Talia at 18 months

Doesn’t time fly? It’s hard to imagine that a year ago this gorgeous almost-toddler was borderline failing to thrive, and I was struggling with post-natal depression as a result.

Talia at 18 months

Now she’s a little above the 10th percentile at 9.33kg and 74cm long, and has made the move into size 0 and size 1 clothing. I pulled out her summer clothing from last year and marvelled how 000 could look so small, when at first we could hardly imagine she would ever be big enough to wear it. We’ve come through winter with only two minor colds, which is fantastic given that she left hospital with chronic lung disease.

Developmentally speaking, Talia still exhibits global delays, but they do not stop her enjoying life immensely. She is nearly walking, having taken her first few steps, but is happier crawling at the moment - including some new crab walking with her bottom in the air. She recently started baby swimming classes (known here as “synchronised splashing”) and hopefully that will help her core body strength as well as giving her confidence around water.

Her favourite activities at the moment are going on the swing in the park, reading books, playing with balls, pegs and balloons, popping bubbles, starting games of peek-a-boo and hanging out with her bath toys. She has recently grasped the concept of putting pieces into a simple jigsaw (no interlocking pieces) but doesn’t have the dexterity to complete it by herself just yet.

Talia at 6 months (3 corrected) - one year ago.

Eating is still patchy, with the same problems of “loved it yesterday, hate it today, don’t even bother tomorrow”, but she’s continuing to gain weight (and grow out of things) despite the fact that she’s almost 100% self fed on finger food and I’m no closer to getting her to eat off a spoon, regardless of whether I’m holding it or she is. On the positive side, we can feed her a little bit of whatever we are having and no longer have to rely on food organised specifically for her (although we still do to some extent), and we’ve moved from formula to cow’s milk in the last month without any problems - in fact she clearly prefers it.

She will sometimes allow us to brush her teeth but it does take quite a bit of persistence. She sleeps well overnight and has one nap in the middle of the day, usually 1-1.5 hours long. I wish she’d sleep longer during the day but no luck so far - her room is probably not dark enough.

All in all, a wonderful, easy-care baby, even if she came without a manual! We feel very fortunate, and very proud.

Meeting other premmie mums

When your baby is born early, your experience of birth and early parenting suddenly becomes quite different from the experiences of your friends and family whose children were born close to full term. They don’t know, and can’t be expected to understand exactly how you feel, the different emotions and worries at the time of birth, during your hospital stay, and after your baby comes home. What’s more, the effects of being born prematurely might still be felt and seen years down the track, long after other people have forgotten those stressful early months.

In retrospect I wish I’d made more effort to get to know other mothers while my daughter was in hospital - but I didn’t have the emotional strength to do more than exchange greetings and didn’t want to get involved. I was too concerned with my baby’s day to day wellbeing and didn’t realise how important it was to think about support for myself in the longer term.

Now I can say it is fantastic to be able to talk to other parents of premmies. I have found great comfort and encouragement, and people who appreciated all my daughter’s tiny milestones, no matter how delayed. Until recently most of my “premmie friends” lived far away from me, and I met them online, in a forum or chat room. Now I am lucky to be able to meet some of them in person, and I would love to meet more.

If you are reading this, live in Perth (or visit from time to time) and would like to meet other premmie mums, please get in touch! Maybe we can form a premmie playgroup. I meet another premmie mum in Kings Park about twice a month - come and join us!

If you live in Perth and already have a premmie playgroup, get in touch and let the rest of us know about it!

Happy Father’s Day

Father’s Day: the media is full of images of happy, healthy children rushing to give their much-loved if slightly hopeless father a blokey gift, but when your little one is still in hospital the stereotypes are meaningless and all you really want is to have your child come home.

What is the role of a father of a premature baby? When my daughter was born unexpectedly early, my husband missed the birth completely - no magical memories of cutting the cord for him, he wasn’t even able to hold my hand. While I found myself on early maternity leave and able to spend all day in the NICU, he was still at work - sometimes far away. It made no sense for him to take his one week of paternity leave until we brought our baby home, at which point his employer initally refused to grant him the leave because it was more than 3 months after her birth!

My husband shared all my anxieties about Talia’s health, not to mention the broken sleep as I rose twice a night to express, without the joy and reassurance of being able to hold his daughter for days on end. He visited the nursery in the quiet of the evenings when the doctors were gone and the lights were dimmed, and sang her soft songs of love below the beeping of the monitors.

Now more than a year later, he still sings her songs. He holds her tight and reads her books, sits on the floor playing with her as soon as he gets home from work, pushes her on the swing in the park and rejoices in every little milestone. He knows how lucky we are to have her, and I know how lucky she is to have him too.

PREM milk bank is 2 years old

I’m not sure if they had an offical celebration, but the PREM human milk bank at King Edward Memorial Hospital in Perth recently turned 2 years old. finisterre.minti.com

Last year they held a first birthday party and invited all the babies who had benefitted from donated milk, including my daughter Talia. It was only a small gathering, but a big event for us as Talia was only 6 weeks corrected and I vary rarely took her further than a few blocks from our house at that point.

The Perth PREM Milk bank celebrates its first year

I was aware of the milk bank’s existence before Talia was born. I must have read about it when I visited KEMH for an antenatal appointment, and I remember thinking it would be nice to be able to donate milk to help other mothers. I had no idea that I would end up on the receiving end!

My milk came in very slowly, and without the assistance of medication would never have been enough to sustain a baby. However, before the medication kicked in, Talia’s requirements, minimal though they were, outstripped my feeble supply. One afternoon I received a call from the NICU asking if we would be prefer to use formula or donor milk. We had no hesitation in accepting donor milk, knowing it is much better for babies in almost any circumstance, and particularly when the baby has an immature gut. Talia received donor milk for about a week before my own supply caught up and I was able to take over myself.

I have read articles in magazines and online where women react to the idea of giving their milk to another baby (or having their baby drink another mother’s milk) with revulsion. However I can’t imagine they would respond that way if their own baby really needed that help.

The irony is that in the not-so-distant past, it was quite common for women to share their milk, without any worries about disease (which is carefully screened out in the donor milk bank). A lady I know, now in her 60s, told me that when one of her own children was just born she had abundant supply and would go to the hospital nursery and pump - and they would use her milk to feed all the babies in the nursery!  How times have changed.