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My blog for the 1st of July talks about our trip up to Norfolk to get help from my sister recovering the seats in the camper van, the great plan to get everything ready for two little babies later on in the year. Rachael did not feel two well and spent a lot of the time laying down, she had just started her maternity leave and this trip was to be the last visit to Norfolk before the big day came about. The whole baby idea was just starting to sink in. No doubt Rachael had done her "sinking in" months ago, probably during the daily sickness in the morning, every morning. For me, it was all just starting with Rachael on maturnity leave, bumps getting bigger, and Rachael being very tired all the time. So now we were getting the van ready and in the next weeks we would start on decorating their room. I do remember, Rachael just did not feel well at all that weekend.

That was the weekend and Rachael had a routine scan on the Wednesday. Always a worry at the back of your head, but really an exciting time. On top of all that, you got a day off work and afterwards we went to a cafe to have coffee and toasted sandwiches.

I just don't notice these things maybe. I couldn't really work out what they were doing on the scan, they just kept zooming into bits and then you heard a load of doplar noises and see a little graph being drawn. Possible measuring things I was thinking, they did it a number of times and afterwards asked us to wait in the waiting room. They were not their normal friendly self and they didn't give us a picture - maybe just an off day for them. Rachael did seem worried, but I just couldn't see it and assured her all was ok.

We had an appointment upstairs afterwards and we went in the lift with all the notes. I was still thinking about toasted sandwiches. We arrived upstairs and gave our names to reception and sat down. The nice thing about the anti-natal waiting room was the large number of Practical Classics magazines on the table to read and so I started to read the first one. Amazingly, I hadn't even finished reading the first pages when we were called through. We have a running joke that Rachael never has to wait at hospitals as the computers flag her name up as someone with NHS connections and so she gets pushed to the top of the list - this occasion further showed that this could well be true as the waiting room was quite fall.

This was the bit where the floor feels like it has given way, simply disapeared, while time stops and all senses that you had only seconds ago suddenly go numb. The nurse simply said something along the lines of "have they told you the problem?" although I really cannot remember just what she did say. As time stood still, we were taken into a private room where she explained the problem and what would happen now. I couldn't hear much of this, my heartbeat was drowning out most of the city of Brighton. When time stands still, a lot happens. We found ourselves in another private room with a doctor and once again those doplar sounds which, at one time sounded quite pleasent, now took a different tone. For what seemed like hours, the doplar sound continued, the doctor kept scanning.

The doctor talked to us and explained. I cannot remember really what was going through my mind at this time, a long time had passed while listen to the dreaded doplars. The idea of "not happening to us" was always in my mind until the scariest word was said by the doctor - "deliver". Even this had its edge taken off when he suggested next week, but Rachael had to stay in overnight for drugs to prepare the babies for birth. It must had felt more than real to Rachael, but for me I was still thinking that over the next days things would settle down - but maybe the urgency was detected in my voice as I phoned family members.

We had another appointment on the 4th of July where the doctor would assess how things were in order to deliver on the Monday, or if things had got worse, later on that day. We knew this was a possability and we had packed Rachael a bag just in case, but left it in the car as we beleived it would not be needed just yet. The serious look on the doctor's face during and after the scan told otherwise and the delivery team was assembled while we waited.

I think of this time as the beginning of the real jackandtom story. By now, we both knew it was real and about to happen, although he had no idea just what would happen. The scan was in the morning and the delivery was to be 15:00. We waited in a large room, empty apart from a bed and some rather scary looking bits and pieces. We waited. People came in and out, introduced themselves, got us to sign things. We waited. We looked out of the window at the view over the Marina and Whitehawk. We talked about names and who was going to be who when they were born. We waited. We waited. We were left alone and yet in this time people came in and out to talk to us, tell us their role, let us know it would all be ok. By 14:00 the scan seemed days ago and we still had an hour to go. The same feeling as waiting for a plane at an airport, waiting to start a new job, just waiting for something that you don't know, but you know it is something you would rather not be waiting for.

The last hour went within seconds. More people talked to us, all friendly. Rachael got changed, I got changed. Feeling like a couple of scared rabbits (and dressed up as if we were going to perform brain surgary) sitting in what seemed like the largest room furtherest away from any other living person. We were finally called through to the opereating theatre.

The theatre was next door and we walked over. A walk that lasted hours, days, while hundreds of people dressed up for theatre watched, all anonymous with just their eyes showing from under their surgical clothes. We kind of floated, I don't remember walking. I do remember Robbie Williams playing in the background, I remember a room full of people, I remember the two audit people taking notes.

That was it. I could just watch, there was nothing possible that I could be doing apart from sitting next to Rachael, watching and listening. Listening to the nurses counting as they helped with the first breaths, listening to a quiet cry of what must have had been a tiny baby. No one shouted, no one paniced, infact only when they quickly showed us two small babies did I relise it was all over. Tom and Jack dissappeared with the nurses while we were moved to another room.

After sometime, we drank tea and eat one or two biscuits. I thought about what had just happened and maybe what was happening upstairs with Jack and Tom - although having never been upstairs I had no idea what they would be doing. For me, everything was calm.

I cannot remember where we were when we could go and see Tom and Jack for the first time. It could had been after having tea and biscuits, or maybe it was later once Rachael was moved to a general ward. But we did go up, Rachael in her bed and me following. We walked into intensive care and somewhere, in with all the beeps and lights, the noise of the respirators, the darkness of the whole room - there was Tom and Jack. Somewhere in their incubators, under bubble wrap, mixed up with all the cables, they were there. You see pictures of such rooms but they never show the whole story, the quietness of the nurses busy working, while the noise of the alarms and beeps deathens.

It felt like everything had now been done, we had gone through the unknown. I went home, I phoned people, I announced the birth on the Blog - and I wondered how long everyone would be in hospital.

A daily journal of their first 12 months was never an idea. I soon found it a fulltime job manning the phone in the evening letting everyone know how the day had gone. A family website seemed like a good solution, just a single point of contact and the phone unplugged. Sometimes the site was locked for family only, other times it was fully open. Sometimes updated numerous times during the day as events happened, sometimes getting in the way. Reading back through can be emotional, some bits embarrising, certainly scary, and sometimes interesting as you read things that you simply do not remember. Maybe one day I will be able to read it without upsetting myself.

In a way, it has been a huge focus and by sharing bits and pieces it can feel as if everyone reading is able to help, just by reading The original blog is available and added to now and then. What you read here is the unedited blog, put in order and split up into the different stages. It will be a shame to stop - but we must continue on our own.