Hi Everyone

I thought that I would come and introduce myself and hopefully join in on this thread. Thankyou Jess for the suggestion.

My beautiful daughter Matilda was born on May 28th and since it looks like you girls don't mind long posts I will tell you our story.

When I was 12 weeks pregnant I was told that we had a 1 in 3 chance of having a baby with Down Syndrome, we proceeded to have an Amnio done at 16 weeks and at 18 weeks were given the news that we were having a girl, she did not have Down Syndrome, however she did have a Chromosome Deletion, we could not be told what she would have 'wrong' with her at birth as she is one of only 8 born with this deletion, we were however given a massive list of maybes...

Matilda was born at 38.2 weeks via C/S due to the Chromosome Deletion and the uncertainties it bought us and also because she was breech with her legs out straight sucking her toes with no room to move in my small tummy. (Weight 2.98kgs - 6.6pounds) She was born with breathing difficulties, diagnosed with Pierre Robin Sequence (being a cleft palate and small lower jaw - this left no space for her tounge so it fell backwards and blocked her breathing passage) she was taken directly to Neonatel Intensive Care.
Matilda spent the next 10.5 weeks in hospital.
At 8.5 weeks she has had a major operation on her jaw to lenghten it enabling her to finally breath on her own. 2 weeks later she came home. She has now been home for 3 weeks but with a feeding tube and 2 pins out of her chin which have to remain there for another 3 weeks before they can get removed, as a result Matilda is not able to have tummy time, she has to wear mittens to stop her from pulling on the pins and hurting herself and we are unable to put her on our shoulder to burp/comfort her.
When she came home she became very demanding and contantly wanting to be cuddled/comforted. In the last week she has settled into a messy kinda routine, sleeping through the night and for 1 hourish blocks during the day, feeding 4 hourly.

It is great to come in here and she how everyones babes are doing and to see that in other areas of development she seems to be 'normal', I look forward to speaking to you all more....

Deanne.