Check this out!

I just saw this on the web and couldn't believe it. Twins born weighing a combined weight of 23 pounds!!!!!! The girl alone weighed more than my two together, Paddy being 5 pds 7ozs and Georgie weighing in at 5 pds 10ozs. (I was 5 weeks early). I thought I as huge, the Mum of these two must have been massive!!
Here is the link:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25288150/

Look at me!

Look at me, look at me! This is what Paddy says to everyone when she stands up and puts a bit of weight on her stumpy. She is very proud of her self, and of course has to show everyone! She is doing so good during the day, we are still having a few issues at night she is very unsettled, but I guess we just have to work through it.

Next week Paddy and Georgie start on morning kindy, five days a week, and I just can't get my head around it, before I know it they will be off to school, and I will have empty nest syndrome! What am I going to be like when they leave home!? P & G love kindy they are really social, and the other children are really fascinated with them being twins, we are completely used to how they look and can tell them apart no problems, but anyone new who meets them finds it difficult. I have to admit even I can't tell them apart in some photo's, and they always ask me which one is which, so they even look the same to them selves!

Paddy with her stumpy!

Paddy and Georgie

This is my favourite photo of the girls as new born babies, Paddy as on the left looking at the photo.

Casting of Paddy's Leg.

Yesterday we went to the Artificial Limb Centre for what we thought was a check up with Paddy's surgeon. When we got there he thought her leg was looking really good, and they decided to do a cast of her leg, which means they are on the way to making her 'magic leg'. Fantastic, so hopefully things going well we will have it in two weeks and Paddy can get on with walking. I am very excited about this, and I know she won't be racing around on it like a maniac from the word go, but it is a start. I cannot tell you the stress that has lifted from our shoulders now that we have done the operation. Paddy is just getting better and better, she is happy, can get around really well, she doesn't use her wheel chair much at home she prefers to crawl, or walk on her knees. She can get on and off things, it is amazing how quickly they bounce back. I have to say she is still not the best at night, wakes up upset, again I just hope that it is a time thing and it will improve.
Last week we went back to Kindy for an hour, just to see how Paddy went, you should have seen the other kids, it was like a scrum, they all wanted to push the wheel chair, and I kept thinking the chair was going to be tipped over, but it was fine. Paddy and Georgie were just happy to be back for awhile!

Mercy, please Mum!

Has anyone heard the new song 'Mercy' by the Welsh singer Duffy? Well my kids love it, I bought the CD and the song is permanently on in the car. As soon as we hop in the car the kids say, Mum, Mercy pleassssssse, so on it goes. Then it is Mum, louder, louder, now I don't want to be one of those people that you can hear the bass thumping before you see the car, do you think my three care, no not a bit! So then the song finishes and it's, Mum play it again, and this goes on and on and on. I don't mind, and I love it too. The rest of the CD is not too bad either, so if you haven't heard it, check it out, you will love it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE2orthS3TQ

P.S

I just wanted to say that if it had been me that just had her foot amputated and then seeing the stump for the first time, I would have been wailing like a banshee (as they say in Ireland), John and I are so proud of Paddy the way she has just got on with things, I mean it is such a traumatic thing, but so far she has just taken it in her stride, children, they never fail to amaze me, and I have to say we just love our girls to bits!

Paddy and her stumpy.

Phewww, I am so glad that the cast is off and we got to see her leg. I said to John on the way to the hospital I was almost as nervous as just before the operation. He gave me one of those side ways looks that said are you bonkers?, no just very nervous!
Getting the cast off wasn't a problem, it just tickled her, then it was into the plaster room to have a look at her little leg. I have to say Paddy was so good, she just looked at it then she must of thought about things because her eyes filled with tears. To me it wasn't any worse or any better than I thought it would be, it still looks very 'raw', which is the only way to describe it really. Paddy wasn't too happy about the stitches coming out, they gave her some happy gas, which I used when I was in labour, and I thought it didn't do too much. We got through that then it was off to the Limb Centre where they showed us how to bandage her little stumpy (her new name for her little foot)
I don't know why but I thought the Limb centre would do the bandaging for us, but we have to do it. Oh my god the pressure is on, we can't do it too loose otherwise we don't get a nice shaped stump, too tight well I think it cuts the circulation off, arhggg, I tried not to panic, honest.
So we have to do that 3 - 4 times a day until the swelling goes down, hopefully this won't take too long, I will keep you posted.
It must feel so nice not to have that cast on, and she can finally stretch her leg out, bliss, I could not imagine having your leg bent for two weeks, it would have driven me up the wall. Emma and Georgie took it really well seeing her leg for the first time, I was looking at Emma giving her daggers as I could see she wasn't going to be constructive. I think I even managed to bandage her leg up again ok, we will see if it is still on in the morning!
I tell ya what a day, and I also have to mention it is John's and my 10th wedding anniversary today, 12 years since we met. Who would of thought when John walked into my Mum and Dad's pub we would be still together 12 years on with three beautiful girls, and that he doesn't think our family is crazy any more! (Only joking, he joins in our arguments now rather than slinking off into another room!)

Cast off today!

