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Sam and her 4 month old son
                              This website has been modified slightly due to some recent adverse press

This website was not set up by Sam as she is the kind of person who would never really ask for help. 

It was set up by friends of Sam,  who have known her for a very long time and have seen the string of misfortunes that life has dealt and seen the courageous way she has dealt with each of  them.  Sam is not the sort of person who accepts handouts or goes touting for them, as you will see in the following narrative, Sam has worked hard all her life and worked hard to achieve one of her dreams which was to have her own business. This she achieved until all she had worked for so long and so hard was stolen away by the recession that has affected most of us in this country in one way or another. 


This is Sam's story.  

From a very young age I have always dreamed of being a mother and having my own little family that I can love and cherish. This never happened for me right up to the age of 38, I really thought it would never happen and I was heartbroken.  Imagine my amazement and delight when I discovered I was pregnant last August 2010.

In my early 20’s I worked  building Computers, Servers etc,  and after 10 years of working hard I bought my first flat.  Life was really going great,  I started a new  business  building furniture for the Pubs and leisure industry.I was extremely happy but I was travelling over 50 miles to the business and it wasn’t very nice all the travelling, after working long hard hours everyday so I decided to sell my flat and find somewhere close to the business. So I bought my first house…life was great the business lasted five years until the recession took hold and I could see everything around me slowly slipping away. I had months of sleepless nights constant worrying, trying to find a solution to all my problems. I remember thinking,  I’m nearly 40 worked hard all my life to get to this.. Never been married, never had any children and now I’m about to lose everything I’ve ever worked for since I was 16, what a complete mess. The business closed and  I had a business loan attached to my property for the business and now I wasn’t able to make the payments.During this horrible time in my life I met a new man and we started a relationship, his name was Tony.  We hadn’t been together for that long when to my amazement I found out I was pregnant.  I thought some of my dreams were coming true.  It took him a while to get used to the idea of being a father, but he seemed to come round to the idea and it looked as if we could build a life together.

Anyway 4 months into the pregnancy after suffering the whole time with real bad morning sickness morning, noon and night and being in pain in my lower abdomen.  Everyone including my GP put it down to morning sickness and the whole pregnancy thing.

Over that weekend, whilst Tony was visiting, I became incredibly ill.  I was in so much pain, and throwing up everywhere. It was that bad I ended up seeing an emergency doctor on Sunday evening, she told me it was a kidney infection and to take antibiotics and rest for a couple of days. I was up all night in so much pain and being sick I couldn’t even keep water down. Monday morning about 5.30am Tony seemed oblivious to my pain etc, andwanted me to take him to the train station so he could go to work. I couldn’t even get dressed it hurt that much so I went outside to my car in my PJ’s to take him to the station.    By the time I had taken him to the station, I could hardly move. I dropped him off and got myself home in massive amounts of pain. Then 2 hours later I phoned 999, and was admitted to hospital that morning,  all on my own extremely scared for me and the baby because they couldn’t give me anything for pain relief or do the relevant tests due to me being pregnant.  Twelve hours of being in pain and getting worse, the doctors not really doing anything because they were reluctant to operateblind,and knowing that  I was pregnant , they couldn’t work out what was wrong with me,but then the nurse that had been looking after me on the surgical ward ended up shouting  at the doctor because she realised I was dying and my body was shutting down , insisted they do something.

They decided to scan me again,to which they found free fluid and I was rushed into theatre.  Before I went to theatre they told me that they didn’t know what was wrong.  The surgeon told me that ‘worst case scenario’ was that my appendix had burst and if that was the case he might not be able to save me or my baby, but if it came to it they would try to save me above anything else.  The worst case scenario turned out to be true.  By some miracle, the operation was successful.  After an anxious 18 hours waiting for a scan, I found out that both me and my baby had survived.

Tony, however, was nowhere to be seen.  He never came to see me but rang the hospital and phoned me, accusing me of lying about being ill.

I came out of hospital to an email from Tony, saying that he had never loved me.  He said everyone had said he was a b*****d and he agreed At least he was an honest b*****d….!  I’ve never heard from him again.

I came home from a hospital scan appointmenton Thursday 10th March, and all was well, and I was very happy only for this to be quashed byfinding a letter on my doormat around 4pm,  saying that I was being evicted at 11am on Monday morning. Which only gave me 3 days to pack my belongings and be made homeless?

On Friday afternoon, an ‘independent counsellor’ came from the bank.  She asked for proof that I was pregnant.  The scans and medical notes were not enough.  She asked me to lift up my top, in case I was hiding a cushion. This she said was enough to prove I wasn’t lying.  She asked if she could have a coffee and followed me into the kitchen, where she started commenting on my home and belongings. After sitting back down, she let slip that she was an independent valueer, and she was there to value the house on behalf of the bank. She even had the cheek to offer me a rental property of her own and I could put all my belongings into it, and said me and my son could stay there for years, but if we moved out the belongings would be hers !!!!!!.

Even after I proved that I was pregnant, she said she couldn’t stop the eviction, without me offering the bank some kind of payment through her. I couldn’t do this at the time of asking. And spent the rest of the day negotiating with the bank, they told me at quarter to five on Friday evening that they would allow me two more months in my house if I could find £2000 cash by 9:00 Monday morning…

I was frantic and desperate,  I didn’t know which way to turn.  I had no way of moving my possessions.  I was about to lose everything I have worked for since I was 16. And above all they were taking away my joy of being a mother to be, because all my attention was now focused on saving our home.

This is where the story takes a turn for the better  unbeknownst to Sam,   friends of Sam  contacted their friends many who did not know Sam but immediately came to her aid Sam continues......

 To my amazement, two friends spent the weekend raising the money for me to stay in my house for the next 2 months, at least until my baby is born.  I don’t quite know how they did it, but they went round to all their friends, asking everyone they knew to donate some money.  People who didn’t know me gave money to help.  At 10pm, Sunday night,there was a knock on the door but when I opened the door nobody was there, just the last £500 I needed was on my hall carpet, this had been dropped through my letterbox anonymously, with the most amazing card that I will frame and save forever and when I hope I save my house I will continue to fund raise for the homeless and pregnant mothers in the same crisis like myself.

The relief to know that I wasn’t going to be homeless next morning was incredible.  I never thought people could be so generous.  That night was both one of the worst and one of the best times in my life.
That weekend gave me hope and taught me that we need one another. On Monday morning I took the money to the bank, where the bank manager was very helpful. On returning home I spoke to the bank’s business manager, who told me I now had another 2 months to clear the debt in full.

I dream of not just having a home for me and my un-born son, who is due any day now, but also of helping other people in the same situation and give them hope.

I believe my son and the sons and daughters of others in my position deserves the best start they can be given and this begins with a home to live in....

With the help of her friends Sam is only trying to do what any mother would do,  protect her son and do her utmost for him in the face of extreme adversity.

Sam continues to try and save her house and has been selling off all she owns to find the money she needs. She recently negotiated another couple of months for £5000 and was forced to sell her car which was her only form of transport and until recent negotiations had not been worth selling as its sale would have had no effect on the required  repayment.

Everything in her house is for sale as she will sleep on bare floors if it means keeping the house

Will you please help me and donate to my cause by buying a virtual brick ,  I wish to try and save my house and also set up a charity that will help support others in my position. 

Win or lose my dream now is  to help others  to fight back and save their homes?

Love,

Sam