An eye check and more than one view of the world

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.