Where did that year go?

Wow!

This time last year I was slightly shell-shocked, having just waved my husband off to follow the NETS van (Newborn Emergency Transport Service) to the Women's and get Jacinta settled in, then working out this whole expressing business and feeling like a fraud pretending to be a post-natal mother in order to get a free bed and cups of tea in my own special room.

I waited a couple of hours before ringing the Women's to see how Jacinta was going. I now know that instead of the nurse thinking I was silly for ringing at 1am, she would have gone straight over to Jacinta's bed on hanging up and said something like, "That was your Mum. She was just seeing how you're going. She's expressing some milk for you in the other hospital and she'll be in to see you in the morning." (I know that because that's what they did every time a baby's Mum rang whenever I was in.)

That awesome phenomenon whereby any number of years can go by yet you can still feel the exact emotions and sensations as you did during a certain key moment is certainly in play. I've spent this weekend reliving all the moments that occurred, since it was such a monumental event in so many ways. It was such a relief really at the beginning. All I wanted was to come to hospital and not be sent home. If I could deliver pretty quickly that would be good too. Done! Then it got interesting as we all know!!!

So this is where we started a year ago. At birth, there were no moments to have a little snapshot in the delivery suite or even in the special care nursery. It just wasn't the moment. The first photo of Jacinta was taken for us by the nurses at the Women's before they put all her breathing tubes on. They gave it to us when we arrived the next day.

That's just a feeding tube in her mouth and a lead for monitoring her heart rate on her chest.  There's also an intravenous line you can't see in this, through her belly button, called an umbiline. The tape is where they're about to place the big plastic tubes for the CPAP machine. (I forget what it stands for but it helped to puff out her lungs so she could get a better breath, like if there was a machine to do the first blow of a balloon to make it all easier.) The red thing is the hat that went around her head to hold it all in place. It used to get very itchy and she'd try really hard to get it off.

You can't see in that picture, but she had super long nails. The comments she got at birth were compliments about her nails and her eyelashes.
I didn't get a shot of the lashes, but.....

That was the day I had to cut them. The nurses (who aren't allowed to cut them) had been really kind about it for about a week, and it was way overdue. So sad, ruining her perfect birth manicure.

So, a couple of hospitals, a heart op, some growing.......and we're 1. Just like that!

(That'd be gluten free, dairy free cake and low GI icing.....)

We're aching to crawl, clapping, laughing, talking up a storm with some "blink and you'll miss it" words. Suddenly we're much more distracted when breastfeeding and actually chomping on food all of a sudden, which is a great step forwards, but means I'll have to be really on top of how much starch we're having and fluid intake other than breastmilk or we'll get clogged up pretty fast, I'm guessing.

Time also to get moving on more Institutes program since I sacked the physio.....

Thanks all for sharing in this first year. It's been such a big one.

Here's to more big wins in 2014!