Watching her babies spend the first five weeks of their lives in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) was an “emotional rollercoaster” for twin mum Katie.

When their twins, Gabrielle and Rocky, were born eight weeks early in August 2025, Katie and husband Ryan quickly had to adapt to life in the NICU unit, while also caring for their one-year-old daughter, Miley. 

Katie fell pregnant in January 2025, shortly after her daughter’s first birthday. She was returning to work after maternity leave but knew early on that her second pregnancy felt quite different. She said: “I felt extremely nauseous and the tiredness - I had never experienced anything like it. Initially I put a lot of that down to going back to work and caring for our daughter.

“My husband and I kept seeing twins everywhere, which was very strange. We often joked it was a sign and we were probably having twins.” Due to previous miscarriages, the couple was offered an early scan at eight weeks, which revealed they were expecting twins. Katie’s pregnancy continued and she finished work at 32 weeks. Knowing that twins often arrive early, she had hoped to get a few weeks of maternity leave in before they were born.

She said: “The babies had other ideas and I woke in the night with pains at 1.44am. Our first twin, Gabrielle, was born at 5.06am and our second twin, Rocky, born at 5.21am. I had expected that they may spend some time in NICU, but nothing actually prepares you for what it is like. Both twins initially were in the main intensive care room due to needing close monitoring and Rocky needing help with his breathing. There’s a lot of nurses all in one room. It’s all a bit surreal. You can touch your baby but through little doors in the incubator. You quickly learn to change their nappies with great difficulty through the same incubator doors.”

Nurses guided Katie and her husband through the care for their babies in NICU, including taking their temperatures and swapping monitors on their ankles as part of the monitoring process. Katie said: “Once the babies were being fed milk through a tube in their nose, part of their care would include aspirating fluid from their tube to check the PH levels. This was to ensure the tube was in the stomach and hadn’t moved into the lungs before each feed. Once you feel confident enough, you are watched by the nurses and given some training to be able to aspirate and tube feed your baby yourself.”

Having two babies going through the journey was a lot to deal with

While Katie said the NICU journey wasn’t easy for the family, she found comfort in knowing that her babies were well cared for. She said: “One of the parts of our NICU journey that I personally found the hardest was going to and from the hospital every day and juggling having a one-year- old at home too. I knew our babies were in safe hands, all the nurses who cared for our twins were so lovely and in time you felt more comfortable and confident leaving them at the end of each day to go home. For the first few weeks each shift the twins would have their own nurse each, but as they grew bigger and stronger, they would usually have one nurse looking after both the twins.”

Katie said the NICU ward felt quite a lonely place at times and she was grateful for the nurses who checked in on her. “Having babies in NICU is an emotional rollercoaster, with so many ups and downs. One day your baby could be doing amazingly and then the next day you could go in and something isn’t as it should be. Having two babies going through the journey was a lot to deal with, which is why the amazing NICU team do make your experience so much more bearable. It’s like another world when you step onto the ward every day and then the strangest feeling leaving the hospital each day and going home without your babies.”

During their NICU stay, Katie kept records of Gabrielle and Rocky’s milestones in their development. Nurses would upload photos and updates about the babies too via an app. “Our twins spent five weeks in NICU and after establishing their feeding without a tube and gaining weight well they were discharged. I also found it comforting speaking to other parents of babies in NICU as they know exactly what you’re feeling and going through,” Katie said.

When they were finally home as a family of five, Katie used the Twins Trust website to find out more about sleeping options for Gabrielle and Rocky. Throughout her pregnancy and after the babies were born, she also found the online communities a safe space to speak to other parents. She added: “We’ll definitely be making more use of the website as it has some fantastic resources."