Paul Henry's youngest daughter, Bella, and her husband Julyan Collett have welcomed twin sons, Walter and Darcy. Photo / Michelle Hyslop
Despite a traumatic birth, the couple would happily do it all again.
Paul Henry’s parenting ethos has always been to “keep the magic in their eyes”.
So now that his youngest daughter, Bella, and her husband, Julyan Collett, have welcomed twin sons rel="noreferrer" title="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/paul-henry-excited-to-be-a-grandad-of-twins-spy/CXSQNQ66OZAPNNE5LAH6NVPOCM/">Walter and Darcy into the world, it’s fair to say that philosophy will ramp up to new levels as the adorable 5-month-olds cast their own magical power over their grandparents.
There is one thing Paul doesn’t find so magical, though – full nappies.
Last month, as he accompanied the twins to their first Santa photo at Auckland department store Smith & Caughey’s, the seasoned broadcaster was in his element taking photos of his grandsons by the sparkling Christmas decorations until a potential “poonami” threatened to, well, disenchant him.
“I noticed Dad looking a bit squeamish and holding Darcy in an odd way, before he said, ‘I think he’s doing a poo on me!’” laughs Bella.
“I said, ‘Maybe it’s just a fart?’ But Dad was adamant that he could feel something and made a whole hullabaloo. He didn’t want to move, saying, ‘It’s going to dribble out on me any moment!’ So we went to the bathroom. There were no poos at all!
“At the moment, Dad just loves stroking their cheeks while talking to them, but the nitty-gritty stuff of changing diapers? No.
“He’ll really blossom on granddad duties when he can start playing with them and being a storyteller. Meanwhile, all his friends in his naked community [Paul is a nudist] are sending the twins’ gifts as well. They’re buying them clothes! Who would have thought?!”
As Bella, 32, welcomes the Weekly into their rural home in the small Northland township of Mangawhai, chatterbox Darcy is having some tummy time in the lounge while Julyan, 35, clips wee Walter’s fingernails.
It’s calm and relaxed. To outside observers, the new parents have everything beautifully under control. Even when Julyan puts them down for a midday nap, there’s barely a whimper to be heard.
“They’re such good babies,” says Bella. “Walt’s had a few issues but generally he and Darcy are so chilled. We’re very blessed. I don’t want to rave about how amazing they are because at any moment they might turn into little devils, so I’m just soaking it in while I can.
“We actually prepared ourselves for the worst because with twins, everyone tells you, ‘It’s going to be sooo hard!’ However, it’s been really good because our expectations were so low!
“Now, I think, ‘Gosh, people with one baby, they really complain!’” she jokes.
But being able to finally hold the twins in their arms wasn’t without its trials, including a dramatic delivery. The boys were born at 37 weeks – Walter Henry, weighing 2.7kg, and Darcy Hopes 3kg.
Bella reveals she developed pre-eclampsia towards the end of her pregnancy – a serious condition marked by high blood pressure that requires close monitoring of mother and baby.
At 34 weeks pregnant, she finished work as head of hair and makeup at Warner Bros Discovery.
“I was so swollen, I couldn’t even walk,” she recalls. “My blood pressure kept spiking, so I was in and out of Whangārei Hospital until I got induced.”
Contractions started soon after her waters broke at midnight.
“I was in labour for two hours before having an epidural,” says Bella. “Then I was pushing for two hours and nothing was moving. I was so tired at this point. I felt a little bit upset that we needed to have a Caesarean, which is often the case with twins. Then it all went downhill. Walt came out first. And it was silent. There was a lot of rushing going on and ‘Code Blue’ was yelled [meaning a cardiac or respiratory arrest].”
Continues Julyan, “It felt like 30 to 40 people swarmed the room. A minute later, Darcy came out and there was crying. We didn’t know the sex of the twins at this point.
“Our amazing midwife, Terri, said, ‘Baby two is breathing but baby one is struggling. He’s on oxygen. You need to go to the Special Care Baby Unit’ [SCBU], and warned me it was a bit of a sight.
“I cried – it was very hectic. When I saw that we had two boys, I was genuinely shocked as all the midwives had predicted two girls based on heartbeats.
“Walt was in a fully covered incubator and the paediatrician had her hand on his oxygen mask. His temperature was really low. He was ashen and bruised from the forceps because he’d been fully stuck in Bella’s pelvis.
“Thank God we ended up having a C-section because it could have been so much worse.”
