Bulldog spirit: Liam Picken and Annie Nolan give back to hospital which saved premature twin girls

Bulldog spirit: Liam Picken and Annie Nolan give back to hospital which saved premature twin girls

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ANNIE Nolan will never forget the image that confronted her when she was wheeled to intensive care to see her twin daughters for the first time.

“It was like opening the pouch of a kangaroo and looking in at the pink jelly beans,” she says. “I remember thinking, ‘I’m not meant to see this. They’re not supposed to be out yet’.”

Annie and her partner, Western Bulldogs utility Liam Picken, were supposed to have at least another three months before their family of three became five. But twins Cheska and Delphi had different ideas, arriving 13 weeks early.

Picken was interstate at the football season launch in 2013 when Annie, home alone with their one-year-old son Malachy, started feeling serious, not-quite-right pains for 26 weeks gestation.

She yelled over the fence to next door neighbour Hayley Cooney, the wife of fellow Bulldog Adam, who swooped up Malachy while she took herself to the Mercy Hospital for Women in Heidelberg.

“My body was trying to go into labour,” Nolan says. “They gave me steroid injections to help the babies’ lungs mature and I was put on bed rest. By bed rest I mean I had to pee in a bed pan. They wouldn’t let me move.”

The twins held on for a week. Every day inside the womb was celebrated as another notch on the ledger of survival. From 24 weeks, the chance of leaving hospital increases by about 10 per cent for each extra week inside.

“The reality was if I was going to have prem babies, all my luck was aligning,” Nolan says.

“I was in a country that has good services, a hospital that is fantastic. I had managed to have all the steroid injections, and I had been monitored for a week.

“I had an awesome obstetrician, and heaps of support at home. Honestly, if I was going to have them at 27 weeks, I was the luckiest person ever.”

Delphi arrived first, weighing 900g, followed by 700g Cheska by emergency caesarean on March 23.

They were too small and sick to even cry in the delivery suite.

It’s hard to properly prepare yourself for what to expect in NICU (the neonatal intensive care unit), where the tiniest patients in the country are cared for.

This is a ward where most limbs — the thickness of their dads’ fingers — are hooked to vital monitoring leads. Mechanical ventilators work to puff sniffs of oxygen to prop up organs too young yet, and too fragile, for this world.

Their precious photos show Nolan’s engagement ring was able to slide all the way up Cheska’s arm.

At one point their hands were half the size of Picken’s thumbnail. It was more than three weeks before Cheska was allowed out of her humidicrib for her first cuddle. Delphi wasn’t allowed out for another three weeks after that.

While he has made his mark as one of the hard nuts on the AFL field, it was the translucent-skinned parcel — half the size of a football — that Picken felt most nervous about holding.

“They were so tiny and skinny, you felt like they’d break at any time if you touched them,” Picken says. “You can’t do much. You just have to trust that they’re in safe hands. You just have to hope that you’ll be the lucky ones.”

And after 3½ months in hospital, Cheska and Delphi did turn out to be the ones discharged home largely unscathed.

Cheska is still feeling the effects of chronic lung disease, a common long-term side-effect from the breathing machines used on the newborns, leaving her more prone to respiratory problems.

“I think the experience is quite reflective in their personalities now,” Nolan says. “Delphi had the harder time. I remember wondering why this baby hardly cried, despite all the injections and lines going in.

“Cheska was always complaining, but there was nothing wrong with her. Now Cheska is still sassy. She’s vocal and it’s her way, still now. Delphi is still quite tolerant.

“Most importantly to me, they’re happy girls.”

Nolan and the four-year-old twins will cycle 27.4km — the distance between their home and the Mercy — when they take part in Pram Jam, which starts on Monday.

The national walkathon fundraiser, for which Nolan is so far one of the top fundraisers, is raising money to support the research, education and training carried out by Mercy Perinatal. Their work is designed to bring mums and babies safely home.

This story of heartbreak and terror, but ultimately joy, is experienced by more than 300 babies born at 27 weeks across Australia and New Zealand each year.

“I got to take home two babies. Other parents we met didn’t get to take home one,” Nolan says.

“Having premature babies is something you’ll never get over. But I feel like we’re gaining some closure by being able to give back to the hospital.

“I want to show how strong and healthy the girls are, and to share that hope.”

— Pram Jam runs from Monday to Sunday. Visit pramjam.org.au.

Great story.

It's a suprise the things you do when it comes to you kids health. I arrived at a Millenium medical centre with a very hot (high temperature) and green looking 3 year old in a complete panic at 8:03pm when they had closed at 8pm. The nurse helpfully explained that the E & T dept at western general was open and turned to walk away. I only had to kick the door three times before she did a complete 360 on the front ball of her foot and turned around to face me again. She had to wait for it to stop shaking so she could unlock it and let us in.

Annie you are an inspiration for parents of prem's and all of us. Liam you are a lucky man.