Sunday, May 24, 2009

A year ago today

They looked like this. Born very unexpectedly 7 weeks prematurely. I'd had a dream pregnancy till a week earlier when I started showing signs of pre-eclampsia. I'd seen my midwife the day before they arrived and was due to go into hospital for (hopefully only a day) monitoring. 3.45am my water broke. I won't bore you with the birth story, but it was a good one - avoided a c-section! This is how they looked for the first few weeks.

Nicholas (with CPAP helping him breathe.)

Isabella was ventilated for the first day before she went onto CPAP too.

It's hard to tell scale from these photos - they just look like little babies. Isabella weighed 5lb3oz, and Nicholas weighed 3lb9oz. With all the wires and tubes they looked so fragile! I can't say enough good things about the NICU staff at Dunedin Hospital. They were wonderful for the whole 33 days we were in there, but I couldn't wait to get the twins home! It's been a very busy year, to put it mildly, and we've had our ups (they both used to sleep so well at night, sigh) and our downs (it took Nicholas three months to learn to breastfeed. That wasn't fun), but I wouldn't trade it for the world. They are fabulous little people, and I feel very lucky to have them completing our family.

Here they are with Georgia and Oliver this morning. The bigger kids were way more excited about the present than the twins were!
Happy birthday Isabella and Nicholas. It's been quite a year :-)
Oh, and to inject a sewing note into this post, I made Isabella's pants (the disco ones) tunic and sweatshirt, Nicholas' pants and top, and Georgia's sweatshirt. I'll post that one shortly.

5 comments:

  1. Congratulations to all on this very important milestone.

    Sounds like it was quite a journey!

    I didn't realise you were based in Dunedin (my home town) so that coat's looking more and more like a necessity! (will never forget going to bed in my coat and shoes as a child!)

    I am truly impressed you manage some time out to sew. That's great.

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  2. Congrats on the surviving the first year! :)

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  3. Happy birthday little ones:-)

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  4. Oh my gosh! A year already! I hope they decide to celebrate by sleeping at night again. :)

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  5. What a wonderful way to celebrate a year of trial and effort...but it all sounds like it's been worth it in the end! Congratulations to all! The clothes you have made in later posts look lovely too! I hope to pick your brains and to annoy you when I am ready to begin sewing!

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