Bella reveals Walter also stopped breathing and turned blue while she was breastfeeding him.
“The midwife spotted it and just grabbed him off my chest and started resuscitating him on the way out of the room with Julyan,” she recalls.
“It was just me, my sister Sophie and Darcy left in there. I thought, ‘What do I do?’ I wasn’t in a good way.
“Our experience with the Whangārei Hospital maternity staff was nothing short of perfection. They were all angels.”
Walter’s traumatic delivery meant his head was so sensitive in the following weeks that the slightest touch would cause him to instantly scream. His cousins nicknamed him “Bruiser” due to a black eye, bruising on the side of his face and another bloodshot eye.
Bella, too, found herself in the wars. After the birth, the new mum developed an infection in her C-section scar, requiring her to be briefly hospitalised again.
Then a month later, when Julyan – co-founder of a New Zealand clean-technology company – had gone back to work, she got mastitis twice, which triggered the baby blues.
“I couldn’t stop crying,” she admits. “I couldn’t even lift my head off the pillow. I was feverish and was probably more emotional that I couldn’t do everything I needed to with the babies.”
Her steely determination and devotion to their twins fills Julyan with pride.
“Bella has really fallen on her feet with the boys in terms of her mothering them,” he says. “I’m very lucky to have her. We’ve been looking forward to this for a long time.”
The couple, who met as teenagers and married in 2020, had been unsuccessfully trying for a family for three years.
Diagnosed with unexplained infertility, they decided to try intrauterine insemination [IUI], a treatment where sperm is prepared in a lab then placed into the uterus at the time eggs are released from the ovaries.
Only 10% of women who undergo IUI become pregnant the first time.
“We thought there’d be no chance we’d get one fertilised egg, so we feel like we got two IUI miracles on the first round,” says Bella.
As the twin treasures break into adorable smiles, the new parents can already see the differences in their sons’ looks and personalities.
“Blue-eyed Darcy looks like Bella, while Walt has my features and hazel eyes,” says Julyan. “All Walt wants to do is kick – all Darcy wants to do is eat. Walt loves the bath, while Darcy is an observer who will stare into your soul and has peed in his own mouth twice!” he grins.
Adds Bella, “They’re complete opposites, which is great. They’re so interactive and smiley now, and they’re watching everything. When they’re next to each other, they’re always grabbing or holding each other.
“Darcy is very chatty to Walt and likes to have his hand on Walt’s knee. It’s so cute!”
Bella believes her biggest challenge was not making enough breastmilk to feed two babies.
“Darcy had such a hunger,” she recalls. “As soon as I decided to introduce formula alongside breast milk to keep up with demand, the babies started sleeping through. Now they go down at 7.30pm and wake around 7am. Getting my sleep again has been amazing.”
Deciding on names was a fairly straightforward exercise, they say.
With a penchant for “old-school names”, Walter was at the top of the list. It’s Julyan’s middle name that he shares with a great-grandfather, while also being a nod to Walt Disney (Bella has a soft spot for all things Disney). And Darcy is a name they both loved.
Now, along with their fur babies Dobby and Herman, the new parents couldn’t be more content with life.
“I’m happy hunkering down at home,” shares Bella, whose mum, Rachael, spends every Friday with her and the boys.
“Everyone says to me, ‘How do you make it out of the house with two babies?’ And my answer is, ‘Because I don’t have a choice.’ If one is crying and I’m doing something with the other one, there’s nothing I can do. I just have to be relaxed about it.”
When hands-on dad Julyan is asked what his hopes for his sons are, he pauses thoughtfully, while his mother, Dee, jokingly remarks, “Grow up and move out!” causing everyone to burst into laughter.
“I just hope they have a life of happiness and fulfilment,” he says with emotion in his voice. “I want to replicate Paul’s approach, where we create some little magical experiences for them as they grow up.”
Bella agrees. “And I’m ready to have more children. I would love another set of twins. Once you have twins, you want them again.”
Appearing yet to be convinced, Julyan takes a large gulp of his drink and says, “Mmm … it’s an interesting thought. Two was exciting … daunting, but exciting.”
Continues Bella, “The scary thing is, if we did IUI again and they told us we have three strong follicles [which could each produce an egg], and did we want to go ahead with it, I think the prospect of triplets would be a solid no.
“But every time our babies pass a stage or learn a new skill, I can’t help but think, ‘I’m so excited to experience that again.’”
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