Small Steps to save lives.

We support premature birth by using our website to accept donations & promote fundraising events we participate in.

We love children and believe they deserve every opportunity to have a good go at life.
Thousands of babies around the world are born premature every year, and the strain on the family is immense.

Mentally, physically and financially it is tough.
A lot of the time doctors have no idea why children are born premature. For some babies, they never really had a chance and pass away before they knew what this world had to offer.
For others they show unbelievable strength and spirit to fight for their life, and several years later they show no signs of their ordeal, other than their beaming smile – you’d never know that child was born premature.

Very rarely does a premature baby, if they survive, have a clean run of health. They may experience damage to the brain, lungs, heart, ears or eyes, but it all depends how early they arrive, and how much fight they have inside.

Most mother’s do what they can do prevent premature birth, others simply have no idea what could possibly could go wrong. Therefore, it is our mission to support premature babies, their families, and research into premature birth, so babies get every chance of living a healthy and prosperous life.

How does TJ's Small Steps work?
How do I donate, & what does the money go towards?

We pick an event every year, which involves plenty of pain, in order to put ourselves in a "pain place" in an attempt to be more attuned to the sort of struggle that premature babies go through.

We aim to raise as much money as possible through donations off the website (see the donations tool in the right column), and 100% of proceeds (after paypal & bank transaction fees take their cut) go to a charity or association who support premature birth.
If you would prefer you can send us money via a direct bank transfer. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Every event we tackle, with your help, hopefully goes one step closer to bringing the number of premature babies down each year.
If we can collectively all help save just one child then it has all been worth it!
After All, the one child we may help, could be a child in your family.

We’ll write blogs about it, video our efforts as we sweat blood and tears, and share our experience as best we can, using the best technology the web has to offer.
To follow our fundraising you can find our charity events in the TJ's World menu in the top of the left column.
We encourage you to share your experiences and knowledge as well, so as one collective group, we can spread the word about giving premature babies a fair go at life!

What is it to experience a premature birth?

This is truly a tough conversation to start, and until you personally experience a premature birth, it is almost impossible to describe the roller coaster of emotions you go through as a parent. So little is understood as to why some babies come so early, and when they do the work involved by all those that are touched by this is immense, but so rewarding when a little one comes home.

Jesse "De Aap"

5 April 2009 – the day that changed my life!

My name is Jarrod Englefield and together with my partner Carly Verheul have started TJ’s Small Steps, which is designed to support premature babies, their parents, and research facilities dedicated to better understand, and hopefully one day prevent another premature birth.

We have done this because we have a son named Jesse who was born at 27,4 weeks and want to share our story, so it helps make people aware about what potentially can go wrong with pregnancy. For the rookies out there the date of delivery of a baby is expected at 40 weeks.

I have a totally different side from Carly, a story she can only tell, and will tell when she is ready, but here is my experience of becoming a father to a premature baby.

It was like any other Sunday, pretty slow, mainly from the night before as we had a nice evening out with friends. Carly was on the water as she was 6 months pregnant and I was on the wine as it’s pretty much my religion - we were super excited as it was going to be our first child, so we were all laughs, giggles, and smiles.

I was firmly on the couch getting my fix of Sunday sport and Carly went off to give her spinning class as she works at a fitness trainer. Afterwards we decided to grab a video for a relaxing evening at home and then it started. Carly complained of back pain, to be honest she had been complaining about having a hard belly for a few weeks, but people around us said it was nothing to worry about. And thus, is the reason she continued working. On the way back from the video store, Carly rung the midwife and she quickly came around to our house.

Next thing I knew we where on our way to the hospital. When we arrived Carly was 2cms dilated, so it appeared our baby wanted to come out. Carly is Dutch, I am a New Zealander and we live in The Netherlands, but the hospital we were in doesn’t specialise in giving premature birth, so we quickly found ourselves in an ambulance heading to the AMC in Amsterdam.