Finally Paddy's cast comes off today, I guess these last two weeks have gone by fairly quickly, and I can't quite believe that today we are going to see her little leg for the first time without a foot. To be honest I am very nervous, more so for Paddy as I don't want her to freak out. We have been told that the children handle it a whole lot better than the parents, fingers crossed eh?!
Paddy has come along in leaps and bounds these last few days, it is amazing what a good night sleep does for one. She is playing happily, last night she even had a tantrum when I asked her to help clean up the play room, yep things are definatley getting back to normal!

Fabric for the 'magic leg'

Rather than trying to describe the fabric Paddy has picked for her leg, I thought I would put a photo on instead. The only thing you can't see in the photo is that it has got quite a few sparkles in it, it is very mermaid like and I think it is going to look great on her 'magic leg'

We are off to the hospital tomorrow to have the cast removed and then it is on to the Limb Centre to get a cast done of her leg, then fingers crossed it won't be too long before it is all made!

Update on our Paddy

Well hello there from a cold, wet and very wintry Auckland day. It has been awhile since I last wrote so I thought it was about time that I updated the news on Paddy.

The 28th of May was surgery day, and I can tell you John and I didn't get much sleep the night before, Paddy was actually quite excited, she treated the whole lead up like one big adventure, this made me more nervous as I don't think she fully comprehended actually what was going to happen.

We were at the hospital by 7.30am, and we arrived to chaos, there was no beds on the ward where we were supposed to stay, so we got sent down to a day stay unit which actually was very nice, much calmer than the ward, and much better on John and my nerves. They gave Paddy some pre op medicine which made her very giggly, she couldn't stop laughing at a poster of a big fat hippo!

Just before she went through to be operated on were the worst moments of John and my life, it was hideous. We felt fine about the decision as we knew it was the right thing to do, but the thought of our Paddy going in for any surgery, well it was just awful.

We had a couple of tense hours waiting for the call to say she was out of surgery, and it was off to see our girl. Paddy was very distressed coming out the anaesthetic, I was expecting this as she had surgery when she was six months old, and it was the same back then. She fell asleep in John's lap, then we were taken back up to the ward, by this time there was a bed for us, yay! Also luckily for us we had a room to our selves as there is mainly only four bedroom rooms, with the parents sleeping on a mattress on the floor, we had a spare bed which was just great.

Our surgeon said the surgery went really, really well, he was very pleased and the operation only took an hour, it is amazing to think that her little foot took six to eight weeks to develop, even though it wasn't perfect and it only took an hour to take off, it is mind boggling really.

Post op Paddy wasn't too bad, she slept lots, she was on a morphine drip, and didn't seem to be in too much pain, John and I were just relieved that the surgery was over and done with. We had two days in hospital, then we were sent home. All the staff at The Starship Hospital (Ward 24A) were absolutely marvelous and a special thanks to Sara and Meg who made our stay so much better than it might otherwise have been. We were a bit worried about being discharged so soon as Paddy still seemed to be in pain, but we thought it would be a lot better once we were back in the comfort of our own home.

For the next five days, to say things were hard, well I hadn't been that sleep deprived since the twins were born, every 15 mins Paddy was waking crying in pain, and no matter what medication we gave her it just didn't seem to work. Finally on the Wednesday a week after the surgery and me having a mini nervous break down at our poor G.P we went back to the hospital to try to sort things out. Apparently some people when the are in casts have dreadful muscle spasms and this is what Paddy was having, hmmmmm nice one, it's a shame that they only took a week to sort this out, anyway we have now got Paddy on diazepam at night to stop the spasms, and the difference is amazing, we have had two nights where she has slept through, and we have dropped almost all of the other pain relief which she was on, brilliant!

We got Paddy sorted, and poor old Georgie has come down with tonsillitis, and 40c temps, so we have been up the last two nights with her. When it rains it pours!

Today we went out to choose some fabric for Paddy's 'magic leg', one of the technicians from the limb centre on her day off, met us there and showed us what we could use, it was all very exciting, and Paddy was thrilled to bits.

So basically Paddy's cast comes off on Tuesday after having been on for two weeks, then we have the stitches out, then we are off to the limb centre to get a cast of her leg and then they start making her artificial one, hopefully from there it will be only a couple of weeks and Paddy will have her new leg, fantastic.

There we go, it is now 11 days since surgery and I am pleased to say Paddy is in good form, she is climbing on and off the couch, in and out of her wheel chair and scooting around the floor, she is paying with her sisters, and her Mum and Dad are very relieved the operation part is all over, we can now look forward to her walking with her prosthetic on.

I have to say a big thanks to Nicola for organising all the dinners for me (we have had meals cooked for us, for two weeks, how will I ever cook again I just don't know!), Mum said this is what it must be like to be a movie star and not cooking, it has been fabulous, and I haven't eaten such variety, well since my Mum cooked my dinners, a big thank you to Helen, Tracey, Sarah, Jackie, Jane and Dee for cooking the wonderful meals! Also everybody has been so generous with gifts, it has been over whelming, I shed a tear when a beautiful basket turned up from kindy. My Mum has been great as well, staying with us for 10 days, and helping out loads, and the relatives in the UK have given us a lot of support as well.

Paddy the day before surgery, you can see where they marked her leg to make sure they got the right one! The day after surgery, the cast is right to the top of her thigh and you can also see where the foot should be.

11 days after surgery and looking much better!



With her twin Georgie, and with a rather fetching crown made by her friend Heidi!