Sweet Shoppe Designs

Finally, three years later, I've started my son's birth album. Thanks Teresa for this template, which was just the kick I needed to do it. This became a double page LO to get in everything I wanted to go together.

Journalling~
(LJ/Email update from Kerry to friends and family : Thursday, 27th Jan 2004)

Hello all,

Dave has brought the laptop in to the hospital for me, so I'm taking a moment to type you a note before he takes it home again and mails it off.

For anyone who missed the first message or a phone call, I started early (very early - 27 weeks) labour at about 3am this morning. By 5am we were on our way to the hospital. Because our local hospital can't care for such early babies, they transferred me to National Womens Hospital here in Auckland. This is New Zealand's premier maternity hospital for early babies, so we couldn't be in a better place.

When I arrived at hospital I was having contractions about five minutes apart (although I didn't recognise them as such at first, as the pain was in a different place from what I had expected and I simply didn't expect to go into labour so early). They immediately gave me a steroid injection that is designed to get the baby's lungs producing a surfactant that will help him breathe when he's born. Following that I was started on labour retarding drugs and sent of to National Women's.

My first - and actually bumpy and boring - ride in an ambulance.

Once here they took me into a delivery suite and started monitoring the baby and the contractions. Over a few hours they began to slow and drop in intensity and they transferred me to a ward. I'm now on observed bed rest, and the plan is to see if the contractions stop altogether (in which case I get to go home in a few days and wait for it all to start again) or if the baby decides he's coming, come hell or high water. If the latter, he'll be delivered here and go immediately into the neonatal unit.

I have another injection of steroids at 5am tomorrow morning, and everyone will be much happier once we get to that point, as it gives the baby a much better chance of doing well if/when he's born.

We had a great visit from one of the doctors from the neonatal unit, who took plenty of time to tell us all the options. We're told that with the care and equipment here and the current state of neonatal care, even if he insists on arriving in the next 24 hours, he's got about a 95% chance of surviving. With each day that goes by that goes up and up. So the odds are good.

And hopefully he'll go one better and decide to hang around inside me for longer.

Dave is wonderful and doing great, and I'm sending him home shortly to get some sleep as neither of us got much last night.

I'm also doing really well. I'm remarkably unstressed about it all at this point. I feel that it's out of my hands - God, the baby and the staff here have more say than I do. Whatever happens, will happen and we'll all cope and deal. And inside, I'm sure we'll have our little boy home and healthy in the end, even if the road we take to get there wasn't the one we planned.

Kerry

Credits~
Background paper from “Percentage” by Lynn Grieveson; pink and bright orange paper from “Genuine Spirit” by Michelle Coleman; yellow paper from “Chelsey’s Dream” by Michelle Coleman; lined paper from “Book Bag Essentials” by Gina Cabrera; trim and sequins from “A Day at the Zoo” by Michelle Coleman; swirl from “Sparkle Puffs” by Carrie Stephens; sticky tape from “Hold It Downs” by Jen Wilson; font is Splendid 66.