When we arrived I asked one of the nurses looking after Carly about the chances of her actually giving birth. She said “it’s going to happen tonight”. A few hours ago I was thinking about watching a video at home, and here I was trying to comfort Carly who was going through an unbelievable ordeal. The nurse said we were in good hands as they help deliver circa 2500 premature births a year. I was stunned. 2500 premature births a year, and that’s in one hospital!! Carly was in a lot of pain and I was doing my best to support her, to the point I was lying on a small fold out bed next to her exhausted reaching up holding her hand.

At 1:59am on Monday 6th April 2009 our son was born. We had no idea what the sex was going to be, as we wanted it to be a surprise and what a surprise it was!! Due to his birth being so unexpected we didn’t really know what to call him as we only spoke about 3 possible boys names a few weeks beforehand. One of those boy’s names was “Jesse” and under these trying circumstances the name hit a cord and stuck.

It was such a strange feeling being in the hospital and knowing it was difficult for people to say either “congratulations” or “is everything ok?” And bringing you balloons saying “It’s a Boy”. It was like a false start in a running race, as you don’t know what to think other than getting on with the job ahead.

When Jesse was born it was like there was no life. He was quickly moved through to another room where the doctors starting working on him. They managed to get him going, praising the big man upstairs and then was put in an incubator before being moved to the intensive care unit. Carly continued to have a rough ride as she had to be operated on whilst I stayed by Jesse.

After Carly came out of the operating room I went down two floors to see her. I could see straight through her eyes as she tried desperately to function after what she has just been through. It wasn’t until a few hours later that Carly finally made it through to see Jesse for the first time. It’s a moment I will never forget - a proud mum seeing her baby for the first time. It was priceless as Jesse firmly had his place under the monkey sign, which is “de aap” in Dutch. We were in the incentive care unit with around 10 other premature babies, all with parents emotionally charged, so it was a difficult environment to be in.

Jesse weighed 995 grams when he was born and this went down to 870 grams within the first few days. He was so tiny for the first few weeks a breathing machine supported him, which was monitored 24 hours a day. If his breathing went under or over a particular level an alarm would sound, so the nurses could quickly see what the problem was. Just imagine being in a room with 9 other premature babies with alarm bells going off all day and night. It’s a difficult sound to digest because it means the babies aren’t in a place they should be. You find yourself permanently looking at the screen and praying everything stays between the lines.

Jesse was doing ok for the first couple of weeks and therefore so where we, so after 3 weeks he was finally transferred to the high care unit, a large but small step, which gave us a lot of confidence. However, he quickly fell sick and was rushed back to incentive care where he was put back on the breathing machine - it felt like we were back to square one. This time is was extremely scary as I remember asking one of the nurses if he would be ok, and it was obvious she had no idea. There were several doctors and nurses working on Jesse, and all we could do was wait. What’s more the curtains were pulled, so there was panic in the air, as you couldn’t see what was going on. This was the toughest day of my life, not knowing if your little boy was going to live or not. It was the 29th April 2009, and the next day in The Netherlands was Queen’s Day (Koninginnedag) where everybody dresses in orange and celebrates the Queen’s birthday. It should have been a day of celebration, but for me it was the day Jesse’s birth finally sunk in as I found myself in the hospital foyer crying my eyes out. I remember looking several floors above, where Jesse laid fighting for his life and writing in a book about his family roots in New Zealand. It was intense and a difficult pill to swallow.

In true Jesse spirit he fought through and several days later we found out it was a blood infection. They filled the poor boy with so much antibiotics I’m not even sure if I’ve had that much in my lifetime.

When he was finally taken off the breathing machine and transferred back into the high care unit, we could finally see some progress. After 7 weeks Jesse was healthy enough to be moved to a hospital closer to our home, which made it slightly easier on us.

