"My twins were born 10 weeks early, but I didn't expect it to affect me so much."

My wife and I were overwhelmed and underprepared for the 10 week premature birth of our twins.

We didn’t know if the kids would make it. I didn’t know if my wife would make it.

After a long night of observations, we got prepped for an emergency C-section at Melbourne’s Royal Women’s Hospital. I kept thinking: why us?

But this type of thinking serves no purpose, so I focused even more on Kirsten, my wife. She was distressed on the operating table. She was, quite rightly, terrified. I had never felt so helpless in all my life.

After the kids were born, they were whisked away to the specialist care in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

I remember seeing my kids crying, with 10-15 health professionals working on them. I didn’t know who needed me more, Kirsten, or my new son and daughter Rupert and Maisie. A primal part of my monkey brain wanted to push the staff away. But logic took over.

I felt so proud of my wife and kids and their survival instincts.

Kirsten was able to touch the kids five hours after the operation and I counted my lucky stars; I had twins, my wife survived an emergency C-section, and Carlton beat North that Friday night by one point. I celebrated it all with a single solitary beer before falling asleep on the couch.

There were few texts or calls to friends and family that night – I didn’t know if the kids were going to be there in the morning, it was touch and go.

But this was only the beginning of the treacherous storm. I felt like I was standing on the deck of a small ship in middle of the ocean. Big, 10-storey ocean waves crashed over the bow. I’m trying to keep the ship, my family, our lives, balanced and afloat and chartered in the right direction.

Then another wave smashes us, as we are buffeted again by another medical issue, another wave, and then another. And another.

It’s exhausting. It’s uncomfortable. It’s frightening.

I didn’t know what to expect and didn’t know what I should do. I was not alone in feeling that way. Research by the Royal Women’s and Murdoch Children's Research Institute shows that 36 per cent of fathers to very premature babies experience depression, six times the rate of fathers to full term babies. Half of them don’t talk about how they feel.

My inward struggle manifested with a personal health scare. I had admitted myself to Royal Melbourne with chest pains.

I didn’t want to die. I wanted to raise my kids and have a family.

I received the tests which confirmed I hadn’t had a heart attack, but had some form of anxiety – something 11 per cent of dads to premature babies experience.

It was frightening. And a relief.

I needed to share my thoughts and struggles and decided to attend the NICU Dads’ Group which met every fortnight (now every week due to demand) and in it I found others just like me wading through the storm.

At first I was deeply concerned it was an alternative “make dad cry” therapy. I’d seen Carl Kuschel Medical Director of NICU promoting the group to help what he called the “forgotten parent”.

But, it was a fantastic experience. It was pretty clear all the dads had different battles and challenges they were facing. We were all the same, but different.

It helped to not feel so isolated.

Like most babies in NICU, the twins improvement was not a linear process - there were as many setbacks as there were progressions.

I learnt to distinguish my kids’ NICU pulse and breathing bells from others in the ward so I don’t need to react immediately. Is the baby still pink? That’s a genuine test.

I used the sound and speed of the nurses shoes on the ward lino to tell me how urgent the situation really was.

I also became a de facto ASIO spy trying to locate and secure the correct, not just any, but the specific breast pump my wife wanted. Breast pumps are coveted assets!

The staff were amazing, outstanding and empowering. They gave us a sense of “normality” by telling us that they had seen this or that medical issue before and shared straight up the probabilities of recovery and survival.

They supported me in doing the basics;
• tube feeding,
• nappy changing,
• giving of some medicines by syringe,
• countless numbers of Kangaroo cuddles,
• teaching us what all the lights, numbers and sounds meant.

Finally, one of the lovely NICU nurses took a photo of Maisie’s first black meconium poo! Really weird until they told us it was a positive sign of working bowels.

It was surreal, Rupert did the same within 30 minutes of his sister.

As a direct result of my NICU experience, I started Books for Beards and raised $14,052. It’s a project that will collate the past experiences of “graduate NICU Dads” to help prepare and inform new NICU Dads. We still meet past NICU Dads for a chat.

The Books for Beards project aims to reduce the levels of anxiety experience by Dads in the immediate and post NICU world through an ebook, video and podcast series.

NICU really is a life changing experience.