Meet the Gawthorpe-Rogers Family

Emma and Matthew are no strangers to Brian House – their son Ellis has cerebral palsy, can’t talk and has severe sight problems after being born when Emma was just 24 weeks pregnant.

Last year they had to use our Butterfly Suite.

“We got pregnant in May last year, and when we were told we were going to have twins we were just so extremely happy. When we later found out they were twin girls we were even happier – it made us feel that, with Ellis, our family was complete.

About halfway through the pregnancy I started to feel unwell and went to the hospital a few times. And then when I was 22 weeks pregnant I went into labour. There was nothing they could do. I had to give birth to my girls, who we called Remi and Star.

They both fell asleep shortly afterwards.

Because of Ellis being in Brian House, we called them for support as we just didn’t know what to do. They said that when we were ready, we could come to the Butterfly Suite where we could spend all the time we had with the girls before they were laid to rest.

They even looked after Ellis for the whole time we were there.

That time in the Butterfly Suite meant we could read to our beautiful girls. We could watch TV with them and we even got to take them into the garden and had photographs taken with them.

We made memories with them that we will treasure for our lifetime.

The staff at Brian House helped us to do what we wanted with the girls, but more importantly, they made sure we were looking after ourselves.

After the funeral, I knew I needed to do something to keep me busy and focused. I’d always wanted to do something to support Brian House because of how they look after Ellis, and that year I decided to sign us all up for the Santa Dash.

We ran in Remi and Star’s memory, and it was a really fun event. We got sad, but mainly we enjoyed being part of something huge in support of such an important place. In support of Brian House.”