At the beginning we were asked if we wanted to stay in the Ronald McDonald house, but in the end decided to travel home after Carly was fit enough to leave the hospital. It was very difficult saying goodbye to your son each day knowing he was fighting for his life, but Carly was emotionally and physically exhausted and I still had to work as I was trying desperately to find my way in a foreign country. Without traffic jams we lived 30 minutes drive from the AMC Amsterdam, and Carly visited twice a day, and I visited once a day, which was tough on both of us. I remember the phone calls Carly made every couple of hours to see if everything was ok with the wee man. That was a scary feeling, lying in bed at 3am and waiting for the nurse to hopefully say everything was ok.

The nurses and doctors at the AMC were unbelievable. They turn up and work. The nurses, especially, as I know they don’t get paid that much, but we have everything to thank them for.

At the new hospital Jesse was transferred to a medium care unit, but still had all the bells and whistles on. There was one room to go. The room I called “stand alone”. This is where my nerves went through the roof because the babies are considered strong enough to stand on their own two feet, which means they don’t have any devices on them to sound alarms.

Jesse was not in a position to be breast fed, so we had to feed him through a test tube during our stay in hospital, which at times dear I say it was entertaining. I remember feeding him one day with the curtain pulled, so nobody could see us, and totally stuffed up as I split the milk all over my chest and arm. Don’t ask me how, but thought if the nurse pulls the curtain back now, I’m busted. I quickly cleaned it up and the nurse finally came through and said “how did it go?” I said “great he drank the whole lot.” She said “he’s doing great!” When Carly arrived back I said, “quick get some more milk our boy needs to be feed…” She said “but he’s just been feed” I said, “don’t ask!”

The day finally came when we got to cross Jesse’s name off the whiteboard and take him home. It was a couple of days short of 40 weeks, so we were in Hospital for 3 months. It was such an unbelievable feeling after what felt like an eternity being in hospital, but a scary one as well. The first nine month’s was heavy because he wasn’t allowed out of the house, around other people incase he got sick. What’s more every time he made a sound we got out of bed to check if he was ok. We kept a journal and one night got up 15 times!! I remember driving to work one morning and feeling like I’d just worked an 18 hour day and had another 18 hours to go. At the time, I didn’t know how I was going to survive, but did.

As time went on Carly started to struggle with what had happened. I suppose the most difficult thing for her was coming to grips with why Jesse was born premature. We were never given an answer because the doctors didn’t know. Carly didn’t smoke, do drugs, drink alcohol, and did her best to stick to the recommended diet for pregnant mothers, all because she wanted to give birth to a healthy baby. And look what happened. You never think it will happen to you, but it did to us and looking back was incredibly naive, so much when Jesse was born I noticed he had no nipples and asked the doctor why. It was quickly explained to me it’s because they were not yet developed.

I remember coming home just after Jesse was born and seeing a comment on the fridge Carly had written “First Birth Breathing Session” and it was dated for two weeks time!! Going baby shopping before he was born was interesting as well because I thought all the clothes were “tiny”, but after his birth thought the clothes were “huge”. Therefore, we had to buy special premature clothes off the internet.

I can't imagine life without Jesse. Everyday, whether good or bad he makes me smile when I come through that door. And that for me is the reason I became a father. He is now 2,5 years old and I saw him proudly sit on the toilet for the first time today and go for a number one. He had the biggest smile on his face as he looked at me and pretty much said “watch what I can do papa”. I gave him a high five, and then he jumped in the shower.

Jesse is 100% healthy, has no damage to his brain, eyes, ears, lungs or heart, which is generally not heard of considering how early he was born. I have heard so many stories where babies born around his age or even older didn’t survive. It’s a miracle, it really is, and it’s now my mission to support premature birth, so other babies get a fair go at life.

To conclude I learnt there are different stages of premature birth, all with their own risks. The greatest risk is babies born below 28 weeks and with Jesse being born at 27,4 weeks, I got a crash course about how precious life really is. And for me that means life is not all about yourself, it’s about supporting others, it’s about standing back one day and being proud you tried to make a difference in some shape or form. In good old “kiwi” style I’m going to get out there and make some noise, so I hope you participate in one of our events in the future to support premature birth…