We lost our first baby at 3 days old – then days after his brother was born our worlds fell apart again

A COUPLE was overjoyed to welcome their little boy into the world, after tragically losing their first baby when he was just days old.

But just weeks later, their joy was shattered when their baby boy received a devastating diagnosis.

Sophie, 34, and Luke Kitcher, 33, tragically lost their first child Huxley three days after he was born 2021.

The tot didn't make it through surgery to repair a hole in his intestine.

So the couple from Ware in Hertfordshire were overjoyed when their second son Ralphie came into the world on October 5, 2022.

But just weeks later, little Ralphie was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML).

Already reeling from the loss of Huxley, his parents were devastated to learn their son had only a 30 per cent chance of surviving the rare cancer.

Mum Sophie, a jewellery sales supervisor, first suspected something was wrong when Ralphie wouldn't settle at night.

Putting it down to trapped wind or colic, she took him to a doctor.

To her alarm, the tot started developing a cyst on his head and bruise-like marks across his body.

But it took three visits to the doctor before Sophie was told to take Ralphie to A&E.

He was given a diagnosis of AML, a rare type of cancer, with only around 3,100 people diagnosed with the disease each year in the UK, .

Ralphie's case is especially rare, as the risk of developing AML increases with age and is most common in those over 75.

Hearing the news that Ralphie needed to go to Great Ormond Street Hospital for children (GOSH) in London, where her first son Huxley had died, Sophie was shattered.

She said: "I was petrified to fall pregnant again after Huxley died. We had testing done before Ralphie was born.

"All the tests showed it was just bad luck that we'd had another incredibly poorly baby.

"It was nothing we'd done, nothing genetically wrong, just bad luck."

After two gruelling rounds of chemotherapy, Ralphie's relieved parents were told that his cancer was in remission and there was no cancer in his cells on January 17.