When I Became A Dad To Premature Twins #Ad

In life there are defining moments, occasions or happenings that will change you and how you approach life thereafter. My particular moment in life where I re-evaluated what was really important to me was when my twin girls were born. All of sudden everything else really didn’t matter. Work, money, the material things of life just became secondary to my twin girls surviving as they had been born six weeks early. It was that moment that I saw the #PowerOfBabies

As I have already mentioned my twin girls came into this world six weeks early. Leading up to the planned c-Section was a very nervous and emotional time. On the day of the planned c-section we woke early to go to our local hospital only to find that the neo-natal unit was full meaning that we had to drive 40 miles for our twins to be born.

After what seemed like an eternity to me, I eventually found myself in the operating room with my wife lying on the operating table. There were people rushing around everywhere and I mean everywhere.

Of course my wife was about to give birth to twins so actually double the amount of Doctors and Nurses were needed

There was no doubt I was beginning to feel very overwhelmed by the whole situation. The feeling of helplessness was massive. I had to put my trust in strangers that my twin girls would be born safely. That is something I found very difficult, because after all I’m their dad, it’s my job to protect and keep them out of harm’s way. Sometimes though you have to have a leap of faith, and put your trust in other people.

My twins were born very quickly and although this was the fourth and fifth time that I was becoming a dad it felt like the first time. The reason was because they were premature and so very tiny. Just 4lb 3ozs and 2lbs 11ozs. I had seen bigger dolls.

My twins were placed in my arms and my overwhelming feeling was, I’m never going to let you go. I was crying the entire time I was holding them. Tears of joy yes, as they were in the world safely, but also tears of nerves because yes I have become a dad, but I knew the girls faced an uphill battle to full health which would take many weeks.

As I said earlier in this post those first moments of holding my twin girls changed my perspective on life forever. I imagine a lot of us have always thought ourselves indestructible and we are going to live forever, I know I certainly did, but those first moments I realised just how fragile life is. My baby twin girls were hooked up to lots of tubes and starting life out in an incubator. This of course was not quite what I imagined when my wife was pregnant. I genuinely thought she would go into labour and two days later we would be home with our twins, how different it was.

They spent 27 days in neo-natal and had test after test and I must have spent hours googling every test they had. I never stopped worrying about anything. It was an incredibly difficult and a rollercoaster ride of emotion that unless you have ridden the rollercoaster in a neo-natal unit, it’s impossible to explain how it feels to be a dad of premature twins.

It’s made me appreciate the little things in life, not to get upset over the insignificant problems because life is precious and I also learnt that in 27 days on a neo-natal unit watching my twin girls grow in strength everyday, even though most days it was through the many tears I cried.

Five years on I will be celebrating Father’s Day with my twin daughters who are now typical five year old girls and when I look at them I feel an all-consuming love and just want to protect and enjoy watching them grow.

Pampers are encouraging dads to share their own stories using the hashtag #PowerOfBabies for a chance to win a special day out and a hamper of Pampers goodies.

This is a collaborative post.