Lily Heaton

Oakley’s story

When we found out we were pregnant, we were overwhelmed with happiness. We were so excited to become parents and had already started making big plans for our future with our little baby. We had so much to look forward to, and we couldn’t wait to meet the little person growing inside me.

We had our first scan and our baby was perfect. Everything looked good, and we left feeling so happy and reassured. We were ready for our new adventure and couldn’t wait for the weeks and months ahead.

Then came our 12-week scan.

Our little baby was being stubborn and wouldn’t lay out straight, so we were asked to come back a week later to try again. We didn’t think too much of it. We went back the following week, but our baby still wouldn’t cooperate.

Me and my partner honestly thought we just had a lazy little baby who didn’t want to move for the camera. Camera shy like his mum.

We went out for a walk, still completely happy and excited. We danced around, trying to get our little baby to move. We laughed and talked about him, never imagining that our whole world was about to change.

We went back into the scan room.

And that’s when our lives crumbled.

There were multiple people in the room, scanning my belly, and nobody was saying anything. The room had gone completely silent.

I knew something wasn’t right.

We were taken into another room, and there we were given the news that no parent should ever have to hear.

Our baby was not going to survive.

Our beautiful baby had an unsurvivable condition.

We were devastated. Completely broken. We left that hospital with more questions than answers, trying to understand how something so cruel could possibly be happening to us.

I remember leaving the hospital and screaming down the phone to my mum, telling her that our baby was very unwell. It felt impossible to comprehend. Just hours before, we had been excitedly talking about our baby, and suddenly we were being told that we will never get to bring him home.

In the days that followed, we went to another hospital. I had more tests and much more detailed scans.

That’s when we were given the diagnosis.

Triploidy.

We had never heard of it before.

We didn’t know what it meant. We didn’t know why it had happened. We didn’t know how this could have happened to our baby, or why it had happened to us.

That night, I sat awake for hours reading everything I could find about triploidy.

I desperately wanted answers.

I wanted to understand what was happening to my baby. I wanted to know why. I wanted to find something that could make sense of the nightmare we had suddenly found ourselves living.

But the more I read, the more heartbreaking it became.

Our beautiful boy, Oakley Grae Richardson, was incredibly poorly, and there was nothing we could do to make him better.

Yet throughout all of this, he was still our baby.

He was loved.

He was wanted.

He was our little boy.

From the moment we found out about him, we loved him more than words could ever explain. We had imagined our future with him. 

Instead, we were faced with the unimaginable decision of having to say goodbye to our precious son before we had ever had the chance to truly know him.

We then went into the hospital so we could bring our little boy in to the world. At just 16 weeks pregnant I had to take medication to start my labour. He was then finally here. More perfect than I would have ever imagined. We sat in our room looking at him for hours. We read him stories, we told him how much we loved him, he had his first ever photo shoot, we never let go of him. It was so precious and peaceful. 

Oakley was born sleeping on 14th of December 2025.

He may have only been with us for a short time, but he changed our lives forever.

He will always be our son.

He will always be part of our family.

And he will always be loved.

We walk for Oakley because we want his little life to mean something. We want to keep his memory alive and tell people about the beautiful little boy who stole our hearts before we ever got the chance to bring him home.