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!