Vicki Cockerill - NICU MUM Blog

Sleeping soundly. I woke up suddenly yesturday morning, drenched in sweat. My stomach knotted, fear rising in me and I began to panic. This feeling was all to familiar. I knew it instantly. My heart pumped so hard it hurt my chest. I looked around and realised where I was. That it was a dream. But what I dreamt was something that I had lived through. We watched a show on TV recently that said dreams and nightmares were a way of showing and processing trauamtic events, maybe this is what caused it. I wish the dream could have been something so unrealistic, so out of the world it was just that, a dream but this wasn't. It was just another reminder of what we had been through. Sometimes as I write so much about 'our story', talk about it, write extensively on the subject, campaign and it might come across  I am okay with it. That I have processed it. But, frankly it still terrifies me, haunts me. In my dream I was in hospital on the maternity ward, I looked d...

Waiting for an MRI in NICU 5 things I want you to know about being a NICU Mum, this #nicuawarenessmonth In less than four days’ time, my eldest child will celebrate his fourth birthday. Birthdays are always emotional especially when looking back, I class his birth as one of the most traumatic times of my life. I recently wrote about how four years it still haunts me. I didn’t just become a new mum, I became a NICU (Neo Natal Intensive Care Unit) Mum. It was a title I didn’t ask for and we were part of a club we didn’t ask to join. I have now spent nearly 4 years writing about our story on this blog, and for other publications and websites. I have tried to raise awareness of the issues that affected us, I have tried to bring about change but ultimately and I hope I am right in saying I have helped other NICU Mum and CHD (Congenital Heart Defect) parents. I have tried to process some of the emotions surrounding our NICU experience and use them to do somet...