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The hardest goodbye

I had double the love with my twins, but would it be double the pain too...?


Published by: Jean Jollands
Published on: 10 November 2011

Just like buses, two had come along at once! I was nine weeks pregnant, and a scan had just revealed I was expecting identical twins. After 18 months of trying, this was the best news I could have had.
‘Imagine all those nappy changes...!' I chuckled to my husband Bobby, 30. But I didn't care how much work it would be!
At 21 weeks, a scan revealed we were expecting boys. ‘Charlie and Jack,' we agreed, fretting about the cream-coloured babygrows we'd stocked up on. ‘We need to get some blue!'
But just two weeks later, I went to hospital with a suspected urine infection.
‘It's... agony...' I panted.
‘I'm not surprised,' a doctor said, as midwives helped me on to the bed. ‘You're having contractions!'
‘It's too early,' I croaked.
‘There's no guarantee the babies will make it,' the consultant admitted. I shook my head, tears sliding down my cheeks.
‘Do you want us to resuscitate them if they're not breathing when they're born?' he asked gently.
At just 23 weeks, they were a week younger than the legal cut-off where doctors were obliged
to save their lives. ‘Please do everything you can to save them,' I begged.
Bobby arrived just in time to see me push little Charlie out into the world first, followed by his brother Jack seven minutes later. Charlie weighed just 1lb 7oz, Jack 1lb 4oz.
‘They're so small,' I gasped, staring at their transparent skin.
I was allowed to hold Jack for a few seconds. He fitted in the palm of my hands. Charlie was whisked away to be put on a ventilator.
‘It's a waiting game...' the consultant admitted.
It wasn't until the next day that we saw them both again in neonatal intensive care. They were just a few feet apart, wired up to tubes and monitors.
‘I wish they were next to each other,' I murmured to Bobby. ‘They need each other.' They were just too fragile, though. Even we couldn't cuddle them.
‘Their skin could tear as it's so thin,' doctors warned us.
Instead, we stroked their tiny hands and feet, marvelled at how my wedding ring reached halfway up Charlie's sparrow-like little arm.
We put matching teddy bears into their incubators, a blue one for Charlie, and a brown one for Jack.
They already had different personalities. Charlie seemed laid back, while Jack was headstrong and determined.
‘Look at your little brother fidgeting around,' I hushed to Charlie, as I watched Jack wriggle into his favourite position.
But from the way nurses talked in hushed tones around his cot, I knew Jack was in the worst shape of the two. When he was 10 days old, Bobby and me were ushered into a quiet room.
‘Jack's struggling,' the consultant said. ‘He's caught an infection and his tiny little body just can't shake it off... It's time we turned off his ventilator.'
‘But he's come too far,' I wept.
The following day, I knew there was no hope for Jack, though. He had no strength left.
‘Take him,' the nurse said, placing him in my arms. I couldn't stop my tears.
‘We loved you so much, my brave boy,'
I whispered. ‘We'll tell Charlie all about you, I promise.'
With one final, ragged breath, he slipped away.
Afterwards, I staggered over to Charlie's incubator. His chest was jerking up and down, his eyes fluttering from the blissful world of dreams. ‘I can't tell him his brother's gone,' I sobbed.
For the next six days, we see-sawed between grief for Jack, and fear for Charlie.
Then, the night before Jack's funeral, Charlie opened his eyes for the first time. Looking into those beautiful eyes, I saw my future. I hated leaving him for Jack's funeral, but this was the last thing I could ever do for Jack.
We buried him with his brown bear. ‘Bye, darling,' I choked. Then we rushed back to the hospital.
My legs buckled when I saw Jack's empty incubator. ‘We
never even got a photo of them together,' I sobbed.
I channelled my emotions into willing Charlie to live but, just a week after we'd buried his brother, there was another bombshell.
‘All babies have a heart duct that's supposed to close shortly after birth. Charlie's hasn't,' doctors said. ‘We need to give him medication... but it could cause a perforated stomach.'
It was Charlie's best chance.
Four days later, his belly started to swell. Like a terrible action replay, Bobby and I were ushered into a quiet room.
‘I'm sorry,' a consultant began. ‘Charlie is very poorly. We think he has 12 hours left to live...'
‘No,' I insisted through my
tears. ‘Charlie still has colour in his cheeks, life in his eyes. I won't accept it.'
I demanded a second opinion, so he sent Charlie's regular consultant to me. ‘You're right, he's still fighting,' he agreed. I knew it!
‘I wish I could swap places with you,' I whispered, gazing at him. He reached up... and wrapped his tiny hand around my finger. My heart soared. Just like when he'd opened his eyes, this was another sign my boy was fighting back.
Those 12 hours came and went, but still he clung on. Finally, a week later, doctors operated to remove a perforated section of his gut. Just as the two-hour op was finishing, a strange sense of calm washed over me. Charlie's going to make it.
‘It's the best news,' the surgeon confirmed. ‘Charlie did have a perforated gut, but it's healed by itself!' They'd also removed a blood clot from his tummy.
Within a week and a half,
he was strong enough to be transferred to Great Ormond Street to have his heart duct closed. Two weeks later, back at Norwich, he was finally taken off his ventilator and given an oxygen tube instead.
But he was 12 weeks old before I finally got a cuddle. As I cradled him to my chest, it was the best feeling. I felt whole again.
He still needed an op on his eyes to correct his retinas but. at five months old, weighing 5lb 4oz, we were finally able to bring him home. Watching him wriggling in his cot was bittersweet, though.
‘You miss your brother, don't you darling?' I whispered.
So when he was a year old, I took him to see Jack's grave. ‘You'll always have a part of each other with you,' I smiled. ‘Jack, look over your brother.'
And he's done just that. Because he was so premature, Charlie hit his milestones slightly later than other children. But, just before his second birthday, he took his first step. Within weeks, he was talking and off his oxygen tube.
Now five, Charlie's a bit smaller than his playmates, but he's a lively, loving little boy. As a result of all we've been through, I've set up The Jack Allen Precious Star Fund and the Charlie Allen Sunshine Fund to raise money for premature baby charity Bliss.
Charlie is incredible. He does ask about Jack, but I tell him he's a star in the sky, and is always looking after him. Sometimes it's hard, as I know exactly what my lost son would look like, thanks to his brother. That makes my grief harder. Not a day passes when I don't wish I had both my boys here. But my Charlie makes sure that I get double the love.

• To find out more about Bliss,
visit www.bliss.org.uk


Emma Allen, 31, Diss, Norfolk