A nurse put Natasha in a pretty little dress and I held her in my arms. Four and half hours later she died. It was horrendous. You never forget something like that.

“I wanted to make something meaningful of Natasha’s life, so when I wrote my first book, The Complete Baby and Toddler Meal Planner, it was dedicated to her.

“I was lucky to go on and have three more lovely children, but you still think about the child you lost and how old they would be.

“When I became pregnant again I ended up giving birth to my son Nicholas at home on the staircase, with no medical support for two and half hours. I thought I was going to lose another child. It was traumatic at the time, but we got through it and Nicholas ended up being the inspiration for my first book, as he was the world’s worst eater.

“Had Natasha not been born none of that would have happened, so something good came out of it. It gave me a career that helps other people and makes a difference to their lives.

“I always think that what you do for others lives on, and what you do for yourself dies with you. And the work we all do with Julia’s House will live on through many generations of families. Forever Butterflies will help that work to continue, and I will be proudly displaying my butterfly in memory of Natasha.”

£20 could buy some relaxing and unwinding bedtime story books for quiet times at the hospice

£50 could pay for a session with an expert counsellor for a child, sibling or parent in difficult times could provide dedicated time for brothers and sisters with their favourite sibling worker, to help them cope for Gift Aid purposes)

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