Due today. Home tomorrow?

We expected our twin daughters to be born on the 20th of November, 2008 (year of the rat) and this day is now upon us; I'm very excited indeed. There's a parallel me somewhere, waiting in his lectures for that phone call or text (what would it say?), exhausted from a week of sleepless, anxious, expectant nights... Do I wish that this parallel me was the me me? I don't think so. Depite everything, I'm so, so, so pleased that our babies were born ten weeks and six days ago and not today; I'm so happy that we've had this extra post-natal time together; a distressing time sometimes, a worrying time a lot of the time, an educational time to say the very least, but a beautiful time. I love my Violet and Ivy just the way they are.

AND, but, however... yesterday we were given some very exciting news: if Violet hasn't lost any weight by Friday, then we can go home, all four of us together at home, at last. WATCH THIS SPACE. Of course, if she does go home we'll be coming back a couple of times to change the broviac dressings, have it flushed and, perhaps next Friday, removed by her incredible surgeon.

...

10 Weeks

Hello! Sorry it's been so long. The girls are ten weeks old today (and are due next Thursday) Ivy has been discharged and Violet is recovering very well indeed. She no longer has any monitors or drips. Apart from the (now redundant) broviac line which enters beneath her arm, she's totally wireless. We're still living in the 'spital and have now spent a total of two nights all together in the same room like a real family - though it'll still be a week or two before we can go home...

Thanks again for all your best wishes, cards, gifts, food, etc etc etc, and especially for all the prayers. It's now well beyond possible to track just how far news of our little ones has spread. Prayers have risen from Papua New Guinea, Preston and Poland, and just about everywhere in between, from North, East, South and West.

I'll get some updated pictures on as soon as I find the right cable... In the meantime, here are a few of Violet that my dad kindly sent... As you can see from the dates on the pictures, some were taken before she was poorly.

Violet is back in Lancaster!

Violet arrived back in Lancaster on Thursday, just after 4pm in an ambulance, followed several hours later by myself, with the help of my very kind parents.

She's doing wonderfully, as are Ivy, Ailsa and myself.