Vicki Cockerill - NICU MUM Blog

🙌 SATURDAY! 🙌 I have been invited to greet all you lovely people for some of the day at the Parent and Baby Show Norwich. Come and say hay! 🖐 ✅ UEA Sportspark 10.30-15.00. I created some graphics and marketing content for @parentandbabyshow social media accounts which are now live examples above ☝️ ➡ Please get in touch if you like what you see and what I can offer you for your social media pages/campaigns/profiles/ads and more! #theparentandbabyshow #norwich #norfolk #babyshow #socialmediamarketing #vcsocialmediaoutreach #mumboss

Dear Boys, I always tell you the same thing when I drop you off at nursery. Be kind, help those who need it, comfort those who are upset, stand up for those who can't. You play with and who you want. You wear what you want. I will never tell you that it's okay because you're "being boys". That is not a plausible reason to treat others badly, because there is no reason to do so. Rough play is not simply brushed aside because of your gender with me. You are allowed to show emotion, boys can cry and that's okay. It doesn't matter what someone says, what they wear, how they act, how much they may have or may not have had to drink. A defence of boys will not be boys is a no go- you like anyone else have to be held accountable for your actions. You treat others just like you want to be treated, how you would have someone treat me, your mum. I am raising you to be different. To be kind and be part of the generation that doesn't ...

Dear Ant and Dec (Ant), I know I am a bit behind but I have been struggling with the words to express how I feel about what happened last week. Your "public" breakdown. You see, I grew up watching you on SMTV, I have been hungover eating takeaway watching you on Prime Time Weekend TV for most of my adult life. I too have struggled, with self sabotage, with abusing medication and making reckless and irresponsible decisions. Some as a shout out for someone, anyone to notice me. To see my pain, some because I felt compelled to do so. I don't condone what you did, but I can understand how you got there. I too, have suffered with mental illness for all my life. I cannot imagine how it feels to go through it in the public eye. When all you want to do is hide away and try and make some sort of sense to what is happening to you. When the only trip put you make all week is to the Doctors. When you don't trust yourself with your own prescription. When yo...

Harper One of the most memorable milestones is when your child takes their 1st steps. When we were told E had suffered a stroke at birth we didn't know if he would learn to walk. But he did and it is a memory that we can recall down to the last detail. But what if you knew your child wouldn't take their first steps but there was a chance that they could. You needed £80,000 wouldn't you do everything you can do make it happen? This is little Harper and I am sharing her story in hope that it might help getting this little one to America for surgery not available here so she can take her first 👣 "Just4Children hoping to raise enough for Harper to have SDR surgery in America, a spinal surgery not available on the NHS that could change her life allowing her to walk unaided. 'Our Harper is 18 months old from Norwich. On our second visit in a week to the hospital due to lack of movement, Harper was born via emergency C-section where she was found to have a r...

Reality THE REAL WORLD VS THE MEDIA. Everyone who follows me knows I am not adverse to sharing pics of me in my very worn maternity kecks.  Why? Because I want to dispell this stupid myth that you have to snap back into shape as soon as you have had a baby. It is just unrealistic. The pressure comes from the media with celebrities like Kylie Jenner flaunting there "one month" post partem bodies. Well good for her. She has money. She has stylists... the time to work out blah blah blah.  This is what one month on looks like for me. But that doesn't mean it will look like that for you. We are all different and that's okay.  Do not feel the pressure to "snap back" as frankly it is a load of balls. 8 months on and I am still tucking my stomach into my leggings and wearing my maternity knickers. And if I am okay with that then you should be too. We should be embracing the post partem body in all its wobbly, stretch mark and saggy glory...

Shaun White in action. What TOF? Dear Shaun White, We watched you on TV,  your winning run before claiming your gold medal. Earlier in the day I had shown my son some pictures of you in action. Of you receiving your medals. I turned to him and told him that you too, had the same "special heart" as him. He looked up at me and back at the photo of you on the half pipe flying upside down through the air. I told him you were proof he could be anything he wanted to be, he could do whatever he wanted to. You may not feel a role model to other Tetralogy of Fallot sufferers but you are. Especially to us. I will never forget three years ago when sitting in a hospital bed down the corridor from my son who was fighting for his life in NICU. We were told Elijah had TOF. They didn't know if he would survive. He needed surgery, he may have future complications. I hadn't even heard of CHD but it was the life sentence that had just been handed to my son, to us. I shouldn...

Dr Emma Svenburg aka @mumologist has launched an amazing series called Just One Thing. I was invited to talk about my experiences as a NICU Mum and what I would want other new parents to know. Below is a snippet of Just One Thing- NICU.  'Things go wrong. I wish someone had told me it isn’t always picture perfect. It isn’t the snap shot you see on the front of the glossy parenting magazines. Have you ever seen a new mum, bedraggled from the birth and worried for her baby’s life looking at her child wired up to an incubator on the front cover? You can sometimes find yourself in a world no one warned you about. You can find yourself in the Neo Natal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) watching your fresh out of the oven bun fight for his life. This isn’t to scare you, but if I had been informed before I gave birth then perhaps this all wouldn’t have been such a shock. Perhaps if I was offered some help, some support I wouldn’t have broken down as much as I did. Why...