My retirement from Politics

I have arrived at a very sad but easy decision.

Baby #3 from 12 week scan

As of September I will cease to be an active member of the Liberal Democrat party and the unofficial Go-To Medway LibDem guy.

Before people start braying about the collapse of the party or a lack of my commitment I have two words.... Pulmonary Atresia. 

A few weeks ago Sam (my wife) and I went for the twelve week scan of our third (and final) child expecting they would be as healthy as Sophie and Ollie. 

Sadly we were wrong. There was a complication and we were referred to Kings hospital.

They have a condition called Pulmonary Atresia. The right side of the heart that pumps to the lungs is either missing (aorta) or detrimentally too small (ventricle), also the vital Pulmonary artery is blocked and too small to carry blood to the lungs.

The outlook was not good. There is extensive surgery to re-plumb the heart and lungs which can have renal and digestive side effects, physical disability and curtailed life expectancy. 

After two weeks of trying to decide whether to give the child a go or to be cruel to be kind and end it now we went back for another scan.

Nothing had changed but we were told the surgery was actually fairly routine and a curtailed life expectancy actually meant Early adulthood.

Neither of us, despite being pro-choice could bring ourselves to terminate and we felt that it was better to let fate decide and give the baby a shot at life and see what happens.

The baby is due in October and must be born in London where it will be rushed to intensive care and if strong enough be operated on a few days later with a follow up four months later.

The next year will be hard on my wife, my other two kids (especially on Sophie) and the baby. I will do what I've always done and knuckle under and put them first. Baby's health is never going to be great and depending on blood vessel development in the lungs and the success of the operations mean that I will need to dedicate a lot of time to them.

My time is going to be exceptionally valuable and I'm making sacrifices and sadly being an active member of the party is one of them. I feel guilty as next year is going to be vital for the Medway branch but family must and always will come first.

I'll still be blogging on my history blog from time to time (I'm not dead after all!) but this blog will be indefinitely suspended from September onwards I'm afraid.
 

I'm sad to let it go and may post on a very rare basis. This has been a big part of my life since 2010 and want to thank you all for reading.