Twins Lucas and Oscar are, says their mum Meg, the best of friends even though they are very different. Meg feels blessed that both boys are happy and healthy, as they were born very prematurely, at just 31 weeks.
Meg’s pregnancy progressed smoothly with no cause for concern until, nine weeks before the twins’ due date, at a conference in Cambridge, Meg’s waters broke. In Addenbrooke’s Hospital, medics spent two and a half days trying to delay Meg’s labour, before delivering her babies by caesarean section.
Meg was on so much medication that it was, she says, all a bit of a blur. But she still has some painful memories, such as the day when little Lucas, just one day old, was moved on his own by ambulance to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in St Mary’s Hospital in London. Oscar followed with Meg the next day.
It was so scary. But that is the only night that Lucas and Oscar have ever spent apart.”
Born so early, both babies were very fragile and needed help with their breathing. Meg and her partner Patrick knew that the boys were vulnerable to life-threatening infections and brain damage.
But thankfully, Lucas and Oscar, who spent four and a half weeks in the NICU, thrived: “The boys were healthy and they had each other – we felt incredibly lucky,” Meg says.
Aware of the work that Action funds into prematurity, Meg comments:
It is wonderful work. You don’t realise until you’ve gone through premature birth how quickly it call all go wrong, and how lucky you are when it goes right.”
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