Charity pram-pusher for premi-babes, Glenn Atkinson is putting his feet up for a while.

Glenn on Sunday, finished his week-long trek from Orange to the Royal Hospital for Women in Randwick, raising more than $208,000 for the hospital and for life-saving neonatal equipment at Orange Health Service. 

His odyssey of care was motivated by pre- and post-natal complications with he and partner Renee’s identical twin daughters, born last year, that saw the couple spending months in Sydney.

Glenn’s efforts though were not without a few impediments along the way, he had to complete part of the journey virtually around Mt Panorama after a section of the Highway from this side of Lithgow to Blackheath was deemed too dangerous.

“Actually, after walking Mt Panorama, the rest was easy, and the weather was not that hot, say 31–32 degrees and it rained for a day and a half, just light showers, which was also good,” Glenn said.

His pram-push was a labour of love designed to save other expectant parents having to leave home for the specialist care currently only available at the major hospitals in Sydney.

“My wife and I, Renee, we had identical twins in February (2021) … but they were born six weeks premature at the Royal Hospital for Women at Randwick,” he explained.

“But at one point, we were looking at them being born at 25–26 weeks, which is very premature,” he added.

Renee’s girls, Eleanor, and Zoe shared a reasonably-common medical condition caused by uneven access to their shared placenta, Glenn said.

“They found-out we were having twins from eight weeks, and we had to be in Sydney every second week, and then they told us at 20-weeks, they may have to clamp Ellie’s chord to save Zoe,” he added.

Their trials led to Glenn organising and training for the pram push to raise money for specialist neonatal equipment for Orange.  “Our daughters were high-risk so they couldn’t be delivered at Orange Hospital, but I’d love to see a time where we could handle a lot more premi-babes from here,” he said.

It was not all smooth-sailing though, locally-high COVID-19 infection rates added drama to Glenn’s journey with persistence telling in the end. 

“You wouldn’t believe it, the bloke who was the (support) driver, had to pull-out because he was a close contact, and the bloke who was going to walk with me at the last minute was also a close contact,” he said.

“But my mum and another good mate walked with me… a lot of people joined me for the walk from Orange, about 30 people did 10, 20, 30 kilometres many saying, ‘I didn’t know how hard it would be’ but I’d been in training myself for some time,” he explained.

Overcome with emotion at the end of his walk with Renee by his side, Glenn though is taking it easy for a while.

“I didn’t pull-up too bad, I had sore feet and my legs are sore… but I’m not walking anywhere for a while to be honest.