Joshua

Joshua was born on the 21st of October 1995. We had waitied with enthusiastic anticipation for his arrival, and now the day was here... 3 weeks too early. 'Something was not right' we were told, so inducing the labour was necessary. He was born weighing a small but reasonably healthy 5 pounds. After two weeks of what seemed like torture to us we were given the diagnosis. He has a chromosomal abnormality called 18q- syndrome. It is very rare. To find out more about 18q- syndrome there is a link below.
So we took him home, our new son. We were so proud. We still are. As you can see from his photos, he is a beautiful child. He has many dificulties, but still manages to lift your heart with his giggle and melt it with his smile.

Joshua's 1st school photo. 1999

We were informed of all the things a child with 18q- syndrome may have in medical terms. Boy, I sure had to get out the dictionary many many times. It was a frightening time, emotionally very difficult. To learn that your sweet baby may never speak or walk was devestating. So hard to imagine. So we took one day at at time. We dealt with the "baby" we had in our arms before we took on the responsibility of dealing with a mentally retarded child. It seemed much easier to cope with little by little as time went by.
We were told in the beginning that Joshua would be prone to illness. At six months of age we were boasting that he hadn't caught so much as a cold. Then he got sick... really sick. Joshua always cried so much, but this time it was unbelievable. He cried for 20 hours out of 24. He was so hoarse and so inconsolable. I still don't think I was believed when I told of how much he cried. He was hospitalised and within a few days he was in Intensive Care in a coma. It wasn't known why he was so ill. The new machine to test blood showed that his sugar level was above 40. No wonder the poor baby was so ill. We were told he wouldn't survive.

He made it though! He had so many people loving him I think he just HAD to stay. He was left with another hardship though. He became an insulin dependent diabetic. This was almost too much for me to bear at the time, it seemed to be another slap in the face. There was so much to do to care for Joshua already, I couldn't have imagined it any worse. But of course we grow and time takes care of a lot of things. I cried like a baby when I was learning about injections, honestly... needles was one of my largest fears. I trembled for months when giving them to him, reduced to tears many times. Now... well, it's done in the blink of an eye, no trouble at all! After all, it's for Josh. I would do just about anything for Josh, and that proved it.