Siblings

Oh these two, I think I've lost count of the amount of times my heart feels like its burst open from love and pride.

From that very first day when I saw Theo nervously gaze into the incubator to see his baby brother covered in wires, lights and tubes and reach out a hand to touch him only to withdraw it because he wasn't quite ready. My eyes filled with tears and my breath caught in my throat and I wanted to hug him and tell him it would all be ok. He'd waited so long to meet his brother, but that meeting was so far from anything I'd ever imagined it to be. But eventually his hand reached out again and he stroked Rohan's arm for the first time.

All the way through the pregnancy I worried about how another baby would affect Theo. Long before we knew about any potential problems, and after, of course when we worried about how Rohan's condition and potential additional care would impact on Theo. We tried to to talk to him about what was happening, to keep him involved the best we could. We had to face a conversation with him before we knew the results of the testing we had done whilst I was pregnant, to try and break it to him that things weren't as straight-forward as we'd hoped, Theo might not get to meet this baby or that he might be very poorly. It broke my heart to tell him this, over our dinner table with both Rob and I trying to hold back the tears that we eventually let come.

But you know what, I'm glad that we showed Theo that emotion, that we shared with him some of the difficulties we faced because I think it made us all stronger. The pure love and excitement that Theo has shown has been endless. From the moment when we told him I was pregnant and he took in the scan photo to nursery and broke the news to just about everyone, to the pride in introducing him when he was finally out of hospital. I overheard him trying to explain to his classmates what some of the wires and tubes were when they asked questions and something which he himself just took in his stride. It makes me well up just to think about now, all those precious moments.

He still to this day wants everyone to meet "his baby brother" and loves more than anything to show off how he can make him giggle. Because he can the most. Rohan's little face lights up whenever he sees Theo and most definitely encourages the silliness and loudness of Theo's attempts to make him laugh. But there are sweet and tender moments too, when Rohan's upset Theo will try and comfort him and now that they are both bigger and stronger he likes to pick him up and hold him (with our supervision!) to show him toys and read him books.

Through all of this there has never been any jealousy towards Rohan, and even though it's definitely not rosy all the time, their relationship, the look of adoration in each others eyes is something I could never have imagined. We don't really know what the future will hold for Rohan and indeed us all, but this bond, this relationship between them two is something I hope will only grow. So I thought I would just collect a few of my favourite photos so far of these two. How I love them so.