Well I Did It!!!! I jumped out of a plane at 13,000 feet and it was absolutely AMAZINGGGGGG!!!! Thank You to everyone who has donated it means so much to support this unit after the miracles they gave us. I hope that this money raised goes on to help another mummy and daddy save their little miracles. It was worth every terrifying minute today and I will never forget the dive and the support you have all given us from 20 weeks pregnant right up to today. Massive Thank yous Mwahhhhh xxxxxxxx

Hey everyone it's exactly 1 week to the sky dive and I'd really appreciate it if you could spare a few quid to help me reach my target. Xxxx

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In January 2012 I gave Birth to 2 beautiful Identical baby boys. These boys are actual miracles. Against the odds they are both here, happy and healthy but that wasn't always the case.....

 

From the beginning of my pregnancy all was going fantastic, I wasn't suffering morning sickness badly, no real heartburn and i felt actually pretty good.

At 9 weeks I went for an early scan because I had previously suffered a miscarriage. All I wanted to see was a healthy baby with a healthy beating heart. We saw this but not only that! We were having Identical Twins..... If I wasn't already lying down I would have fallen over it was such a massive shock. My poor husband was like a rabbit caught in headlights in total shock and couldn't speak (for him this is very unusual, lol)

It took a long while to get used to the fact that we were having twins but once over the shock we were so so happy, we felt blessed.

I had to have scans every 2 weeks to make sure all was going well which is normal for a monochorionic pregnancy (babies sharing a placenta) All was great and i was growing so fast. At 17 weeks i looked 27 weeks, measuring a massive 10 weeks larger.

I went for my normal 20 week scan in November 2011 but all wasn't well this time. My boys were suffering from a condition called Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome which is where babies that share a placenta both receive blood from the placenta then one donates extra to the other twin. So one baby was at risk of anemia and the other baby was at risk of heart failure. Another symptom is extra amniotic fluid... i was carrying 4 extra litres So basically my babies were unintentionally killing eachother. That wasn't all though, there were at a high stage of it which means they were at very high risk of dying.

The specialist told us that we were already at stage 3 of 5 which is critical and had to urgently travel to London Kings College Harris Birth Right Centre to have a procedure called Laser Ablation Surgery that will cauterise the arteries between the 2 babies so they have their own independant blood supply and couldn't share between them. 

Travelling the 7 hour journey to London was horrendous, it was so painful and uncomfortable but to us it was a mercy mission to save our babies.

The procedure was performed by Dr Kypros Nicolades a specialist in Laser Ablation Surgery. The surgery was amazing, we had the pleasure of seeing on the screen the face of our unborn baby in his amniotic fluid, a memory we will treasure forever. At that moment we didn't know if we would ever see his face our arms.

After the surgery we had to wait for 2 hours to see if our babies were still alive. A wait that felt like days but we discovered that our little fighters were still going strong. 

The journey home was horrible, i was experiencing contractions and was very fragile but we made it back the same night my husband being the trouper he is kept on driving to get me home to rest.

I had scans every 2 weeks and our boys went from strength to strength but at 30 weeks my waters were slowly breaking so again we were faced with the worry that we may lose our boys again.

On 14th January 2012 at only 31 weeks gestation I gave birth to our Beautiful Amazing Boys Lucas Elliott born at 6.49am weighing 3lb 8.5 oz and Riley Jake born at 6.55am weighing 3lb 6oz. They were very small and weak, couldn't fully breathe for themselves and had suspected heart murmurs.They were whisked straight to North Tees Neonatal Unit who were amazing.

They spent 7 weeks in the unit and the day we brought them home was a massive milestone.

Today our boys are 17 months old and are fit, healthy and very happy little characters.

If it wasn't for Dr Kypros Nicolades and the Harris Birthright centre our boys wouldn't of survived beyond 20 weeks so I would like to raise as much as I can to help them to continue to offer this life saving operation.

 

More on Twin To Twin Transfusion Syndrome

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin-to-twin_transfusion_syndrome