Guest Blogging for Tiny Tickers

Blogging for Tiny Tickers

For those who regularly read the blog, you will know that I have shared my story and raised a lot of awareness for the charity Tiny Tickers.

They are a frankly amazing charity which is striving to help diagnose babies with undetected heart conditions and supporting families when they are getting that life changing diagnosis.

We used their THINK HEART campaign when we went for a foetal medicine scan with Harlow to check whether he too, would have CHD or not.

One of the most frequent questions we get about Elijah is why his condition wasn't picked up in the scans. Why it wasn't until 12 hours post birth that he was having cyanotic episodes and was admitted to NICU to be diagnosed.

The answer? No one knows, it just didn't show, get picked up and actually we were told the majority of TOF patients are diagnosed post birth.

Here he had a scan and was then diagnosed with Tetralogy of Fallot when we received the diagnosis it felt as though our world was crashing in around us.

I didn't know about Tiny Tickers until I started this very blog as a way or processing what we had been through, to raise awareness and to help others going through the same thing.

There seemed to be a lack of accessible information about, including those sharing their experiences when we were in hospital with Elijah. I wished I had known about Tiny Tickers as they certainly are doing a lot to change this.

This is why, I am so thrilled to be guest blogging for them and helping them help support other heart parents with my experiences as a heart mum.

My first blog is all about how I turned to blogging to process our CHD journey and how other parents can use blogging to process their experiences.

You can read it here.

I also penned a piece in honour of #nicuawarenessmonth which you can read here.

This is why I started my blog and to guest blog for a truly brilliant charity is why I began this in the first place, to help just one person makes it worthwhile.

Comments

Dear Elijah, on your fourth heart day

Elijah the heart hero never letting anything stop him. Today is your 4th heart day. It's 4 years since we took you down to Great Ormond Street for open heart surgery. It seems to have crept up on us again. Another whole year has passed but it hasn't changed how I feel about that day. Some have said that oh, by now surely you should have gotten over it after all it's been 4 years. The answer is I don't think I ever will. I have been thinking a lot about that day, where I signed the consent forms for them to take you and operate on you. To either save or take your life. That day was the worst of my life, the unknown certainty of whether you would come back up again. I held you as they put you to sleep. They gave me your dummy as they took you from me and laid you on the operating table as if you weighed nothing. I couldn't even kiss you goodbye in case it was the last time. That's why I won't ever get over it and those who have been in the

The time Fajita night resulted in having a baby in a bath.

The newest Cockerill Do you all remember my ever so optimistic natural birth plan? You can read it here. However, spoiler alert, it didn’t happen. What did happen was something no one was expecting. Wednesday the 5 th July… a mundane sort of day spent cleaning the house and doing the weekly shop. With Greg going back to work the next day I was determined to make sure everything was ready for when this baby arrived! I was three days off my due date and still hadn’t had one single sign this baby was imminently coming. I had been receiving messages from quite a few people asking if baby was here yet. I was getting fed up as everything I had tried to induce labour failed miserably and every morning for the last two weeks I woke up disappointed I wasn’t in labour! I gave up, walking didn’t help, pineapple made me sick and I was beginning to tire of the raspberry leaf tea. This baby was staying put. In the evening I put Elijah bed, and we began to settle down for the eveni

The one with Elijah's heart surgery.

We were back. April 22-28 2015, a year ago this weekend. In just two short weeks since we last went down to London. We had to go down the day before and check in and have another blood test. As all of the forms had been signed last time, we were out again within an hour or so. Back to the same family accommodation, in a different room and with a lot less luggage. Something felt different this time, although I didn't want to believe it was going ahead in the event it was cancelled again, deep down I knew it would be. The morning of the surgery I knew how I would feel as we had been through this all before. I didn't want to go out for a meal so we ate in the hotel room watching ch5 rubbish after Elijah went down in the travel cot. Its odd that through the whole pre admission, cancelled op and the actual operation I can remember what shit we watched on TV and what we ate for tea that night. One of those weird things that just sticks in your head. Sort of like when you rememb

Vicki Cockerill - NICU MUM Blog

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