This day last year

It’s mid-evening, March 17.

This time last year I was lying on a hospital bed in a delivery room, two monitors strapped across my belly and a machine next to me like a seismograph printing out the magnitude of my labour tremors.  I think my legs were probably trembling just as badly, they certainly felt like jelly earlier in the evening when the head of the obstetrics department told me I could be having a baby within hours.  I was really, really frightened, and hoping against hope that the medication they had given me would stop my labour so I could go home until my baby was actually big enough to be born properly.

Tonight I baked sesame shortbreads for Talia’s birthday on Thursday, and read a lot of chatter posted by other premmie mothers who I now think of as friends, even though I’ve met almost none of them in person.  Things didn’t go to plan last year, but thankfully, like the best sort of stories, it seems to have all turned out OK.

Milestones of motherhood #1

Today I made my first batch of chocolate crackles!
Talia supervised from the Bumbo seat on the kitchen counter, and even licked the spoon.
I feel ridiculously pleased with myself for this not-particularly-difficult achievement.

It was almost as exciting as the fact that *drumroll* Talia cut her first tooth yesterday!  Woo hoo!  Just in time for her first birthday.

A red letter day

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/