HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY JOSH!!

This time last year my best friend of 25 years was going through the worst time of her life. It was meant to be one of the happiest times of her life, and of course it was with the arrival of her baby boy, but what non of us expected was the roller coster ride, stress and heartache his arrival would bring.

Hayley was diagnosed with Strep-B during her pregnancy so was monitored closely and given the required attention when she went into labour at the end of December 2016.  Hayley's long labour, and the fact Hayley had Strep-B  resulted in Josh being born with an infection. As soon as Josh was born the words "infection", "breathing difficulties", "Meningitis", and "Sepsis" were being used, and discussed which I can only imagine must have been petrifying for Hayley and her husband Tom. Hayley had already had a baby, a "normal", no complications, birth and was certainly not expecting to be hearing these nightmare words.  Josh was making a grunting type noice on his arrival and the medial staff at Barnet General were concerned. The next awful words Hayley and Tom had to process were the words "lumbar punch". To find out what was wrong with Josh they needed to take fluid  from his spine to find out more. The first lumbar punch was not successful and I will never forget the heartache in Hayley's voice and eyes when she explained about her baby boy being taken away for them and the sound of his screams (I know Hayley will be cracking up reading this, so I'm sending a virtual hug her way, but we did discuss this blog post being done but with two little monkeys keeping her very busy she hasn't got round to writing it with me so I thought it was the right time to share in conjunction with the celebration of the little man's first birthday and these beautiful photos of him xxx. LOVE YOU H) 

After the second lumbar punch (as the first wasn't successful)  they dscovered that Josh did not have Meningitis, but he did have Sepsis, a poisoning of the blood which would have been brought on by the Strep-B. With a few days in hospital and the right meds Hayley and Tom were then able to take home their precious little boy. The frightening thing is that cases like these are becoming more and more apparent and Strep-B isn't a routine test from what I believe which is ridiculous and I know at least three of my close friends have had it during pregnancy.

This little boy turned one last week and I offered to take some celebratory photographs of the little beaut. His big sister was on standby to help out with the cake clear up and made an appearance in a couple of shots.

WE LOVE YOU JOSHY! XXXX

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