Mark and I found out we were going to have a baby a month before our wedding in April 2007.  We were absolutely overjoyed as we have been together for 6 years and were planning to start our family straight after our wedding.  On our wedding day Mark announced to everyone during his speech that that I was 10 weeks pregnant!  Everyone was surprised and so happy for us!  After we arrived home from our honeymoon I had my 12 week scan appointment which Mark and I were so excited about.

For some reason I knew I was having twins and when I asked the lady who was performing the ultrasound to check for two babies she said, indeed there were two heartbeats.  She then went out of the room for a few moments and came back with the doctor who scanned me for a long time before he spoke.   Something was wrong with twin number two.  Twin one looked normal but we would need to be seen by a specialist in a weeks’ time as this was a very complicated pregnancy.  From there we went home, shocked, bewildered that we were having twins, worried they wouldn’t survive.  I hoped and prayed that our two babies would be fine and they would survive against all odds.  We went to a scan the following week with the specialist gynecologist at the hospital.  The outlook was not good, we had a very rare type of twin to twin transfusion and there is no known reason for why it happens,  it just does.  There was absolutely no hope for twin number 2 but twin number 1 may survive depending on several things, the main one being premature labour.  The outlook was grim, I was only 13 or so weeks and had to get to 28 weeks preferably.

On the 13th of August 2007 at 24 weeks gestation I woke in the middle of the night to contractions.  We went straight to hospital where I was examined and then within an hour my husband and I were in a helicopter being flown to Wellington.  I was given a series of drugs to try to stop my contractions and steroids to help the baby’s lungs in case they were born.

Upon arrival in Wellington I was monitored for several hours and once the contractions had finally subsided I was sent off to the maternity ward.  That same evening while I was lying in the hospital bed I felt a huge contraction.  I woke my husband who was lying on a stretcher beside me and told him to call the nurse while I went to the bathroom.  While I was standing in the bathroom all of a sudden my waters broke and I felt a rush of liquid and then another push and Jaycob dropped into my hands crying ever so weakly.  He was little and pink and so perfect!  I was so shocked!  I called for help several times and my husband leapt from his stretcher and saw me standing in the corridor with a tiny baby between my legs and I was talking to him saying “It’s ok Jaycob, you’ll be ok darling, hang on baby” then suddenly the nurses arrived and cut the cord and whisked Jaycob away.

Twenty minutes later and back in my bed I gave birth to our beautiful second born son Gabriel who was stillborn which we sadly had expected.   The nurses took Gabriel away and bought him back to us in a basket with a wee blanket over him.  He was pink and tiny, his eyes tightly fused and his fingers and toes not quite developed but he was beautiful to us.  We held him and cuddled him and the nurse took his footprints for us.  Meanwhile Jaycob was rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit and my husband and I spent time with our precious angel Gabriel.  We were in complete shock and I don’t think it sunk in for quite a few days.

And so Jaycobs fight for survival began with incredible highs and lows.  An emotional journey that hit us hard as every parent knows who has a premature baby and a still born baby.  Jaycob weighed in at 675gms, 1 pound 6 ounces.  Jaycob stayed in the intensive care unit for 8 weeks and was ventilated for over 4 of those weeks before finally advancing to the midline CPAP with high levels of oxygen.  He was incredibly sick for many weeks with skin infections, jaundice, anemia, chronic lung disease, a PDA, inguinal hernias, the list goes on.  We stayed across the road at Ronald McDonald House for the 3 months we were in Wellington and I stayed beside Jaycobs incubator from dawn to dusk every day singing to him and praying he would be ok.  We are so grateful to all our friends and family who visited and helped us out during such a traumatic time.  Jaycob was resuscitated several times and he took a long time to gain weight but eventually he did and we were transferred home to Palmerston North Hospital where Jaycob stayed for a further 2 months in the Neonatal Unit.

The whole time while Jaycob was in hospital I expressed my breast milk as the nurses assured me this would help build his immunity.  So I expressed religiously with the hope that one day I might be able to breast feed him although I was told not to hold my breath.  In the meantime he had my breast milk through an oral gastric tube and then later through a nasal gastric tube.  I finally got to breast feed him when he was 4 months old although it wasn’t easy as he had his OG tube in his mouth and neopuff oxygen through nasal prongs up his nose.  Still, we persevered and a month later he was fully breastfeeding at 5 months old.  This was such a precious time for us as he had had so many artificial and negative experiences due to his early arrival so it was wonderful to be able to give him comfort and to be close to him.

Jaycob came home from hospital on the 14th of January 2008 at 5 months old and remained on oxygen until July.  For his first birthday on the 13th of August, we had a remembrance ceremony for Gabriel at our chapel.  All our family and close friends came to support us, it was truly beautiful.  We released helium balloons after the service but Jaycob didn’t want to let his go and held on tightly.  Daddy had to eventually let it go for him.  It was a very precious moment, one I will always cherish.

It’s been a tough road for Mark and I this past year but our beautiful son Jaycob has survived and we are so blessed to have him.  All the anxious moments, all the tears we shed, every sleepless night and all the hours of hoping and praying he would make it, and he has.  Jaycob is our miracle earth child, we are so grateful to have him but not a day goes by when we don’t miss our angel child, Gabriel.  He will always be in our hearts and Jaycob will always know he has a twin who is an angel.

Jaycob is 2 and a half years old now.  He is reaching his milestones slowly.  He started walking at 18 months (14 months corrected) and started babbling and saying a few words not long after however his speech is still quite delayed.  His feeding has always been an issue and he has been slow to gain weight however he is now average weight for his adjusted age but it has taken a while!  He also developed ROP in his left eye and has very little vision in it and so this has slowed his development down.

In March 2009 we welcomed Jaycobs new little brother Corban into the world.  He is a healthy and alert full term baby.  I cant believe how different everything is this time around, how wonderful it is to have this bonny and healthy little boy but at the same time I can never forget Jaycobs start to life and how much of a star he really is!