Hi, my first baby was a premmie born at 32wks, weighing 3lb13oz (1738kgs).
Our journey began when at 31wks PG my waters broke. After consultations with my GP & midwife at the hospital it became an airplane flight to Melbourne's Monash Medical Centre in Clayton to wait & see what would happen. I was already 3cm dilated when I was sent there & also had to have the steroid injections for bubs lungs in case birth was imminent. In the end squirt stayed put for another week (32wks) when after a bio-physics u/s they decided he needed to come out. So after an emergency c-section we had a beautiful baby boy, who went nameless for 2 & 1/2 days!! He came out squeaking (there is no way you could call it crying), was taken up to the NICUnit where I was expecting him to be put on a ventilator. Lo & behold when my midwife went to check on him at 11:05pm (he was born at 8:16pm) she bought me back a photo with no tubes in sight. When asked she said that he had worked out his breathing by the time they got him up to the NICU. What a clever little fellow he was. His Dad, Nanna & Grandma came up the next day & sprung me just as they were getting me up for the first time. Then we went around to see our baby & couldn't believe how tiny he was, he was allowed out for cuddles & he was just so tiny. We spent 5 days in Melbourne before being told that we could move to a hospital just an hour away from home. It was a huge shock to us, we had expected a long stay in Melbourne. He then spent 11days at Warrnambool where he managed to put on enough weight to come out of the humidicrib & to be able to have his first bath. He then transfered back to our local hospital where he spent 4wks learning how to feed before we were allowed to take him home.

That said it was in no way as easy a journey as it sounds. Whilst in Melb I expressed milk for him, by hand at first & then by pump, which was fed to him via a nasal-gastric tube. Then there were the blood tests where they had trouble coz his little veins were small - I never knew he was capable of making so much noise until they did those, & the drips in his feet that they would take out only to have to put them back in because he wasn't on full milk feeds yet & they had read his chart wrong - once again more noise than I thought he could make. And that was without me recovering from the c-section. That being said I was up & walking to the nursery by myself the second day after it all happened, as I figured the more mobile I was the more time I was capable of spending with our son. Then came Warrnambool where they took the nasal-gastric tube out & instead opted to put a tube down his throat into his stomach at every feed, not very pleasant to watch the gag reflex in action. There was also the "forgetting" to breath rhythmically when comfortable having cuddles with Mum & hearing his monitor alarm go off & them having to administer oxygen to him. Then it went to the battle at our local hospital to get him home. A journey which I am sure was lengthened by the fact that they don't deal with premmies as a rule. But the past is past & we did finally get him home at gestation age 38wks 5days. And now you would never know the struggle we went through emotionally to have him here as you watch him run around & tell great stories (all in his 2yr old gibberish).

The majority of the staff who were involved in our care were wonderful, very supportive. That made being 5hrs away from family & friends easier, also their willingness to chat & answer any questions we had was brilliant. They organised a visit to the NICUnit before our baby was born so that we would have some idea of what we were facing & any machinery that may be involved. All in all even though it was one of the scariest times of my life I am grateful that we were so lucky. We had a fighter from the minute he was born, he never looked back or suffered one set back health wise & for that I am eternally grateful.

In just 6days time on August 21st we celebrate our little man's 2nd birthday & we count every day of those 2years as a blessing. He is the apple of our eye & all that we could have hoped for.