EXCERPT FROM MASS EMAIL TO FRIENDS
Rose is aged two weeks and three days.
This email was written to friends after we spent Rose's first week and a half in full-blown celebratory mode. Rose was born in the Family Birth Centre at the Royal Women's Hospital, in the presence of siblings Lewis (nearly 10) and Hannah (5), as well as both of my parents!
A newspaper photographer turned up at the birth centre when Rose was only four hours old, taking shots to publicize the hospital's annual Mother's Day fundraising appeal. Hearing that Rose had been born in the presence of extended family, the photographer took the story to one of the paper's journalists. She later interviewed us over the phone.
We were surprised to find Rose's photo, huge and in colour, on that paper's front page a couple of weeks after her birth, along with a whole family photo and text piece inside the paper.
This email was written after the bubble burst, with knowledge dawning that Rose's persistent jaundice is a problem. . .
"We had a wonderful first 10 days with Rose, but when she was weighed last Monday it was found that she had lost weight since birth. The situation didn’t really improve when she was weighed again two days later, and she had only regained 10 grams or something. She was also pretty drowsy, and we were beginning to worry.
To cut a long story short, she ended up at the paediatrician on Thursday, and the poor wee mite was subjected to stressful blood tests in the afternoon. The paediatrician rang us on Friday to say that Rose is still a bit jaundiced, and that she needs a liver ultrasound on Monday, in case there’s something wrong with her liver that might explain her skinniness.
So this week we’ve been busy pumping extra breast milk for her (so we can try to measure some of what she’s taking in), and it’s all pretty busy and stressful.
She’s actually picked up a lot since we’ve been concentrating on getting more food into her, and she LOOKS perfect, and is a bright little wide-eyed girl. Hopefully she’s on the mend already, but we’ll only be able to relax properly once we’ve had the results of the ultrasound."
Rose is aged two weeks and three days.
This email was written to friends after we spent Rose's first week and a half in full-blown celebratory mode. Rose was born in the Family Birth Centre at the Royal Women's Hospital, in the presence of siblings Lewis (nearly 10) and Hannah (5), as well as both of my parents!
A newspaper photographer turned up at the birth centre when Rose was only four hours old, taking shots to publicize the hospital's annual Mother's Day fundraising appeal. Hearing that Rose had been born in the presence of extended family, the photographer took the story to one of the paper's journalists. She later interviewed us over the phone.
We were surprised to find Rose's photo, huge and in colour, on that paper's front page a couple of weeks after her birth, along with a whole family photo and text piece inside the paper.
This email was written after the bubble burst, with knowledge dawning that Rose's persistent jaundice is a problem. . .
"We had a wonderful first 10 days with Rose, but when she was weighed last Monday it was found that she had lost weight since birth. The situation didn’t really improve when she was weighed again two days later, and she had only regained 10 grams or something. She was also pretty drowsy, and we were beginning to worry.
To cut a long story short, she ended up at the paediatrician on Thursday, and the poor wee mite was subjected to stressful blood tests in the afternoon. The paediatrician rang us on Friday to say that Rose is still a bit jaundiced, and that she needs a liver ultrasound on Monday, in case there’s something wrong with her liver that might explain her skinniness.
So this week we’ve been busy pumping extra breast milk for her (so we can try to measure some of what she’s taking in), and it’s all pretty busy and stressful.
She’s actually picked up a lot since we’ve been concentrating on getting more food into her, and she LOOKS perfect, and is a bright little wide-eyed girl. Hopefully she’s on the mend already, but we’ll only be able to relax properly once we’ve had the results of the ultrasound."
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