WARNING: CONTAINS DETAILS OF BABY LOSS Archie Oliver was a robust and healthy young baby when he died suddenly in his sleep – now his courageous parents want to help others who suffer the same unimaginable heartbreak
Emily and George Oliver’s worlds were shattered when their baby Archie died at just three and a half months.
The little boy lost his life to SIDS, or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, which is the unexplained and unexpected death of a baby under the age of one, most often in sleep. About 200 babies die from SIDS each year in the UK.
The couple from London have launched The Baby Loss Club, which aims to serve as a “one stop shop” following the loss of a child. They are being supported in their efforts by Archie’s godfather Joshua Patterson, the ex Made in Chelsea star turned ultra-athlete who recently broke a Guinness World Record when he ran a marathon over a volcano in Bolivia to raise money for the initiative.
Here, Emily and George share their story with The Mirror…
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Emily: “Archie was a very good size when he was born, weighing eight pounds five ounces. I gave birth naturally, it went very smoothly and from then on he was absolutely lovely.
Bella was about 18 months old when her brother was born. She was a little bit green with envy but she absolutely adored him. She would call him her little baby, she loved to hold him and help to feed and change him.
When I look back, there was nothing out of the ordinary. Archie had a little bit of a cough which didn’t clear for a couple of weeks. I took him to the doctors and they took one look at him and said: ‘He’s absolutely fine. He’s a strong little man.’
We’re based in London with a tiny cottage in Norfolk, close to our families. We went up there last June because it was my niece’s birthday and afterwards we popped in to see George’s parents. I remember telling them Archie had been a little bit quiet that day, not quite his usual happy self, not as hungry as he normally was.
We got home about 7.30pm and George did Bella’s bedtime while I focused on Archie. I gave him his bottle and put him in his cot. He went to sleep a little bit quicker and easier than he usually would. I went downstairs to do the usual, clean the bottles, dishwasher on and then I took myself to bed. For the first six months babies tend to have a bottle during the night so I was sharing a room with Archie. George slept in the room next to me and he came in to say goodnight.
It was about 2am when I remember waking up with a sensation of huge scare and fright, the kind where you sit bolt upright. I leant over to have a quick look at Archie in his cot and he was very cold. I grabbed him and I went next door to get George and screamed: ‘Archie’s dead’.
We remember laying Archie on the bed and looking at one another thinking: ‘What do we do?’ You’re hoping it’s a bad dream. Bella was absolutely screaming, she wasn’t sure what was going on.
It took a few seconds for us to call 999, we scrambled to find our phones. They were unbelievably amazing but they were so strict with us. ‘We need to get him on the floor. We need you to put a towel under his head. I need you to do the resuscitation.’
George and I alternated the resuscitation because I would do it well to start with and then lose focus, I would start crying, screaming and panicking. The paramedics arrived very quickly, you’re longing for the medical help to arrive so they can take over. They will be able to do the right thing, if you’re not doing it right they’ll be able to bring Archie back to life.
We had little episodes of hope as while trying to resuscitate you would see his chest rise and think it was him starting to breathe again, until you realised he wasn’t.
Crammed into a tiny room with lots of people, with George next door trying to calm Bella and reach his parents, I experienced every sort of emotion you can ever imagine. I remember sitting on the floor with my head in my hands. I sat in the front of the ambulance. People were trying to talk to me but I couldn’t comprehend what they were saying.
It was about 4am by now. I kept asking the ambulance driver to update me and he just kept telling me they were doing everything they could. We arrived at the hospital, The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kings Lynn, where what felt like 100 staff members were waiting to get to work on our baby.
I just ended up running in, turning around, panicking and running back into the car park until a really lovely nurse came out and her sole responsibility was to care for me. She introduced me to all the staff and walked me into the room with Archie.
He was lying with his nappy on, with what seemed like 100 million machines plugged in to him. I remember sitting in the corner, curled up in a little ball.
I was taken into a windowless room and two doctors came in, they pulled up a chair next to me. George wasn’t with me yet, he had stayed behind with Bella, I was on my own with this lovely nurse.
