5. The Nest team

Three hospitals dealt with us from the pregnancy to the arrival. Our local hospital were less equipped to do all the scans, so St Micheals – Bristol, dealt with the majority of the scans. When our local hospital pulled out of the birth, Musgrove in Taunton stepped up. Bristol didn’t take us for the birth as they felt there were no problems, and they deal more with complicated situations.

Unfortunately Taunton isn’t local, so the plan was to move all the triplets back to our local hospital after the birth, as long as all was well. Sounds simple enough.

There are many factors that need to be considered when transferring triplets from A to B. It was, and still is an operation.

Firstly the local hospital needed three free cots, they only had nine in total on the scbu. A couple of times we were told the triplets would be moved, then an emergency birth would take place and cots would be taken.

The move was also contingent on the Nest teams availability that day. Obviously any emergencies took priority. Our babies were all healthy.

The nest team are a specialist crew that work out of Bristol, their job is to transfer sick babies in the south-east, one at a time using special equipment in a purpose fitted ambulance. And we needed three babies moving. That meant three separate trips.

Stacey was understandably adamant they all went in the same day , not just so they wouldn’t be separated for too long, but she was also supplying milk for them all by that second week. She needed to be with all three. It was never going to be that simple.

Six days after they were born we got the news they were moving Ava. The twins were due to move the following morning. It was the only , and quickest way it was going to happen. She left on the Monday afternoon.

That night I left the hospital late with enough milk to take to get Ava through the night.

Unfortunately there was an emergency early the next morning and the twins were unable to be moved. It was another two nights before we got a call from the Nest team.

Over the phone I was told they had a new pod that could take two babies at a time. It had never been used in the field so to speak. We would be the first in the country to have our babies transferred two at a time. They would be with us that morning.

Also it was agreed the triplets could be kept in one large cot, which our local hospital had available in a side room. By that point they only had feeding tubes.

It was such a relief to us, especially Stacey,  that she would be with all three again. It was a stressful few days having them split up. But it came good. The most important thing was that the triplets and Mum were well.

It was wonderful to see the triplets together again with each other for the first time.

The special care baby unit at our local hospital took over and what an amazing job they did. It was the last stop before they came home. I was close to the hospital so was able to go back to work and earn. I would stop in each morning and drop milk in and see them. They Continued to grow and thrive. The tough bit was almost over and we had three healthy content babies in our lives. Life would never be the same again, and I’d never felt more proud of my family.