Me and Ben will be running 10K to raise money for the charity Meningitis Now, the funds will go towards research, helping to bring awareness and support.

We are very passionate about this because our baby boy (Beanie) August, had a rough start to life, ending up in hospital with meningitis at 1 week old.

He was a very sleepy baby, which didn't seem unusual at the time and we were discharged with no issues. During our first week together, we noticed a number of symptoms, which we now know were possible signs of meningitis but did not concern any healthcare professionals at the time.

I remember my mum meeting him on day 0, she said he was shivering and felt cold but we put that down to her cold hands. The following day Ben noticed he was having convulsions, we called 111 and took him straight to A&E, they were keen to admit us but didn't have any beds so sent us to the CAT unit for more tests. He was pretty jaundice (but not enough to be admitted), he had acid in his blood (but not enough to be admitted) and the convulsions seemed to steady, so they sent us home! The following days are a blur but I called the MAC unit several times with a range of symptoms, his chest inverting, grunting, stiff body, sleepy, not waking for feeds, mottled skin, temp and jaundice. I spoke to midwives who were not worried about his weight loss or any symptoms I had mentioned. I requested a lactation consultant to watch me feed because he wouldn't feed for two nights in a row, he slept through, I had to set alarms to wake him, I would try for hours but he just fell to sleep, he had only 10ml from a syringe. The day they came to help me, he looked like a bag of bones... His newborn vest was really loose and I knew something was wrong. They weighed him and he had lost 13.5% of his birth weight which was enough for us to be admitted to hospital. And thank goodness because they did a lumbar puncture test as soon as we arrived and found he had meningitis, bronchitis and a urine infection.

He had a frown, a tiny little crease between his eyebrows for his first few weeks of life, he didn't cry or even flinch for the lumbar puncture or any of the blood pricks because he was so poorly.

He got the treatment he needed, finally we had been listened to... But it was almost too late! Fortunately he's a very happy and healthy 9 month old now.

We want to raise awareness so that others don't have to mention so many symptoms before the healthcare professionals take notice and act.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page, we hope you can share a little for a good cause.