At 6lb 14oz he was a healthy weight, but as the Bearders were getting ready to take their precious son home the following day, the paediatrician was unhappy with some final tests on the little boy.

"He said Joel had a heart murmur. It didn't sound too serious and he looked so well that we weren't too worried," recalls Gaynor, 34, from Huddersfield.

But when they were told that Joel would have to go to Leeds General Infirmary in an ambulance with a special nurse at his side, the alarm bells started to ring.

"We weren't even allowed in the ambulance with him; we had to follow in the car."

By the time the Bearders arrived in Leeds, Joel had already had a scan and Gaynor and her husband Antony were taken into a side room to hear the prognosis.

"We were told our baby had critical aortic stenosis – his aortic valve was too narrow to pump blood round his body. They said he was too small to operate on and there was nothing they could do. Our beautiful baby was going to die," says Gaynor.

"We were absolutely destroyed. Joel was so wanted, we had even gone through ovulation trials to conceive him. We were holding on to each other with all sorts of things going through our heads, like how we would tell Lucas."

Gaynor and Antony were sent to a room, while doctors tried to stabilise Joel, and they were told it was just a case of waiting for him to die. Early the following morning paediatric cardiologist Dr John Thomson said he was willing to operate on Joel to insert a balloon into his heart to widen the valve. "He said that the operation was risky and that Joel could die under the anaesthetic. But he said without it Joel would die anyway, so there was really no choice."

The operation on the tiny baby went better than any one could have hoped, with Joel not only surviving but thriving.

"He was moving his arms and legs and just looked so well," says Gaynor. "We couldn't do anything because we were just laughing so much with relief and joy. It was like him being born again."

Within a week, the Bearders were able to take their new son home, but the joy was short-lived after Joel developed what doctors believe was an infection.

"He started to lose weight and it was the first time that he really started to look ill."

Although Joel survived the infection, it had damaged his already weakened heart, and the left ventricle stopped working. Once again doctors said there was nothing they could do.

"At one stage he was on nine different medicines," says his mum. "They still expected him to die."

The Bearders were allowed to take Joel home, but on the car journey to Antony's parents in Northampton he suffered a cardiac arrest and started to turn black as his organs started to fail.

"The ambulance came to the car and stabilised him. If we had waited another 15 minutes, he would have been dead. We daren't ask, 'Is he going to die?' We just asked, 'Are we going to be able to keep him?' and they said, 'Probably not.' It was horrific."

Joel's mitral valve was now failing and there was no hope that it would mend itself because there was so much scar tissue on his tiny heart.

But after two weeks, scans showed his left ventricle had started pumping and the scar tissue was disappearing. Further scans revealed the scar tissue had gone.

There is no doubt Joel will need to undergo open heart surgery in the future, and although he quickly runs out of breath, at nine months old he has already defied doctors' predictions. His parents are now fighting for better screening for heart conditions.

"If it had not been for the doctor at Calderdale Hospital, we would have taken Joel home and he would be dead now," says Gaynor.

"There are hundreds of babies with heart conditions which go undiagnosed because, like Joel, the babies often look well."

As well as praising the Yorkshire Heart Centre at LGI, the Bearders are very grateful to the Children's Heart Surgery Fund in Leeds which has given them endless support.