In the bigger scheme of things….I have the “American Dream” right now and I am exceptionally grateful.
My name is Bonnie and have a superb Husband and three beautiful girls who keep me very busy.
Our story started at a Bar, yes you read correctly, a BAR with an introduction by a friend of mine. We went overseas for 2 years, tried to get married but due to visa issues and having to come home, we had to cancel two weddings and eventually managed to get married on the third attempt. We had the odd friend who said don’t you think someone is trying to tell you something, when we had to cancel our second wedding, we ignored them and planned the third. We were determined and what a party that was, we were the last to leave…ha ha ha !!
We bought a tiny little house and decided to start our family, assuming it would take us a while to fall pregnant. To our surprise, we were pregnant within 3 months and beyond excited. Now what you need to understand is a friend of ours had a set of twins a year before we fell pregnant so we went through it all with them. Our first appointment arrived and obviously we were nervous and excited to make sure that all was ok.
We knew to look on the scan for a sac and not a fully grown baby, so when we saw “It” we were so excited. I had been seeing my gynae for a long time and she had delivered my friends twins as well, so after checking our “baby” and confirming all was ok, she said “OH”. Obviously we panicked but then while scanning she flicked over something else….Naturally now we were nervous and said OH WHAT, to which she replied, did you see what I saw? And we had….ANOTHER SAC !!! Same procedure as the last time and all was ok with our SECOND BABY !! YIP TWINS !!!
I had a fairly easy pregnancy until about 30 weeks when Abi’s placenta started calcifying and I had to go for many, many appointments to keep ensuring that she was growing and in fact as they say, BETTER IN THAN OUT. At my last appointment, my gynae took one look at me and enquired as to how I had been feeling, BACKACHE was my answer!! She very quickly stuck me on the bed, did an internal and YIP I was in labour, which was not ideal as I was only 32 weeks. Panic set in and she sent me straight to the labour ward as we need to try and stop the labour. I waddled my way up and they gave me oral meds to stop it but by 1am the following morning, I was having contractions. In went the drip and that is where is stayed for 5 days. Pre-eclampsia set in at a rapid rate and I blew up like a hot air balloon but in bed I stayed as I was now just a HUMAN INCUBATOR !! My babies grew and developed much better and quicker inside so that is where I was going to keep them until my body said enough was enough. All dignity was lost, hee hee, because with a drip in one arm, having bloods taken twice a day out of the other and being the size of a house, I had to be bathed and have my hair washed etc etc. Luckily the hospital I was at had the most amazing nursing staff and I usually try and find the humour in everything anyway.
I usually manage to take most things in my stride, but when my gynae raced in at 09h00am on the Wednesday morning and said that I needed to call everyone as my babies were coming TODAY, I was filled with massive excitement, until she told me I would have to have a general anaesthetic for the birth.
My heart sank. I was prepared for a Caesar but to not be awake for the birth of my babies rocked my world and not in a good way. My pre-eclampsia had progressed to a point where my blood clotting levels were too low for us to risk and epidural and bleeding in the epidural space and I was going to need extra blood.
So we did what we needed to do, everyone got there in time and as excited as my husband was, he was scared. He wasn’t allowed into the surgery for the whole procedure as there was going to be a lot of bleeding. They prepped me and just as they were about to deliver the first twin, they called him in. He was literally in theatre for two minutes while they delivered our girls.
They put both girls onto an incubator each and sent him straight to the NICU with them as they didn’t want him to see me. He felt so helpless as there was nothing he could do for me and so went with our two gorgeous girls who came into this world with a BANG and haven’t stopped BANGING AND CRASHING since, ha ha ha !!!
All was well in the end. Kiara was 2.07kg at birth and Abi was 1,74kg and other than being on the small side, they were perfect !! They needed no help breathing but were too small to feed so they were tube fed.
They had to stay in hospital for 18 days while they grew to the point where they could feed themselves. We decided to express and bottle feed them as it was quicker to get them out of hospital. I continued to express and bottle feed them to 6 weeks.
The most important thing I could tell anyone whose baby has to stay in hospital, is that is heart breaking, but use it to your advantage. I sat and cried in front of their incubators for two hours before I managed to leave. It was however a blessing in disguise as I got to rest well at night, recover from my Caesar and while I was there from 08h00 to 17h30 every day, I would learn everything I needed to know about my babies. By the time I left the hospital, I was a confident Mother and felt ready to look after my two babies. The rest as they say is history and they will be 10 years old in January.
I then managed to convince my husband to have a third. Yes, most people, did tell me, to my face in fact, that I had gone stark raving mad..ha ha ha !! Why would you want a third child when you already had twins. My reason was simple. I wanted to know what it felt like to have ONE baby. Yes by the time Jessica was born I had 3 year twin girls, but they were not needy and they had been sharing me their WHOLE life. They had a permanent playmate, so the third baby was very exciting. Bringing another baby into the house caused MASSIVE excitement for them. It was a real live doll !!! We involved them in everything we did with Jess and after about 2 weeks, the novelty had worn off and they couldn’t be bothered with her. They had way better games to play with each other !!
Believe me when I say that even though I already had two children, this was exactly how I imagined it. Jess did also decide to come early at 35 weeks but that is a whole story in itself ha ha ha !!
She was a normal Epidural birth and I was AWAKE !! I only touched my twins for the first time a day after they were born. I was in bed because of the Caesar and they were in the NICU being monitored. They wheeled me in to see them an hour or so after they were born, but only when I could get out of bed could I go and see them could I actually touch them. This at the time seemed ok, because I had no previous experience to compare it to, but when they put Jess on my chest just after she was born, I realised that this is how it was supposed to be and realised how much trauma we had all endured.
Jess barely left my side and enjoyed every minute of the “normal” birthing, breast feeding experience!!!
She came home and her sisters adored her and it was all text book, until she was four weeks old. She started with a blocked nose and after many doctors’ visits and her eventually losing weight, I changed my paediatrician. After doing lots and lots of my own research, my fears were confirmed. She was dairy allergic and the poor little angel was just about permanently sick for the first year of her life.
We did her blood tests at a year and her diary allergy was confirmed, as well as the fact that she was borderline immune deficient. Long story short that is how my little business started. We now had twin girls who could eat and drink anything and a 1 year year old who had a very restricted diet. I did heaps of research but nothing that was relevant to South Africa and I didn’t want to have to keep saying NO to my poor child, who just wanted to be like her big sisters and eat what they did. I also didn’t want to have to restrict their diet because of their little sister, so my Allergykids journey began. Sourcing and adapting Dairy and Soy free recipes and alternative foods that she could eat that looked the “same same” as her sisters. I decided to create a website that was a support forum for other parents with kids with Allergies and so my Passion grew and grew.
We have had to make many sacrifices to get my little business going, but it’s growing in huge strides now and I’m loving the fact that I am available for my girls.
This contribution was written by Bonnie from Allergy Kids.
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