Come back to Mummy
Caroline Wirt, 37, from Copthorne, would stop at nothing to give her twins the fighting chance they deserved…
Heaving myself out of bed, I kissed my partner Andy, 34, goodbye as he left for work. I had to get our kids Nathan, 15, Keane, nine, and Blaise, six, to school.
But six months pregnant with twins, I was exhausted.
It was January 2015, and the last few months had been tough on me.
I’d had bleeding from the start and there had been times we thought we’d lost our baby girls – yet each emergency scan showed their hearts thumping.
But now, as I grabbed my dressing gown, I felt a gush of warm liquid. No! My waters had broken. I was only 23 weeks pregnant – it was too early!
Half an hour later, I was being rushed by ambulance to Royal Sussex County Hospital, with Andy by my side.
‘We need to keep those babies safely inside,’ said the doctor soon after arriving.
‘If they’re born before 24 weeks, they have little chance of survival – and, legally, we wouldn’t be able to intervene.’ I couldn’t believe it. I’d turn 24 weeks pregnant on Sunday, but today was only Monday. Six days suddenly felt like a lifetime…
Given medication to postpone my labour, I was settled into a ward.
Over the next few days, I barely moved, stroking my tummy and feeling the twins wriggling around inside me.
It was the longest week of my life, but I made it to Saturday. Then I got really ill… ‘We’re going to have to get the twins out now, Caroline,’ the midwife told me in the early hours of Sunday morning.
‘You will help them now, won’t you?’ I begged.
‘If they’re born alive, we will do everything we can,’ she said.
But, sadly, the chances of that were slim to none. Just before midday, Sapphire was born by Caesarean section, weighing 1lb 2oz, followed by Ruby just a minute later – she weighed 1lb 5oz. With transparent skin, they were smaller than my hand. The girls were wrapped in bubble wrap to keep them warm, and taken to ICU. ‘They’re going to make it,’ Andy reassured me. But the doctors weren’t so sure. ‘We’re doing everything we can,’ said our consultant. ‘But it’s unlikely they’ll both survive.’ I was desperate to hold them, to try and keep them both safe. I just wished that they were back inside my tummy. Later that day, I was wheeled down to the Neonatal Unit. Sapphire and Ruby lay side by side in their incubators, covered in wires. Their heads were smaller than tennis balls and they’d been given tiny woolly hats. ‘Look at them,’ I wept to Andy, overwhelmed. They looked so vulnerable. Then, days later,
we got the worst news imaginable.
‘Your babies have contracted necrotising enterocolitis (NEC),’ said our consultant.
It meant that Sapphire and Ruby’s intestines were dying.
‘We need to operate, but the chances of them surviving the surgery is only about 10 percent,’ he explained to us.
‘What if we don’t operate?’ asked Andy, voice quivering.
‘Then they will definitely die, and they’ll be in pain,’ he replied.
We had no choice but to put our faith in the experts.
‘Please get through this and come back to Mummy,’ I whispered to my two tiny babies as they were wheeled down to theatre.
Kissing them both on the cheek, I closed my eyes and prayed…
Hours later, the surgeon came
Six days was a lifetime
into the waiting room to see us.
‘They’ve both survived the operation,’ he told us, smiling.
Me and Andy leapt up and hugged each other, both sobbing with relief.
The twins had to stay on ventilators in the Neonatal Unit and, each day, I’d sit by their sides, willing them to get stronger.
After five days, although I was discharged from the hospital, I wasn’t going far.
Thankfully, we were given a double room five minutes’ walk away from the hospital.
Nathan, Keane and Blaise all came up to stay with us.
‘It’s like a camping holiday,’ laughed Blaise, as Andy furiously blew up one of three inflatable beds and I ordered us a pizza to be delivered to the room.
And I found myself laughing for the first time in weeks.
The next day, we all went to see Sapphire and Ruby.
‘They’re so tiny,’ gasped Keane
in shock.
I settled down next to their incubators, put my hand through the circle in the glass and very gently touched Ruby’s little head.
‘You’re going to have
such a good life with us,’ I promised her.
‘We have a dog, Bailey, who can’t wait to meet you.’
Then, I’d do the same with Sapphire, chatting away to her about the life they’d both have.
I really wanted to give them a reason to keep fighting.
It wasn’t until February that we could hold them at last.
We took turns to cuddle our miniature babies, swathed in blankets, and me and Andy were both over the moon.
‘Finally,’ Andy said, grinning happily with his arms wrapped around little Sapphire.
But they still had a long journey ahead of them.
On and off the ventilators to help
them breathe, they both needed blood transfusions, and Sapphire needed emergency laser eye surgery from where her eyes hadn’t had time to develop properly while she was in the womb.
On Mother’s Day 2015, our girls reached a huge turning point.
They were finally transferred from the ICU to a Highdependency Unit.
Over the last three months, we’d watched enviously as other babies moved to a ward – and now it was time for our twins to do the same. ‘I really think they’re going to be OK,’ I told Andy. And slowly but surely, our girls thrived. Their original due date, 5 May, came and went, but it wasn’t until June that we were eventually able to take them home. Tucking them into their car seats in their matching pink onesies, it was a dream come true. Now they were almost six months old and weighed 7lb.
But with no nurses to rely on, me and Andy had to quickly learn how to be parents to twins!
I relished every moment, even bath time when the pair of them screamed their heads off!
In December 2015, we wanted to
end our difficult year on a high, so Andy and I finally got married.
Sapphire and Ruby, then 11 months old, wore little red satin dresses and headbands adorned with roses for the big day. They looked gorgeous. Our little miracles! Now, the twins are three and doing brilliantly.
Every day, I marvel at just how far they’ve come…
Sapphire is feisty and lively, while Ruby is such a laid-back little girl, watching her older sister to see what to do next.
They have to go back for the odd check-up, but the consultants are confident that they’re going to flourish despite everything they went through when they were born.
Despite it all, I’ve learnt that no matter how bleak things can seem, there’s always light at the end of the tunnel – we just have to have hope.