Vicki Cockerill - NICU MUM Blog

Dreams far away from the NICU Every day for 7 days I walked past the mothers with their perfectly healthy babies and felt sick to my stomach. Why was this happening to us? I had to quickly learn about the day to day running of the NICU and spent 90% of my time there. I walked through the ward with my head hung low with an empty car seat. I was going home without my baby. The double doors, the constant hand sanitising, knowing what times the Doctors did their rounds all became second nature to me." This is taken from my blog which was featured on the brilliant @clemmie_telford #motherofalllists and one I wanted to reshare for #nicuawarenessmonth . One of the most traumatic and hardest things I had to deal with whilst we were in #NICU was the separation from my baby just a few hours old. https://motherofalllists.com/2017/12/01/guest-list-life-on-the-neonatal-intensive-care-unit/ #nicu #nnuh #motherofalllists #clemmie #nicumum #hospital #ptsd #chd #TOF #trau...

September and all of the feels. September . This month holds a lot of conflicting emotions for me. The reason? E was born on Sept 18th 2014. September was the month I became a mum. September was the month I met my little boy 4 years ago. September was the month my world crashed around me. September was the month I had my baby taken away 12 hours post birth and admitted to NICU. September is the month I watched my baby through an incubator fight for his life. September is the month where we found out he had a stroke and also needed open heart surgery. September is the month my life changed forever. September is the month I became a NICU Mum. September is the month where I began to develop #PTSD . September is #nicuawarenessmonth and I will be sharing ALOT of #nicu posts and blogs about my experience as a #nicumum for a number of websites, publications and organisations to raise awareness of our story and the issues we fought and to say thanks to the amazing #nicustaff and #nh...

NNUH Sometimes you read something that you can relate to and you have to share. I wanted to do more than share on FB. I wanted to share a dear friend's very stark words as far as I could. Which is why today, I have a very improtu guest blog post.  I have written before about having an ill child makes you realise just how lucky you really are to live in a country that has the NHS. Yes, it has it's flaws, it's over stretched but they are all doing an amazing job they don't hear this enough. Instead they get moaned at, shouted at and publicly criticised.  From the bottom of my heart I can never thank the enough for what they have done for my family but I urge you to read on. Please do like/share and spread my friend Chantel's utterly brilliant words below. In the last 6 days I have stepped foot through Norfolk & Norwich A&E 3 times. I’m not usually one for publicly discussing personal affairs but felt compelled to do so in this instance. We are very...

One Ill. One 'Normal' child. Someone recently asked me with great trepidation if I treated Elijah and Harlow differently, with Elijah having CHD and an open heart surgery under his belt already did it change how I treated them. The fact for the rest of his life CHD will be a lurking like a black cloud over us all does change things. She too had a child with a lifelong condition and one who doesn't. One ill child. One "normal" child. I could see the worry on her face about asking me this but I knew she needed reassurance that she’d been battling to rationalise this for herself for some time. The guilt was etched on her face. If we felt like this I am sure many others would so I wanted to honestly share my feelings to say we shouldn't feel like we cannot talk about something like this when you have one ill child and one who isn't. I know it's not the done thing to talk about who you favour etc. but the truth is... Yes. I do treat El...

It seems to be a bit of a hot topic currently that we are oversharing photos of our children across social media. Or ‘sharenting’ as it has become known as.   Which to me sounds like something you do as a teenager up the rugby field after too much Frosty Jacks. Cor, did you hear about Lisa? She let Craig give her a good ol’ sharenting at the weekend.   As a parent blogger, and avid follower of many others I do not think twice about how natural it is for parents today to share photos of their children on their profiles. There has been a small revolution occurring in the last few years, one that has changed how we see modern parents and that is the honest accounts of parenting. Not a set up scene, or a paper of the cracks façade but a real-life insight into what we all go through every single day. This has redefined the out of reach social expectations we have been so used to in yester years, or the ridiculous notion we should not share our struggles and suffer in silence. I...