Made of the write stuff
A personal trainer from Navan who was bed-bound in the Rotunda Hospital for her entire pregnancy admits developing a sugar addiction as she struggled to cope with the birth of premature twin babies who were born at just 29 weeks.
Soon into her pregnancy, Aoife Bradley (40) discovered that she was carrying monoamniotic twins, a condition where identical twins share the same amniotic sac in the womb.
She admits 'living on her wits' and 'becoming trapped in a cycle of binge eating chocolate bars every day’ with the stress of caring for the tiny girls.
Facing a high-risk pregnancy the fitness fanatic was forced to remain bed-bound in the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin for her entire pregnancy where medical staff closely monitored her until she gave birth to Chloe and Ava eleven weeks early.
“They are in junior infants and they would buy and sell you now.”
The little girls weighing in at only 4lb 7oz and 4lb 11 spent the next six weeks in a neonatal intensive care unit a time mum Aoife describes as being 'a haze of worry as she battled to care for the little girls. She says that writing down daily goals was the secret to finding herself again.
“The twins were in one sac in one membrane and their umbilical cords were tangled and for my whole pregnancy, I was in the Rotunda.
"That’s where my whole lifestyle completely spiralled out of control from being so active and making my own food choices to being fed cornflakes, white toast and marmalade for my breakfast in hospital.
“I became a sugar addict, bed bound, living on complete worry and anxiety because I had to get traces done on the girls every four hours.
“I just didn’t feel like I was Aoife anymore, I felt like I was some sort of robot that every four hours we had to find the babies heartbeat.
"As they were getting bigger their umbilical cords were getting tighter so the fear was that the blood flow into one baby would be less or that one baby would get more food than the other.
Putting pen to paper and writing daily goals helped the Navan PT turn her life around
“I was a nervous wreck, that anxiety and that worry was so present in the first six months of Chloe and Ava’s life.
"When they were trying to gain weight, you were worried that they weren’t getting enough bottle ounces and I was reading books that were saying that they should be doing this by such a stage. It was just a whirlwind.
“The girls spent six weeks in NICU so then I also became a coffee addict just living on my wits.
"I remember crying my eyes out one day when a bus I had been waiting on to go to see the girls in the Rotunda flew straight passed me and didn't stop.
"I had to wait another 40 minutes for the next one with a bag full of frozen expressed milk so worried that the milk was going to defrost before I got there.
Chloe and Ava with mum Aoife in her fitness studio
"When I arrived at the hospital, I was in an absolute state and I remember the midwife just looking at me and saying oh my god Aoife what is wrong."
Describing the impact of caring for premature twins, Aoife who runs fitness classes from her Navan studio said:
“You were coming home after being the whole day in ICU, hearing the beeps in intensive care, then you were ringing in to see what weight the girls were weighing in at. I was just on tenterhooks.
"When they came home I remember one day I hadn't even pulled the curtains back and l looked at them so tiny in the little Moses basket and I just said Aoife you need to cop yourself on. I knew that I was just no good to them the way I was.
“So I literally just put pen to paper and wrote down two daily tasks as simple as getting out of my pyjamas before 10 am, making a recipe or getting fresh air. When I did this, I started to feel more in control.
Twins Chloe and Ava as they prepared to leave the neonatal unit in the Rotunda
Since writing was the key for the Navan PT in transforming her own life, she came up with the idea of creating a journal for others to do the same.
“My Fitness Journal” is all about wellness, fitness, nourish and balance. It features training logs and there is a section on your food and mood. It also features goal setting, vision boards, mindfulness, recommendations for podcasts, a recipe section and gratitude charts.
"They say it takes 21 days to create a good habit and it’s so true. Just ticking off the tasks I completed changed everything for me.
“Now my alarm goes off at 5 am and my headspace is clear and I have that drive again.
Aoife commented that fraught time spent by the side of her babies in ICU seems like a lifetime ago with Chloe and Ava, now five, thriving.
“They are in junior infants and they would buy and sell you now.”