Being a premature mummy can be a lonely job. I love my children with all my heart but motherhood for me has been harder than I ever thought it could be.

I did not have the best of starts!

Becoming a mother was hard. David and I battled our way through four rounds of IVF before falling pregnant on our fifth. IVF battered me as a person. I gained weight, lost control of my emotions and each cycle I think lined my heart a little more with stone.

When I fell pregnant I was so excited but as it was an IVF pregnancy and a multiple pregnancy it was never going to be straight forward. There were steroids and hormones to take, blood thinners to inject. I was never relaxed or glowing in that first pregnancy and the first was always on my mind during the second.

I fell so ill when pregnant with Esther and William that I failed my very first motherly duty. I failed to keep them safe inside me for as long as they needed to be. My first opportunity to protect them and keep them safe and I failed.

Because of my illness the twins were born early. 13 weeks too soon.

My second motherhood failure came at this time. When I went home the day they were born without them in my arms.

It is the strangest feeling. Going through labour and giving birth, seeing your babies in a plastic tank, not knowing if they will live or die and then going home to your house, just as it was that morning when you left all those hours ago, before your babies were born. Before you became a mother.

The day that Esther and William were born will stay fresh in my mind for always. It changed me in more ways than most people realise, and ways which I am still discovering myself. I am certain that it is why I probably have post natal depression, why I have angry outbursts. I am so disappointed with myself and the mother that I am. I can’t seem to live up to the mother that I so want to be.

The physical act of giving birth to Esther and William was not that hard. They were so small and the pain did not compare to the pain of the twisted bowel I had suffered with just a few weeks before. It was the emotional side that has scarred me. That continues to cause me pain.

I feel guilty everyday that I was not worried enough that day. I cannot remember feeling worried after Esther and William were born. I know the story of Esther and William’s birth but I remember very little of the moments after.

I was supposed to be going shopping that day with my best friend. I remember phoning and her and telling her that I would not be going shopping as her god children had been born. I remember telling our parents. But I remember feeling happy making these calls, when surely I should have been sad?

David and I texted all our friends and family, like normal new parents do, but we were not normal were we? People should not be congratulating us, should they?

This is a day I think about often. I am racking my brains and my heart for the fear I should have been feeling when the children I had so longed for and struggled to conceive were born so soon. Too tiny, far too soon.

I do remember crying a lot on the postnatal ward. In a room of mummies and babies. Why would they do that? Why did they put me there with all the normal mummies and their happy, healthy babies?

I knew that I had to get home. I had just spent 10 days in hospital recovering from bowel surgery there was no way I could stay in again.

But why was I not thinking of my babies? Surely if I had stayed in I would have been closer to them?

But the truth was at this stage there was nothing I could do.

In a box, on a ventilator. No longer together. There was absolutely nothing I could do.

The best thing I could do was go home, recover from the birth and be ready for them when they needed me.

Back at the hospital the second day my sister was with me. Coincidentally she had flown in from Australia that day. She was able to see her niece and nephew just over 24 hours after they were born. We sat together by their incubators. Teeny tiny babies. All mine.

I remember feeling proud. Not ashamed. Not worried what people might think of the two miniature babies in their boxes.

I did not hold my babies in my arms when they were born. I did not even hold them the following day. It was days before we first held Esther in our arms and even longer with William.

Our nights were sleepless not with a warm baby to snuggle but attached to a cold machine expressing milk for two babies we could not see. A constant reminder of my failure to do what every mother should. Protect and nurture her babies, love, care for and feed her young.

I am not sure that I have ever gotten over this beginning. It should make me love my children even more. And it does. But it also makes me angry with every further mummy fail. How dare I let my children down after what I did to them, or rather what I didn’t do.

There is no where else to place the blame. I got sick. I could not carry my babies to term. They were born too soon. They are small for their age. They are still under hospital care. Their first 59 days were spent in hospital. They did not come home as they should. They did not suckle from the breast as soon as they were born. They were not passed to grandparents for cuddles. No family were invited round to share in our joy.

When Esther and William did come home we shut ourselves off from the world.

We did not have an NCT group, we had no baby friends, we did not go to any classes.

And do I now cherish every moment with my precious bundles of joy? Do I give them everything they want and need? No.

And every day I hate myself a little bit more as I cannot seem to get to grips with being the mummy I so want to be.

There is so much I want to do with Esther and William. And now with Matilda Mae. I dream it and see it and even prepare for it. But it never quite seems to get done.

There is something from those first failures that is eating away and stopping me be happy with who we all are.

I love my children with all my heart. I could not be prouder of them.

Each a miracle in their own right, bringing a sparkle of sunshine into our lives.

I wish I could be the mummy that they deserve.

Being a mummy of premature twins is a lonely lonely job.

Becoming a mummy is supposed to bring you closer to other mummies, to your own mother. That has not been the case for me. Because none of the mummies I know in real life understand what I have been through. NICU is a world of its own, has a vocabulary of its own. Not knowing if your child will live or die, there are not many mummies who have been in those shoes. Expressing milk for a baby that has never been held. Staying home alone rather than going out and making friends to ensure that once you have your babies home you are not responsible for sending them back to their box.

In those early days and even now I turned to Bliss and their parenting forums. Where mummies like me can be with people who truly understand. And now it is mostly these people, people I have never met, who respond to my cries of pain, my frustrations and my fears. Because they can read between the lines of my bad days and know when frustration is hurt and a complaint is a cry for help.

In these forums are mummies like me, failing from the first and falling to Bliss for the strength and support that they need to pick themselves up, dust themselves off and be the best mummies they can be.

(I started writing this post with no real direction. I am sorry for the emotional rambling. I am sure there will be more to come this month as I raise awareness of premature birth, babies and the affects on families and friends. Please bear with me as I support World Prematurity Awareness Month, November 2012)