Now for the round trips!

Day 11 - Annie is finally totally out of the humidycrib and in an open air cot with no extra oxygen. She is doing so well. All the nurses love to pop in and have a chat while we feed together. The Wesley Hospital is a wonderful place!

Day 12 - Today both the boys came in for their first cuddles of their baby sister. Thomas even got to help out with her bath, even though it was super quick. Joseph could have held her all day I think. He is totally besotted!

Day 13 - Auds and I went in to have her very first cuddle this morning. She was so patient with her and loved her little snuggle too. Mum and Dad dropped in after church so Dad could meet his eighth granchild!

Day 14 - We have started to notice how graceful Annie is. She moves with such intent and loves to stretch out really slowly, almost like she is doing tai chi! lol!

Day 15 - I wanted to get a photo of her hair, it is just so thick and curly...such a novelty for us!

Day 16 - Days are getting longer for me now with us moving to three feeds a day. The kids came up to get me in the evening and we got this lovely photo...my own little family! Although it is not so little any more!

Day 17 - So after losing over 300g we are on the road to recovery again with a big gain of 60g. She is just so miniscule! Even though she is about the same length Audrey was at birth, there is a full kilo's difference! It makes handling her that litte bit more fiddly!

We love the Wesley!

Day 6- You can see her little chest working overtime here. It was quite alarming to see it sinking so far down each time she inhaled, but Johanna assured us that would improve quickly. Annie was taken out of the billi lights today and is almost ready for an open air crib!

Day 7 - Today Annie had her first little nuzzle...and she latched straight on and fed for 10 minutes! She is continuing to amaze the staff at how quickly she is recovering!

Day 8 - Annie met my mum this morning. It was so beautiful to watch her explore another new face.  Mum loved cuddles with her eighth grandchild!

Day 9 - More cuddles with Daddy...who is totally smitten by the way! Annie is trying hard to smile already! I know that sounds ridiculous, but she looks at you so intently and her eyes light up as her mouth moves. She also does the windy baby smiles and they look different to the other smiles..

 Day 10 - Meet the A Team!! There was a reason we went with an A name for Annie...now all us girls have an A name and we can be the A Team...The boys can be the B Team...B being for Boys! Corny I know, but such a crack up!

Today Annie also met Greg's mum. Barbara was very excited to see Annies black curly hair...apparently when she was born she had so much hair the nurses wound it into ringlets! Annie doesn't have quite that much but there is a bit there!

Welcome to our world!

Hi there! Welcome to Annie's Blog! I am aiming to take a photo a day of her in her first year. So far so good...here are the first few days!

This is Annie at birth. We didn't have a name for her at this stage and since I was out of it for a day or so after she was born, we didn't name her until day 2. The hand belongs to her paediatrician, Johanna Holt, to whom we owe a lot. She has cared for our family for seven years now and we have so much respect for her.

I didn't see Annie for a while after the operation. I was in too much pain to move and she had been taken straight to special care. When I did finally get to see her on Day 2 I was so overwhelmed. She looked so tiny in the big crib and so much had happened since the birth. Johanna had put her on a CPAP machine to help her breath and she was in 60% oxygen. After all the scans we had in preparation for this early birth,  I was not prepared to see her like this at all. Maybe I had been kidding myself, but I really thought she was going to be fine. The graviy of her situation never really sunk in until she was safe, so perhaps that was a blessing in disguise! Either way, it was to be a tough few days ahead for all of us!

Day 3 - Mum came up and wheeled me over to visit her this morning. Greg and I had chosen to call her Anastasia Elizabeth, but always Annie, until she decided otherwise. You can see how tiny she is in comparison to my hand...2.45kg and 47cm long at birth. A lot of that weight came off but she has started putting it on again.

Day 4 - Time for a bit of photo therapy. She was turning yellow which indicated an immature liver and was put under the lights for 4 days. I have her little mask at home...it is so tiny and adorable.

One of the nurses in the SCU made this cool little pouch for the babies. The roll helps them to feel a bit more secure when they are so exposed in the incubators.

Day 5 - We finally get to hold our little girl. Both of us were so emotional and are so glad to have been able to share the time with our dear friend (who took this photo). Annie was just amazing and worked reaaly hard to wake up and open her eyes to see us. Her little eyebrows were working overtime to get her little peepers open, it was so exciting to see her do that. All things going well we would get another cuddle the next day. We didn't linger too long in case we tired her out too much, but she was so strong!


More next post!