A sibling for conjoined twins Abbey & Sarah

As beautiful newborn Blake was pulled from his mother’s stomach during a routine caesarean section at RotoruaHospital on 9 March, there was an audible sigh of relief from both the staff and the parents.

The last time mum Melissa (29) was on the operating table, it was so surgeons could cut her tummy in such a way that her daughters – conjoined twins Abbey and Sarah – could be born. The procedure was complicated, and for Melissa and her partner Callan (37), it marked the beginning of a long and diffi cult journey to allow their girls, who began life joined at the pelvis, the freedom of separate lives in independent bodies.

It’s little wonder that immediately after Blake’s rather more straightforward birth six years later, Melissa let out a whoop of delight. “What I actually said was, ‘Yes! I’ve won $100!'” she laughs, as baby Blake gurgles happily beside her. “Callan and I had a bet about what sex the baby would be. It was the only thing we could think ofto take our minds off the surgery.”

Callan explains that even though doctors hadn’t anticipated there’d be problems with Blake’s birth, it was hard not to worry. “We were really nervous,” he confesses. “Even though this birth was very different to the first time around, you never know what can happen. It was such a relief when Blake arrived without any complications.”

And the impact of now-separated twin girls Abbey and Sarah’s birth back in 2003 was apparent yet again when Melissa and Callan made a spur-of-the-moment decision to involve one of Rotorua Hospital’s nurses in the birth, too. “Kath was the nurse who did all our home visits when the girls were born,” says Melissa. “She’s awesome and we’ve grown very close to her over the years, so we asked her to cut Blake’s umbilical cord.”

Job done, it was up to Callan to give Blake his first cuddle and bring him to oum for inspection. It was an emotional moment for the pair who felt nothing but joy when they held their new 3.2kg son in their arms.

“I was too blown away to think about who he took after or who he looked like,” says Callan. The couple had been considering names right up until the birth but wanted to see what he suited once he arrived. “Blake justfelt right,” says Melissa. His middle names, Kevin and Gordon, meanwhile, are a tribute to his proud grandfathers – all three of them.

“Callan has a dad and a step-dad and they’re both called Kevin,” laughs Melissa. “And my dad is Gordon.”Delighted big sisters Abbey and Sarah, who have featured in the Weekly several times since their life-changing surgery, were given the day off school so they could be among the first to be introduced to Blake.

“From the start, the girls were absolutely amazing with Blake,” says Melissa. “They just couldn’t wait to cuddle and hold him. I thought it might take them a wee while to come around to the idea of having a baby in the house. But there was none of that.”

Abbey has, says Melissa, taken on the role of “mother hen”. “She is very gentle and loves to change his nappy. Sarah’s good too, but she can be a bit rough. And they do sometimes fight about who gets to hold him!”

There could be more arguments to come. As Abbey and Sarah come hurtling in the door from school, where they have settled in brilliantly since starting in 2009, Melissa recounts a recent adventure Sarah had with Dad.

Both girls, she says, are keen fishers and leap at any chance to go rabbit or duck shooting. “Sarah had her balaclava and earmuffs on, and her face camouflagepainted.

There were no ducks but, on the way home, Callan saw a stag