With 3 small children, 2 with CF, life is a little hectic for Lorraine. Every day is different.

Starting her days at 5:30am “the kids choice, not ours!” says Lorraine, their days are filled with lots of playing, laughter, screaming and fighting.

Lorraine is a mother of twins with CF, Genevieve and Penelope who will be 2 in January. Living in Adelaide, she also has a 3.5-year-old daughter, Madison.

The girls attend childcare 2 days a week and Lorraine works 2 days a week as a veterinary nurse, as well as running her own small business.

Lorraine is a woman that is juggling a lot of balls in the air at once. If you’re wondering how she manages it all, you’re not alone, we were wondering too.

That’s why we caught up with Lorraine to ask her a few questions.

Tell us about your experience as a Mum of twins with CF?

The diagnosis was terrifying. Not only did we have 2 babies, but 2 babies with a lifetime medical condition. I struggled coming to terms with it. The first year is the hardest, getting your head around it all. Now I try to take each day as it comes and to be grateful for my beautiful little family.

Life is busy and stressful, there’s always a gentle hum of worry in the back of my mind regarding Genny and Penny’s health, but they are little troopers. There’s not a lot known about their gene combination but it’s so far proving to be on the mild side.

Tell us about your support network.

We have my parents not too far away who are always willing to help when needed, but I’m not usually one to ask for help.

They look after all 3 girls on a Tuesday so I can have a day off but instead of having ‘downtime’ I’m normally busy catching up on things that need doing or completing jobs for my little business. A lot of spare time recently has been used up on my Christmas fundraiser for Cystic Fibrosis South Australia.

Hubby and I have an hour or two after the kids go to bed, that we can just sit down and watch some TV together. We were previously going to bed early due to frequent night waking between the 3 little ones. They all mostly sleep through now which is amazing.

How do you take care of yourself?

Good question! I try to exercise 3-4 days a week for my mental health. Going to my day job twice a week is also a reprieve from the daily hustle of home but that’s got nothing to do with self-care. I suffer from chronic back pain and try to get a massage every 6 weeks which I thoroughly look forward too!

Tell us about your business:

I started up ‘It’s A Twin Thing‘ after I started customising clothes for Genevieve and Penelope. We mainly do vinyl print t-shirts for twins but do all types of custom jobs.

I was getting a few followers on social media and thought it would be a great platform to help spread awareness about CF. Instead of people just seeing cute identical twins, why not try to educate them a little bit at the same time.

Apart from raising a family, I spent this year writing a column for our local multiple birth magazine, sharing our journey this far with twins with CF.  I’ve attended a number of fundraisers supporting CFSA and have run 2 fundraisers myself, designing and selling t-shirts.

I’ve also been collecting 10c bottles and cans from the community and local waterways to help with my Christmas fundraiser. I’m currently working on an ongoing fundraising program that I will be trialing in the new year.

I will be starting up a blog on my website about our twin CF journey.

What do you love about being a mum?

Cherishing the good times.

We’re only in the early years of the girls’ journey and things in the medical world are already changing e.g., Trikafta. We went from being terrified when they were diagnosed to learning to live with it. I’m sure we’ll have more challenges as the girls get older, but we are surrounded by a wonderful community and medical experts.

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