Everything Nicola

Ethan has his first tooth! From my previous life as a dental nurse it is the LLA, after what seems like forever that both boys have been teething it is lovely to have something to show for it!!

Theo has almost finished his month of being completely O2 support free which is amazing, he is such a happy boy

The weaning is going well, it is certainly a messy business, little fingers manage to get their food everywhere! The boys love the different flavour combinations.

We have been going to the library at least once a week getting lots of exciting books to read which they is great, there are so many amazing childrens books to choose from so I don’t think we will be running out any time soon.

For Good Friday Mark and I took the boys to the New Forest Wildlife Park which was a lovely day out, the boys enjoyed a well earned nap for most of our visit but we took photos for them and I’m sure we will take them there again!

A photo of Daddy Bear trying to evict a deer from the pockets of our buggy, from the look of the deers waistline he is well trained at being fed snacks by visitors!

Nicola x

Today was my first Mothers Day as a Mummy! I got a lovely card and breakfast from my gorgeous boys (thank you Daddy bear)! But the best present of all is them!

I hope all other Mummies had a great day

Nicola x

Last week was manic, we had hospital appointments in Salisbury with our new consultant since moving house. He was pleased with the boys progress and has decided that Theo can have a months trial of oxygen at night only which is brilliant! He hates having the cannulas taped to his little face and already seems much happier! It means when we go out and about we still take a cylinder with us in case we need it but we don’t look like we belong on the set of Ghostbusters! Also we have the go ahead to start weaning both boys! We have stocked up on baby rice, Ella’s kitchen first tastes, rusks………. let the fun begin!

Our appointment at Exeter hospital was regarding Theo’s hernia, which they are planning on operating on in the next month – scary stuff, although the surgeon is happy to operate and feels that it is very safe.

Next week we are going to go to our local children’s centre and join some parent and baby groups which is quite exciting. So we are looking forward to meeting some other mummy’s, daddy’s and babies!

Since my last post we have moved house and had Christmas in close succession!

We all had a wonderful Christmas with family, but I can’t wait until next year when Ethan and Theo are a little older and can rip the paper off of their presents!

Mark and I decided to have a ‘Festive’ promotion which was insanely busy but so much fun seeing the orders pouring in! This year we have so many plans for the business – my to do list just gets longer and longer! I have so many new products for the website to photograph and list which alongside choosing new products is one of the best parts of my job. (Of course the best part is being able to work from home with my gorgeous boys!) It is so exciting seeing people browsing and buying the new items. Lots of the recent new additions have been in the hypo-allergenic metal range which include the cutest animal charms! I just love the owl ones!

Theo just has 2 more palivizumab injections for this years RSV season and we meet our new consultant in a few weeks so will hopefully discuss coming off of the Oxygen! Since our time began in NNU we have read lots of blogs of other peoples experiences , one of the most amazing that I think I have read about recently was a baby called Kenna that was born at 24 weeks weighing just 272 grams! I thought Theo weighing 815 grams at birth was tiny!

We have a great childrens centre in our new town (according to everyone we have spoken to!) that offers courses in baby massage which we think looks really beneficial and enjoyable for all of us so when the snow disappears we are going to go and sign up.

I can’t wait to make some extra time each week to make jewellery again – seeing as I own the biggest bead box in the world hahaha I should make use of it! I am hoping to improve my wire wrapping skills and have a go with PMC! So watch this space for updates

Nicola x

After 100 days exactly in Royal Devon & Exeter Neonatal Unit our identical twin boys, Ethan and Theo, were discharged!

