Cat’s Incredible Run

Mum and Dad to Run 300km+ to Celebrate Miracle Baby’s First Birthday

“A child’s 1st birthday would usually have parents planning a cake and party activities.

Instead, Selwyn mother Cat and father Mike are organising a fundraiser which will see Cat run more than 300 kilometres for One Mother to Another.

One Mother to Another supported them multiple time during her journey, and now this family wants to give something back.

Cat’s waters broke at around 12 weeks gestation and the couple’s second child, Maximus, was born on May 9th, 2024, at 33 weeks and four days. Doctors gave Maximus a 0% to 3% chance of survival, with the most logical next step being to terminate the pregnancy. But as long as their baby boy had a heartbeat, Cat and Mike never gave up hope.

Supported by their family and friends, Cat spent the next 16 weeks on strict bed rest, restricted to showering and short bathroom trips.

Now Maximus, affectionately called their “miracle warrior,” has defied impossible odds to reach his first birthday, and to celebrate Cat is asking friends, family and supporters to donate to One Mother to Another in lieu of gifts.

“We don’t need any gifts,” Cat says. “Maximus is alive, and that’s all we need. This is our way of giving back after so long of others helping us,” she says.

For every $10 donated to One Mother to Another, Cat (with husband Mike in tow) will run 1km around the Selwyn District within a 24-hour period, with plans to exceed 300km.

The run is tentatively scheduled to begin 31st May, subject to Maximus’s upcoming surgery. Friends and whānau will join her for portions of the run.

“I didn’t know if our little baby boy growing inside me was going to survive,” says Cat. “Even if he made it to 23 weeks which is when a baby is considered “viable”, his little lungs might not work when he was born. But somehow, he fought his way into the world, graduated from the Neo natal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), and came home where he belongs. He’s our little miracle.”