Vicki Cockerill - NICU MUM Blog

                                                             M aternal mental health to be precise. Every mum no matter what their situation deserves to have access to non-judgemental mental health support. Why? Because, every mum matters. May 1-7 th marks Maternal Mental Health week, and one I am proud to be an official partner of. It is something I have regularly blogged and spoken about. This week will show the gaps that so desperately need to be addressed in mums receiving the care they need. After the birth of my first son, I was diagnosed with a mental illness, at times I was let down by the system and have struggled a lot to come to terms ...

A bit of background, Elijah was born with a Congenital Heart Defect (CHD) called Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF),  this means there were four structural abnormalities wrong with his heart. These were repaired, via open heart surgery at Great Ormond Street in April 2015 when he was 6 months old.  Please be CHD aware 1 in 100 babies are diagnosed with some form of CHD. To mark Elijah's two year heart anniversary, I will be sharing some CHD/ heart related posts of our journey that have appeared on the blog through the last year over on the Honest Confessions Facebook page this week. Elijah and Alice celebrating two big occasions this week. Elijah, this week marks two big occasions, your friend’s Alice’s second birthday (Happy Birthday Alice!) and something else that you are likely not to remember. It won’t make much sense to you now, but one day it will. This week you will see Mummy and Daddy look at you funny a lot, and you will get extra cuddles and kisses and you ...

I don't know what's right and what's real anymore I don't know how I'm meant to feel anymore When do you think it will all become clear 'Cause I'm being taken over by the fear We are one week off going into the third trimester with baby number two, and it is official the fear is now returning. I find when you’re pregnant the fear ebbs and flows through the 9 months. When you first find out you are pregnant, you are just aiming to get through those first 12 weeks, the fear is ever present on your mind. Every cramp, twinge and symptom is scrutinized and the worry of miscarriage is rife. Until you see the baby on your scan, you cannot relax that something may be wrong. The scan gives you some reassurance then after a few more weeks the fear dissolves slowly as you enter the second trimester. Then something magical happens and as it the baby knows you are worried they begin to signal to you all is well or in my case, kick the crap out of my insides but...

I have come to a realisation recently. Elijah is ill, A LOT. He is basically a germ factory. Or he is licking everything, I do catch him doing this quite often. I even caught him putting his head down the toilet the other day.  I don't think we ever go for longer than a month or so before germs invade the house, and take us out one by one. He does not really get ill any more than a child of his age, in fact I think he is considered one of the healthy ones. He even takes his squidgy vitamin once a day which I am pretty sure is just a wine gum in disguise. But, every so often BAM! The house becomes an array of half empty Calpol bottles, snotty tissues, vomit/snot/ any other unidentifiable bodily fluid on the sofa and round the clock Disney films with three sleep deprived zombies inhabiting it. One thing that is certain he will always be ill when we have something planned, work,a night out, or for the last two years on my actual birthday.  It comes in stages, ...

Dear Elijah, Today is Mother’s Day, our third one spent together (fourth if you include when Dad brought me a present when you were still in my tummy). The NICU days seem more distant now, and we seem to be on more of an even keel. This one is also extra special because this is our last just me and you. This time next year we will be celebrating Mother’s Day with your future brother or sister, as a family of four. I have been thinking a lot recently about the last 2 and a half years. So much has changed. You have come so far, and you are frankly amazing. Bloody annoying but amazing all the same. We have spent this week on your first ever holiday and you were the happiest I have ever seen you. We are on the brink of so much change, and I hope you will embrace it. I want you to know it wasn’t because you were not enough, or not good enough because boy are you, and then some. I hope you will know that I will love you just the same when your new sibling gets...

I sat on the bed, Elijah was screaming, after refusing another bottle and being up all night. I stared out of the window with the tears running down my face and came to the crushing realisation, I was a crap mum. I couldn’t do this. I began to regret our decision to even have a baby. I bombarded Greg with messages whilst he was ay work begging him to come home. I couldn’t cope, I didn’t know what to do. He offered to send his sister round to help but the shame of someone seeing me like this, that I had failed tore me up. I pleaded for him to leave it, I would be okay. All you want in the world is for someone to help you, yet the minute that offer is there you cannot possibly take it. Instead you continue to punish yourself. Self-destruction intimate, I carried on barely holding it together for more than a day. I tried to control how I was really feeling by not eating and abusing pills. Our start to motherhood wasn’t the typical kind, and I am unsure if I would have felt like this if...

For those that follow me on social media, will know that last week we overcame a pretty big obstacle. We gave up the dummy. I never really planned on using a dummy but when Elijah was in NICU, he constantly wanted to suck and this gave him comfort so the nurses made him one. I vaguely remember freaking out before Elijah was one because he was waking up about 100 times a night for it. I was very sleep deprived so sought advice from friends how to kick it.   Cold turkey was the favoured option, we lasted 2 hours and a failed nap time before I wanted to chuck myself out of the nursery window. We sacked it off, and I gave in and relented with the excuse of, well he will need this for recovery after the op. We will address it after (that is pretty much the theme for my first year of parenting.) But, then the year crept up on us, and he was sleeping better, he would wake up and put it back in himself, unless he couldn’t find it,  which was normally embedded in his ear for some u...