Our journey through the NNU has been a long and difficult one with many moments – especially in the early days – where we felt we had taken one step forward and about 10 back.  It is difficult to describe what life on the unit is like; everything is meticulously measured, monitored and recorded by teams of people with combined knowledge and experience of probably hundreds of years. For the first few weeks of their life we could just touch them through the ‘port holes’ of their incubators, making sure not to have them open too long and lose the humidity and temperature that protects their delicate immature skin. The alarms on the monitoring equipment which once haunted us, cutting through the otherwise quiet room like a knife, surprisingly quickly became the norm as we learned more about interpreting the readings. After 2 weeks we were able to start kangaroo care with Ethan most days which we found amazing. Poor Theo had a rockier start so it was nearly 6 weeks before we could have our first cuddle, but in both instances it was worth every second of the wait and we have since made up for lost time.

Now the boys have graduated NNU we are a proper family of 4. Our sleepless nights are now getting up to do night time feeds rather than worrying about if and when our beautiful babies would make it home.  We have been on a few outings with the boys and being identical twins they attract a lot of attention; there is no such thing as quickly popping to the shops anymore!

Theo still has an oxygen requirement so he has cylinders that we have him attached to both at home and when we are out and about. Hopefully it won’t be for long and then at long last we will be tube and wire free!

We are so pleased to be home with Ethan and Theo and look forward to the next chapter of our lives, but will always be eternally grateful to the team at the RD&E NNU as without them our gorgeous boys would not be here.

Nicola x

My last post seems like a lifetime ago! Mark and I were about to have our Babybond 4D scan, which was amazing! We got to see our little boys, Ethan and Theo, on screen and had a DVD made to keep forever The day was not all smiles though; the sonographer was concerned with her findings of the blood flow through the smaller twins umbilical cord. She recommended we contacted the hospital and read to them her report. This was the beginning of the worst few weeks of my life The hospital asked that we went in on the Monday morning for an extra scan, I had hoped that the sonographer had just over reacted but our consultant was not happy with what he saw. Mark and I were referred to another consultant in Bristol who specialises in complications with twins. We were given lots of options to consider; delivering the twins at 24 weeks, terminating our smaller twin (Theo) to protect the bigger twin (Ethan), terminating both twins or waiting a hoping we got to 28 weeks to deliver…….. We opted for waiting to 28 weeks. The following month felt like it went on forever, we had scans twice a week with our consultant to check everything was still ok. Then our scan at 27 weeks arrived and we were booked in for our c-section! Our twins would be delivered at 28+3, within no time at all the little scanning room was filled with people swabbing us for MRSA, waving consent forms around, arranging our steroid injections – it was all happening.

The day of our c-section, July 9th, quickly came around, we arrived at the hospital bright and early hoping that there would be enough space in the neonatal intensive care for us to have the babies there and not be sent to another hospital. A lovely midwife showed us to our room and got us ready for theatre, me in a very fetching gown and the anti DVT stockings and Mark in a set of scrubs and off we went to theatre.

I was really worried that I wouldn’t be able to have a spinal block or that it wouldn’t work and I would have to have a GA meaning Mark wouldn’t be allowed to be there but within no time at all I was numb. A few minutes later our twins were delivered – Theo at 11.03 and Ethan at 11.05. We had been warned that due to their prematurity they would need to be ventilated straight away; but the most amazing thing happened – they cried! They were both handed over to the two teams of neonatal doctors and nurses that had been awaiting their arrival and were quickly whisked off to ITU with their Daddy!

I was stitched up and put in ‘recovery’ to regain sensation in my legs, waiting for news of my two beautiful babies. Had it not been for the nurse hovering I would have attempted to crawl to ITU to get a glimpse of them, soon enough their daddy came with photos and a hat that Theo had been wearing. Mark stayed with me then as the doctors were having to stabilise the twins and thought it best that he didn’t stay and watch tubes and lines going in to our precious babies. The rest of the day felt like it lasted a lifetime until we got the ok to go and see them. But that evening I was pushed through on my bed to meet my children for the first time. I looked a mess; half drugged from morphine, in an unflattering hospital gown and my hair stuck out at all angles. At the time I didn’t care, however there is photographic evidence of me in said state which will haunt me forever! Our little boys looked perfect, so tiny but so so perfect. I felt an overwhelming sense of contentment looking at the amazing babies that Mark and I for so long had worried we wouldn’t get the chance to meet.

