Welcome To The World Eve and Bea
28.10.2020The Birth of Bibado
Rachel, our Founder, shares the rollercoaster of emotions that she and her husband experienced when their twins were born prematurely.
Yesterday this picture flashed up in my Facebook news feed, it was 10 years ago that I was pregnant with Eve and Bea. I have never shared my child birth story on Bibado’s page before. I am usually a very private person but 10 years later I really wanted to celebrate how far we have come after such a challenging start to our daughters lives.
Eve and Bea were born about 2 weeks after this photo, just before 30 weeks of pregnancy. I had really struggled being pregnant with them, suffering with morning sickness, fatigue and generally not really coping that well physically ( I was subsequently diagnosed as having Coeliac’s disease and wonder to this day whether this is why I found pregnancy so challenging) . I absolutely loved being pregnant, the feel of my daughters in my tummy was amazing, but being pregnant really didn’t love me.
My birth experience was about as far away from the natural childbirth experience as you can get. I was rushed in for an emergency C-section after having spontaneous rupture of my waters at home. By 6 am the following morning, with a room full of doctors and specialist nurses the girls were delivered. They were immediately rushed to paediatric ITU where they were treated by an incredible team of medics to help them breathe and stabilise them
In all honesty, I felt massively lucky to meet my daughters earlier than nearly every other parent does, but at the same time I was racked with guilt that I had not been able to carry them any longer. They were no longer in the safety of my womb and were fighting for their survival in a hospital.
As soon as they were stable we were all immediately transferred to a different hospital as the Special Care Baby Unit in our local hospital was full. All three of us were transferred in separate ambulances with medics accompanying each of us and my exhausted husband followed us on the 63 mile journey to a new paediatric ITU that has space for us. I couldn't believe that the NHS could do this, and did it me me and my family.
We spent two weeks there, where the girls were looked after incredibly well, and were growing stronger by the day. They were two small to be breast fed but the fantastic nurses encouraged me to express milk which I did and before long we were able to feed them my milk via a nasal tube . This gave me an enormous sense of purpose in such stressful and uncertain times. Tom and I felt like time had stood still and we were living in some kind of parallel universe. No family were allowed to visit, so it was just the four of us in a strange sterile world of NICU working it out together.
We were then transferred back down to our local hospital, I was discharged but the girls spent another five or so week in SCBU and NICU. I had to drive home every evening without my daughters, feeling like like part of me had been left behind in the hospital. During this time both girls suffered serious life threatening complications, which were incredible traumatic and scary to live through. I cried more tears during that time than I knew was possible, I was helpless and could only watch and pray that they both were strong enough to get better. Luckily they did just that, they both pulled though and were strong enough to come home on the 11th December just before my husband’s birthday. Our family was complete, and we came home with two the most beautiful tiny babies I had ever seen.
When I look back at this picture I feel so proud of how strong and filled with love I was able to be during such a stressful and emotional time. I will be forever grateful for the unwavering support of my incredible husband and our families. To the all the staff who looked after us, I will never forget each and everyone of you and I am eternally grateful. Eve and Bea are my biggest joy and the thing I am most proud of in the world.
Happy Birthday to my gorgeous girls I love you more than you could ever know. Your incredibly messy mealtimes inspired the creation Bibado and all it has become. Bibado was started by love and that is very special thing.
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