Vicki Cockerill - NICU MUM Blog

Playdates, the very word puts fear in me. It sounds so happy and playful but the reality of a playdate is as far from that for the parents involved. As a Mum of a very boisterous yet very clingy at times toddler, playdates are quickly becoming the bane of my life. It's not that I do not enjoy socialising, I love it! Having a gossip and a moan about your kids with copious amounts of coffee and cake is a win win in my book. But they are so bloody tiring, emotional draining and at times traumatic. Now, when Elijah was first born I whiled many an hour away in Costa with my mum partners in crime, or around each others houses eating bags of crisps. They understood about Elijah's condition and let me talk, cry or not talk about it at all. They made me feel like a normal mother. I used to dread going to baby classes or play dates with people I didn't really know as I knew they would pity us, and not really know what to say to us. It used to be really...

      Recently, there have been so many articles and posts about mum Guilt. As a NICU mum I felt beyond guilty when Elijah was born. Check out my Mum Guilt post on Selfish Mother. However, where is the dad guilt? Do dad's feel guilty? Or is this something us mums take upon ourselves to feel? Another thing as a mum we feel we have to take on (and then feel guilty about) because they don't? Is it a common mis conception that dad's don't feel guilty about anything?   When you have a baby, guilt is a huge part of motherhood, it's almost instant. The whole breast vs bottle argument is thrust in your face once your baby is born and your decision is then criticized by anyone and everyone. Something that dad cannot really feel guilty about, if baby doesn't latch and you formula feed (I think whatever you want or have to do is fine!).   As an equal partner in bringing the baby into this world and raising them, do dad's feel what we do? Are the...

I have decided to do something a bit different, and update you all on what has been happening with us all this week. Hopefully, you get an insight that although I was a NICU Mum, I am also a Mum to a toddler as well. We are currently experiencing all things TODDLERDOM with my little Damien (666) seriously the older he gets the more worried I am he is the Omen!  Here is the little bugger covered in Oreos shutting me out of the house and making me knock on the door to come in! It also is nice to show you all how far away our life is from the time he was in hospital. We are fast approaching his year anniversary post op which is mind blowing. At times its so nice just to be a Mum to a normal little boy, and talk to other parents (many of you on Instagram) and laugh about all things #parentlife. So here are my Top 10 Mum Wins (more like fails) that have been achieved this week.   1. We thought we got away with it, we got cocky...

  Please check out my 'How to 'survive' your time in NICU' guide on the Selfish Mother website!   click here to view

When you pack your hospital bag ready for when your waters break (depending on how organised you are! Mine was packed from 7 months). You take it for granted that other than a few bits and bobs for yourself, an entire Mothercare store for the baby, you will not need anything else.   You assume that you will give birth and get released that day, or the following day. Do you expect to be in there for 7 days? NO. Do you expect to come home without your baby? NO. Did you expect to spend the first weeks of motherhood in a high dependency NICU? No, but we did. The labour ( check out my other post- the obligatory birth story ) was good, strangely I liked it. All signs were looking good. Elijah weighed in at a whopping 8 lbs 12 oz  (pause for clench).  It was already agreed between myself and Greg that he would be the first one to do the feeds. Elijah was doing really well taking bottles, crying, pooing (much to Greg's horror of changing the first 't...

Eighteen months have passed since our beautiful little miracle emerged (I say emerged because 'vigorously ripped out' doesn't have the same ring to it). The rollercoaster of the past year and a half has somewhat levelled off, and things have become almost normal. Now feels as good a time as any, for me to confess (to HONESTLY confess) what it's like to give birth, become a mother, and cope with the joys of reflux, teething, milestones and TODDLERDOM! And how having an NICU baby with a heart defect makes these things all the more stressful. Oh, and there's also my increasing fear that Elijah is Damien from the Omen, with his endless antagonising of our cats. I will save the nine glorious months of swollen feet, constipation, and eating chocolate on the sofa, like a whale (whilst watching RHOBH in my pants) for another time. This is the story of how Elijah was born. To be honest, after watching numerous programmes on TV, they make it look like, once your ...

My name is Vicki Moore, and I am the mother of a little human called Elijah, who was co-created by my husband-to-be Greg. Elijah was born in September 2014, but the journey of Motherhood did not start smoothly. He was admitted to the Neo Natal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) twelve hours after birth, and was there for nine days, eventually being diagnosed with a serious heart defect called ‘Tetralogy Of Fallot’. He later required open-heart surgery at just six months old. Fortunately, Elijah is now a typical little toddler, creating all sorts of chaos wherever he goes. However, it is only now, after eighteen months, and a diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, that I feel I can begin to talk about what it’s really like to have a baby in NICU, and to watch them go through surgery, and recover. It is my hope that this blog will help others in the same boat, and I’m looking forward to relating to all you other mums, and sharing all our different stories and experiences together. This is ...