And so our life as a neonatal mummy and daddy had begun

I can’t believe how quickly time seems to go by at the moment. Mark and I have had another scan since my last post which showed our baby boys are still alive and kicking but our consultants are still thinking an early delivery is needed. They are hoping we will get to 28 weeks and anything beyond that is a bonus. It’s so scary to think that they could be here with us in as little as a few weeks. We are just hoping that they will both be strong enough to survive. We have a Babybond 4D scan tomorrow as we wanted some nice pictures (and hopefully a DVD) just in case one or both of our beautiful baby boys don’t make it.

We had a Jubilee Weekend special offer on the website which was a massive success, so much so that our few days at home were cut short to come back to pack orders. All orders were packed and shipped out but it was hard work We didn’t get much of a chance to watch any of the coverage of the jubilee but it was so nice to be busy!

Today I got to choose some new lines for the site which I love doing, I’m like a child in a sweet shop! Now just to wait for them to arrive I have made a wish list that goes on forever almost of products that I would like us to get, so with each restock order we are adding a few each time. Be sure to check the site reguarly to see what additions there are!

The other sad news we have had recently is that my Granny sadly passed away in the last few days, I wish that I had made more time in the last few years to spend more time with her. But there just never seem to be enough hours in a day.

My little sister (who in the next few days will be 21 so not as little any more) is coming to visit Mark and I in the shop on Sunday with her new boyfriend. They had planned to go sunbathing on the beach so I hope the torrential rain and gale force winds die down! But it will be lovely to have them here.

Nicola x

Today is Mark and my two year anniversary. I am lucky enough to always have known that Mark was the man for me, he was my first boyfriend at school at the young age of 11ish.  Our younger relationship unfortunately ended when Mark thought he would rather go out with my best friend at the time – they lasted I think a day at most!!

But after 10 or so years apart his Facebook profile picture had the same amazing smile that I remembered from school and one message turned into hundreds. A week later we had an amzing first date, the kind you see in soppy films, I just knew that there was no-one else in the world for me!  Two years on and we are expecting twins and looking forward to the rest of our lives together.  For me my Prince Charming was, and is a reality!

Our next scan is tomorrow, and we are hoping that they will be able to tell us that our smaller twin is growing still.

And then we are looking forward to a weekend at home getting things ready for our arrivals later this year and of course watching the Jubilee coverage on the TV. Mark knows this is non-negotiable, as was watching coverage of the wedding last year from the moment it started!!

We are currently watching Married To The Moonies – wow there are sooooo many weddings!! We had planned to watch a film after dinner, but Mark finds that I am asleep within about the first 20 minutes so thought tv would be a better option. I know how most films begin but no idea how any of them end

Nicola x

Hello!

As you may have read in the ‘about me page’ my partner Mark and I are expecting identical twin boys. We have had a few complications with the pregnancy so far but are very much looking forward to becoming parents! We have scans every other week at the moment our next scan is due on Friday this week. Although we obviously get excited about our scans, we find that while all of the other expectant parents are smiling away in the waiting room we are anxiously gripping one anothers hands until we find out that both of our little boys are ok.

Today was my first physio appointment for my back pain; I have been shown stretches to do to help ease the discomfort that Mummy’s growing teddy bears are causing and a giant sock-like tube that I have to clamber into each day now to support my growing bump. As if being the size of a whale didn’t make me feel sexy enough already!

The hot weather we have had recently although lovely to see the sun, is to much for me. My feet are huge, I’m sure that I saw the beginnings of stretch marks on them – I’m not sure if you can even get stretch marks on your feet!!

I am very much looking forward to the long weekend, watching the jubilee celebrations from the sofa snuggled up with Mark and our furry friends!

Nicola x