Bigger and better adventures

Earlier this month I volunteered to help out on the National Premmie Foundation’s stand at the Pregnancy, Babies and Children’s Expo when it was running in Perth.  It was great to meet some premmie mums from interstate, as well as catch up with local mums.

Since then I was thinking more about what I could possibly do to help other parents of premature babies in Perth.  I’m not really an organiser of events or other people, as I prefer to take a “behind the scenes” approach.  So I thought about what had worked for me, when I was looking for support.

In a nutshell, what I did at the time was turn to the internet.  It took me several months before I found what I was looking for (and it turned out to be L’il Aussie Prems!) so I decided that maybe I could make that journey shorter for someone else by having a local site.  My hope is that if anyone goes searching on the internet for premature babies and includes the word Perth, hopefully they’ll find me - and I can provide links to LAP, other national support sites, and any local groups in Perth too.  I will also post information that I think is interesting and relevant to premmie parents.  In the longer term I hope to be involved in more than just providing information, but I figure this is a good start.

So here is my site:  www.preminperth.net

Of course it also gives me another opportunity to show off my amazing little daughter.  And yes it does owe a lot to this site… once again I would like to say thank you to Jules for providing this great resource - forum, blog space and all - and being an inspiration!

Talia had her 1 year sight check at PMH this morning. It was a formality, less than 5 minutes with the opthalmologist, she has been given the all clear again and they don’t want to see her for another year. Hoorah!

They were running an hour late and we had plenty of time to examine toys, flick through magazines and make idle chatter with other parents in the waiting room. I spoke to two mums and dads of other prems.

One couple had twin girls, 28 weekers for memory, 2 weeks corrected and still incredibly tiny but so cute, dressed in normal clothes and being breast and bottle fed. When Talia was that small, she was still on CPAP, in a hospital top and being fed with an NG tube. Their mother looked at Talia and said she was glad to know that they do eventually grow. I looked at the twins and wondered how on earth I would have coped with more than one baby.

The other couple had a bigger boy who was on oxygen, and when I overheard his name I realised we had met him in the high dependency unit - a 24 weeker, he had transferred to the childrens’ hospital a few days after Talia moved into HDU. At the time of his transfer he’d been in the special care nursery for 8 months. Today his parents told me he has been in the childrens’ hospital for the nearly 9 months since then. The poor little kid is 16 months old and still hasn’t come home, although his parents have been told he should in another 6-8 weeks, barring further setbacks.

So many prems, so many paths.

Today was my birthday (old, even older than when I was pregnant and didn’t people go on about “advanced maternal age” even then!) and also the date of Talia’s 8 month check up.

As before our four month check up, we were sent a questionnaire to complete in advance of the appointment. In contrast to the previous time, we were delighted to be able to tick “yes” to many of the questions, including almost all of those relating to fine motor skills. She can pick up items as small as a sultana. There were still a few “not yet”s, including two of the gross motor skills - rolling and crawling. However we are much less worried about Talia’s development overall than we were 4 months ago, when she was clearly showing delays in many areas.

The actual meeting with the paediatrician was relatively short, and he told us that he considered all her development to be within normal ranges, with the possible exception of her speech development. Talia babbles happily, but doesn’t use many consonants. It might be that she is not hearing everything clearly, so he arranged for us to see an audiologist to double check Talia’s hearing. Of course it might just be that she is taking her own time - the same way she has been setting her own timeline for other milestones.

In the waiting room we met up with Talia’s boyfriend Reuben who was born the same day, at a similar gestation. He has always been bigger, and now at 8 months corrected he is around 10kg, has been crawling for weeks and is already cruising the furniture. In fact he is doing better than the full term babies in my mothers group who are the same age!

Talia herself is almost 7kg - 6960g to be exact, and nudging the 10th percentile. Four months ago she was only about 4.5kg and so far below the 3rd percentile that I was stressing myself into a state of depression. Thank goodness times have changed and all for the better. Her length is a little below the 10th percentile, although with the amount of wriggling going on I’d be amazed if they actually took a correct measurement. Most amazing though, was the head circumference. This has always been bigger than anything else, but when I put it on the chart after we returned home I couldn’t believe it - 90th percentile, up from less than the 75th. I guess those brains will come in handy, especially if she turns out to be as bad at sport as her parents.

As I’m writing this post it’s the end of the day and I’ve blown out a candle and made a birthday wish - to see my daughter continue to grow happily and healthily, and tick off all those boxes as “yes” eventually.

Hip hip, hooray!

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This post was originally written for the main LAP blog and can be seen at http://www.lilaussieprems.com.au/blogs/02/our-8-month-corrected-check-up/

At the end of January, Daddyfeatures, Talia (7.5 months corrected) and I took our first flight together, from Perth to Sydney.

It was a big milestone, because before Talia arrived we travelled interstate and overseas quite a lot, and we were upset to be told by hospital staff that we would not be able to fly with Talia for ages because of her chronic lung disease. Fortunately her lungs improved rapidly once she finally came off CPAP (after 11 weeks) and oxygen (a further week), and at the four month check up our paediatrician said it would be OK to fly although he didn’t recommend doing it during winter.

I was 16 before I flew for the first time, so in comparison Talia is definitely quite advanced for her age!

I hesitate to call visiting family interstate a holiday, because it was just as much work as being at home (especially with my father-in-law’s wife in hospital for the duration), but it did have some highlights.

In particular, it was great to meet my LAP friends Pixie and LouCC in Canberra, and Julia (lilronan) in Sydney - and all the other prems. It was especially lovely to introduce Talia R to Talia G. Cuteness plus plus plus.

We also caught up with other friends we hadn’t seen for 18 months - it’s easy to forget how quickly time passes when you are tied up with baby things, especially when you have an unexpected 3 months of hospital visits on top of the usual chaos.

The Sydney branch of the extended family were delighted to see Talia (and didn’t mind seeing us either) and showered her with gifts and cuddles. The weather was abysmal but fortunately we hadn’t come with any plans for sightseeing.

Talia enjoyed a bunch of “firsts” - first flight, first time out in the rain (she was too small the last time it rained in Perth!), first taste of gefilte fish, first posh restaurant… the latter due to Marion being in hospital and Michael’s father not being keen on takeaway. We ended up in a very chic Double Bay eatery with friendly waiters who gave us a table with a bench seat packed with fancy cushions. I wish I’d had my camera.

From a practical perspective, the trip was very successful - we took our own portacot and pram, checked in electronically to get seats with a bassinet, hired a high chair and a car with a baby seat in Sydney, made up a batch of home-cooked baby food on arrival and Talia just rolled with everything, although by the time we’d driven to and from Canberra she was well over long distance car travel, and she finally decided that the morning boob service was no longer required either.

You can never predict these things, but in the one week we were away, every other baby in our mothers’ group (and most of the mums as well) came down with a dreadful gastro bug. So our timing was perfect.

Now we are looking forward to the next trip - a bigger and better adventure!