The doctors said they had tried for the last few hours and there had not been even one ounce of a sign of life. They asked my permission to turn off all the life supports and I agreed.
George arrived and the nurse gave us a box with a lock of Archie’s hair, they were taking his footprints too. Then we got to say goodbye but I didn’t, because I couldn’t accept the fact that he had died.
By about 8am, we had left the hospital without our son. In the first few days you have monumental guilt, because we hadn’t got the post mortem results back yet. Was there an underlying illness we should have spotted?
But we later learned Archie had died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or SIDS. It just doesn’t make sense – we were told we had a very healthy baby. My therapy at that point was walking up and down the beach, listening to the crashing waves and talking to Archie.
We were consumed by grief, by shock and by organisation – one minute you’ve got a meeting with the coroner’s officer, the next with the funeral directors. After the funeral, everyone had to get back to work and we returned to our home in London.
Grief is desperate, it’s very isolating and it’s incredibly lonely. You don’t want to speak to anyone, you don’t even want to leave your house. I had become part of a club no one wants to be a part of.
Since then, we’ve been working towards finding joy and happiness again, trying to find out what that looks like. Everything is a bit harder now, some days it’s a struggle. I would have loved a survival toolkit, an accessible online community with access and funding to any form of therapy, which is why we came up with the idea for the Baby Loss Club.
We launched our Instagram community this year with the website launching in early 2026. It will provide access to resources and free therapeutic services. We’ve also established the premium raffle site, Bundle Club, which provides Baby Loss Club with a constant stream of funding (www.bundleclub.co.uk).
We wanted to create a one stop shop for everything baby loss related. We found there to be a four to six month waiting list for therapy and we don’t want that to be the case.
We were able to access regular therapy through a family friend and it was our lifeline. I’m not saying I wouldn’t be here today without it but our lives wouldn’t look the same.
What’s so lovely about launching The Baby Loss Club in honour of Archie is we are able to keep his story alive, while doing something positive for other people. We hope he would be proud of us.
Archie was buried in a church in Brancaster, Norfolk, in a celebration of his life. He was cremated and we still have him with us at home. We will always see Archie as a star in the sky. Every step his godfather Joshua took on his marathon challenge as he ascended the volcano, he was closer and closer to him.
To anyone going through the loss of a baby, I would say you’re not alone. Lean on any help and resources you could possibly get hold of and find your therapy. I think everyone’s therapy looks different.
Losing a child is probably one of the hardest things one will ever experience and having a baby after losing a child is extremely difficult too, something I found harder though in a different way. You have this constant fear, you are terrified to get too close or emotionally attached to the baby, just in case something happens.
I don’t want to take away from the joy my son Teddy has give me, because it’s also unbelievably magical and special and I wouldn’t have changed anything for the world.
We have got lots of lovely photos of Archie, so it will be lovely to share them with Teddy when he’s older and tell him how proud his big brother would be of him.”
George: “Archie was a really special person.
I said goodbye to him in the hospital where I was born and where our daughter Bella was born. You hear horror stories of other parents losing their infants to SIDS and what everyone says is true, you just don’t think it will happen to you.
Our grief was very different. Emily wanted the world to swallow her up and not see anyone, I wanted to spend time with my family and friends, and talk about Archie. One of my biggest fears was to lose memories, to forget about him and that was my coping mechanism.
Therapy is fantastic because it’s a completely non judgmental room. You can tell them everything that’s in your head. I still get a huge amount of value from it.
Josh and I grew up together, we lived in London together and it was a very natural choice for us to pick him as a godfather. He was doing this amazing challenge and we’d spoken about him doing it for The Baby Loss Club.
We’re really in awe of Josh. It has been healing in many ways. Seeing Archie’s name on the flag at the top of the volcano when Josh managed to summit. What a special thing.
Our initial target is to cover 1,000 therapy sessions and once achieved we’ll aim to fund even more.”
To donate to Josh Patterson’s Sky’s The Limit challenge to fund therapy sessions for families affected by baby loss in memory of Archie Oliver please visit Just Giving now: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/skysthelimit25