We hope through our boxes to provide parents with many tangible ways to remember their much-loved baby.

To lose a baby is one of the hardest things any parent has to face and to cope with, whether it is through miscarriage, termination for fetal abnormality, stillbirth, neonatal death or any other complication during pregnancy or just after birth.

So many decisions have to be faced suddenly and parents can feel overwhelmed with the choices they have to make. As well as coping with this they become aware that the time they have with their baby will be short and precious memories are all they will have left.

Joshua’s Boxes™ was set up in order to help parents facing this crisis. We hope to be able to provide as many ways as we can for parents to create precious memories of their baby. These include a beautiful Memory Box, filled with a blanket, hat, teddy bear, plastic wallet, little box, single use camera, a list of essential photos to take and information about useful web sites and helplines.

Joshua’s Boxes™ was originally set up in January 2004. After spending a long time developing ideas and working with different organisations and hospitals, we were granted Charity Status in September 2004 which will njow help us fulfil our vision to make this scheme available nationwide.

Many hospitals provide hand and foot prints, locks of hair, and photographs of a baby. We hope that by liaising with each hospital individually we will be able to provide some of the things they do not have in order to make up our boxes. We are also fundraising so that we can provide baby books specifically for miscarriage and stillbirth plus little plaster kits to get a 3D impression of a hand or a foot. Joshua’s Boxes™ are always looking for new ideas and initiatives to improve our service to hospitals and families.

After Joshua was born locally, he was transferred to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool where we found out that not only did he have one of the worst cases of Hypoplastic Left Heart but another major defect called Supra Cardiac Total Anomalous Pulmonary Venous Drainage. These two combined conditions meant that he would not survive surgery, so his treatments were withdrawn and he died in our arms and with his family around him aged four days.

Throughout the later stages of my pregnancy, with the help of ‘Hearts of Hope’ I started a website for friends and family to keep them informed of Joshuas’ progress. After he was born and died I was encouraged to keep writing and received many e-mails of comfort and support. During the months following Joshuas’ death and reading many other families stories, I came to realise how fortunate I had been to be prepared for the eventuality that he might die.

Many parents do not have this opportunity when their babies die suddenly and so I began to think of ways I could help to provide them with things they would need to make memories. The first brave lady to share her story was Vicky who sadly lost her beloved first son, Thomas, on Jan 1st 2004. Thomas was stillborn at 31 ¼ weeks. Through reading her story and her e-mails, we developed a close friendship and she has been instrumental in advising and suggesting things as I have been developing these ideas, as well as creating this lovely website along with the help of her husband Magnus for Joshua’s Boxes™.

After many various ideas and discussions with hospitals, midwives, and the ladies who e-mailed me, I came up with the idea of a memory box, filled with things that would help parents to make these memories and have something to keep.

We gave our first boxes to the Central Labour Suite of the local hospital where Joshua was born (Glan Clwyd Hospital, North Wales) in Easter 2004 and this initiative is now multiplying throughout the UK!

Each box is filled with:

Some hospitals like to include their own leaflets as well in these boxes. We also provide a little box filled with nice materials and trinkets for the nurses to place with the baby in order to take a good photograph, if they wish.

As we become better established and raise more money we would like to include a hand and foot plaster kit, a little gown for the baby to wear, and a little baby book for miscarriage and stillbirth as well.

We also want to help parents who have suffered a miscarriage and so we provide tiny little blankets and angels pockets for the gynaecology wards. These come with a little angel for anyone who has had a miscarriage and would like a memory of their baby.

Joshua’s Boxes™ tries to meet individual Hospitals needs and we are willing to fundraise to provide other items that the hospital may wish as well. Our main aim is to try to help parents to have, if they wish, as many tangible memories of their much-loved baby as possible.