Message from Isla's Mum

Hi Everyone, Just want to say thank you for all your thoughts and best wishes to Duncan, myself and our gorgeous daughter, Isla. Isla is doing very well and has been moved from the intensive care to the special care nursery where I am now able to give her more attention myself, like changing her nappies, giving her washes, trying to breastfeed and give her kangaroo cuddles (skin to skin). She is so special and we can't believe we have her. I am now commuting between home and hospital, and I feel like I am permanantly attached to the breast pump... but it is all worth it. My heart just melts when she opens her eyes and looks at me and I never knew how much love you can have for your child. And to add to that, when I see Duncan with her, I swear I am falling in love with him all over again.

So here are some more recent photos of our girl, she is 6 days old today. She is still under phototherapy for her slight jaundice but she is now finished her antibiotics, she no longer has any tubes into her naval and she is breathing well in normal air. While she is not breastfeeding for long, she is being feed through a tube down her mouth and she is getting more and more expressed breast milk each day. This means when it's Duncan's turn to change her nappy, he always seems to get the pleasure of the pooey one!

Yippeeeee

At last I got to hold my daughter today. Alas it was only for 5 minutes but they were 5 of the most precious minutes I'll ever encounter. Tash was lucky enough to have a cuddle yesterday and today she was able to change and clean Isla. Everything is going well and Tash and I are grateful with the care and assistance that everyone has offered. We are also overwhlemed with the fantastic assistance/support that we are getting from the nurses/doctors/midwives etc etc... It is fantastic!!!! We highly recommend having a baby in the Mater Hospital!!!

Isla Jane McGregor

Just a quick post to say that Isla Jane McGregor has been born !!!! She weighs 2.175 Kg or 4lb 12 oz. She will remain in the special care nursery for approx. 5 weeks. Tash is fit and healthy and managed the entire labour drug free. I will post more info when I get my head around it. Here are a few pics:

PPROM

Preterm Premature Rupture of the Membranes (PPROM)

This is what I was diagnosed with on 12 th March. My waters broke late on the previous day and as you all know this is too early for it to happen. I was at 30 weeks + 5 days. Under advise from my midwife, we hung on until the Sunday and when I hadn't stopped leaking amniotic fluid, we went straight to the Mater Mother's hospital. After examination, I was told that I had a 50% chance of going into labour in the next day or so and so as a precautionary measure, I had to be given corticosteroid injections so that if the baby did come, it's lungs would develop in time, and I was also put on a course of IV antibiotics to help stop and prevent any infection that may occur. I was kept in hospital for 2 nights.

As you can imagine, this was a great shock to Duncan and I. One day we have no worries at all about the pregnancy... I am healthy, baby is healthy, no aches or pains, everything seems to be going towards a successful planned homebirth, and then the next day, we are faced with the very real possibility that we will have a premature baby in hospital ... and this is still a very real possibility.

How can this happen?
Why us?
What did I do?
How can I stop it?
WHY???????

So since then we've been informed more about PPROM which is when the water's break preterm (before 37 weeks gestation) and before labour begins. It can occur in 1-2 % of all pregnancies and is generally thought to be the result of a subclinical infection that can weaken the membranes, but mostly, the cause is unknown. There is nothing I could have done, or known about, to prevent this from happening - it's just bad luck.

A significant risk of PPROM is that the baby is very likely to be born within one week of the membrane rupture. Another major risk of PROM is development of a serious infection of the placental tissues called chorioamnionitis, which can be very dangerous for mother and baby. So for this as I mentioned above - I was treated with steroids for baby's lungs and I am on antibiotics to prevent infection. The statistics for going into labour after the membranes rupture vary between 50-80% in the first week, and about 10-20% last beyond 2 weeks.

So for me now, I am 32 weeks today and it has been 8 days since my membranes ruptured. I am at home now resting as much as possible and monitoring my pulse, temperature, blood pressure and amount/colour of leakage for any signs of infection (every 4 hours). I have to go to the hospital every 2nd day for check up where they take a blood sample to test for C reactive protein - the first indication of infection, and to monitor the baby's heart rate and for any signs of labour. I am taking all the vitamins, minerals and herbs that improve the immune system, promote muscle relaxation and encourage tissue healing. And so far so good. The baby is very active still which is a positive sign that everything is ok and that I won't go into labour any time soon.

There is so much more I can say about what has happened to us but for now, I have to go to hospital for my check up.

Nedd's Birthday

The 9th of March was Nedd's 4th Birthday.... how time is flying by. Nedd had a fun birthday and got a very cool bicycle from Nickole and Ken. We helped him celebrate and shared his yummy birthday cake.

Just wanted to add these photos on too, since we marveled at the size of this moth.... huge! This is Nickole and Dylan checking it out.

Drag Racing with Jasso

On saturday 11th March, Duncan and I went out to Willowbank Raceway to see my brother Jason drag race his GTX 1970 Monaro. Although most of you know that we are not car heads, it was still a very exciting and interesting time. We learned more about the sport that Jason and Lindsey are involved in and appreciated the science and art of getting the car to perform. So you know, I'll try to explain how drag racing works....(you might be thinking right now that the answer is intuitive, but there is more to it than just racing another car to the finish line).

There are 4 time trials first where Jason gets to test how fast his car can go over the 1/4 mile distance. He gets a time for each test run and all the variables are documented (by the lovely Lindsey) like track temperature, tyre pressures before and after, reaction time, and many other things I had no idea about. Once he has his times, he then has to nominate a time that he thinks he will run in the race itself. So for instance, he had times of 10.46, 10.46, 10.54, and 10.54 secs for each of his runs, and based on the variables he thinks will be there for the race and changing tyre pressures etc, he must pick a time that he thinks he'll run BUT if he goes faster than that nominated time, he loses, or if he goes slower than the nominated time then the car he is racing could win. So it is quite difficult to pick a time and race as close to that time as possible. Jason chose to dial in 10.49 for his first race, but unfortuantely, he was 0.09 seconds slow and the other car was first over the line. Not much in it is there! (The other car is also racing it's own time so if they had dialed in a time of 10.30 seconds for instance, there would be a staggered start with Jason's car starting 0.19 seconds before the other car and it's still a race to the finish line).

The other interesting things about Drag racing is that when they first drive up to the lane, they have to do a big burnout on some water to heat the tyres up. This is done so that when they drive off from the starting line, the tyres grip straight away so they don't skid (see from the pictures above). Also, when they are at the starting line, Jason holds his accelerator to the floor, but he has this button on his steering wheel that locks the gearbox in place so that it doesn't drive (see green button on steering wheel above!). So when the lights flash to start the race, he simply has to lift his thumb off the button and he's away and racing.......

Engagement Party

Jason and Lindsey had their engagement party on the weekend in Toowoomba. Everyone had a great time and it was awesome to catch up with the rest of the family. There was great music and we were even privvy to a rendition of Candy (the Iggy Pop song) since this is Jas and Linds' favourite song! So if this party was any indication, the wedding will be a blast.