We thought we'd won the lottery when we found out we were pregnant with identical twins.

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Everything was going well until being diagnosed with Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome, a disease that impacts 10-15% of identical twin pregnancies. Despite having surgery the next day with the Gold Team at King Edward Memorial Hospital (KEMH), we were devastated when we lost one of our boys, Logan, at 21 weeks.

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Our surviving twin, Lewis, kept fighting and Joanne was admitted to KEMH on bed rest for what we hoped would be a long time. Young Lewis had different plans and was born at 27.3 weeks, weighing just 940 grams.

 

During his time in the NICU -- with the help of the amazing medical team -- Lewis battled on, beating challenge after challenge, putting on gram after gram. We celebrated events like coming off jaundice lights, reaching 2 kgs, moving off breathing support, first bath, removing the feeding tube and trying on his baby kilt (wrapped around several times). After 12.5 weeks in the NICU, Lewis finally met his big brother Archie and we came home as a family.

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What struck us most about our time at KEMH was the amazing level of care shown by the doctors, nurses and staff. Empathy, warmth and understanding far beyond just medical care. Providing psychological help to parents who had lost one child, had another battling in the NICU and a third at home wondering where mummy was all the time. People doing more than just a job, professionally and emotionally invested in doing their best to look after patients and families.

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Getting Lewis home and watching him thrive, wolfing down his food, developing his infectious laugh, seeing him fall in love with his big brother and go from strength to strength helped us reflect on our time at King Eddies.

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How could we turn a traumatic experience into a positive one?

How could we take what we had learned on our NICU journey and help others facing a similar challenge?

How could our boys understand the help our family received?

How could we involve ourselves with the type of wonderful people at King Eddies that had given us so much?