April Down Under: Long time, no blog

Well readers (yes, all two of you? lol) I have been super behind on blogging. I keep thinking I will blog "tomorrow" then tomorrow happens and life's madness that has been going on for the last 5 and a half months hits, My lack of blogging has not be due to a lack of thing to blog about. Quite the opposite. Life has been so busy that any free moments I have had I fill with other things like, a shower.... a quick bite to eat..... and attempt to get a couple minutes of sleep.

I attempted last week to write a blog, but it seemed like I was trying to figure out "where do I begin?" and I was trying to discuss so many things in one blog. I felt disorganised and long winded. So I've decided to do a couple blogs to catch up. The first blog (this one) is a summary catch up. From there I will do a couple of more in depth blogs on different events that have occurred over the last nearly six months. Does that sound ok to you? I'm just gonna assume you have all shaken your head yes and perhaps shouted "SURE!!" in pure excitement!

On 17 June 2014, we welcomed our daughter, Emily, into the world. She was born at 29 weeks and 6 days gestation. She weighed 1060 grams / 2 lbs and 5 oz. She was only on the ventilator for about 12 hours. As previously mentioned we didn't know the sex and despite daily ultrasounds for 10 days while I was hospitalised we still were able to not find out the sex. Greatest surprise of my life. But again, we'll get to that.

Emily spent 11 weeks and 5 days in hospital. The longest weeks and days of my life. Finally, on Australia Father's Day on 7 September, we finally got to leave King Edward Hospital, without empty arms. We brought our baby home.

Eight days after Emily was home, on Monday 15 September, we received horrible news. My dad's cancer, which had returned in May and again in August, had spread rapidly and was in operable. The prognosis was a few days to a couple of weeks. After a few days of tears and trying to figure out what to do, with Wayne's support (well, him basically pushing me onto the plane to go to see my Dad) I went home to spend a couple weeks with my parents and say goodbye to my Dad. I left America to return on October 1, arrived home on October 3, and he passed away on October 4. I'm so glad I was able to spend some time with him and say our goodbyes. I was also able to speak to the preacher doing the memorial service via email and wrote a eulogy that he read at the memorial. It was the hardest thing to write because it's the hardest thing I've ever had to go through. How do you put your feelings into words when you are so heart broken? Again, I'll go into further details when doing my individual blogs (which I'll try to do soon because otherwise I'll be way behind forever! lol)

After coming home, we began to experience life with our baby at home, instead of daily trips into the city to the NICU. It's both wonderful and exhausting... but a good kind of exhausting. Emily is such an amazing baby. She's well into smiling and nearly laughing. Like it's right there. You can just see it's ABOUT to happen. I'm currently on Maternity Leave (as you get 12 months leave here in Australia) and at this stage plan to remain a stay at home mom/mum, but will just see how things go before we make the final decision and let my employer know. Emily has two minor heart conditions and Chronic Lung so time will tell how she goes. I am so excited about the ability to be a full time mom. It's a 24/7 job that some days has HORRIBLE working conditions (seriously, boss, can I PLEASE go to the toilet? No? Ok.... <--- that conversation in the work place would be illegal! haha) but GOD.. the pay is amazing. Even though you don't make a cent.

Thursday is Thanksgiving, and here we celebrate the Saturday following. This year, our Thanksgiving Celebration will be the day that Emily has officially been HOME longer than in the hospital. These past few weeks have flown by and been so much more enjoyable.

Everyone always told me when I had kids I would understand.. .insert many things here. The lack of sleep and exhaustion. How hard it is to do things (pee, eat, return calls, email.. BLOG?? lol), and how much love you actually can have for another human. You think you've experienced love, and you think you love your husband. And then one day, this little human enters the world and your life.... and in our case, VERY little human, and you realise you have NEVER felt this type of love before. Ever. And you look at your husband, holding your daughter for the first time, and you fall into a love with both of these people that just cannot be explained. Still to this day nothing warms my heart more than seeing those two together. Nothing. I also am so much more emotional when it comes to kids. We finally watched the final season of How I Met Your Mother. (Yes.. finally!) Here's the VIDEO (<--click on that..... grab a tissue....). I burst into tears when I saw it... and will admit googling to find the video I have teared up a bit just thinking about it. All these emotions. Gah!! Where do they come from?? All happy though!

Ok, so there is so much to blog about, and I'm sure you are so anxious to hear more detailed updates and information. So for now I'll leave you with some pictures of Emily and call it a night!

Below are all pics of Emily during her first week of life. The first picture, she is not wearing a bracelet.. that is Wayne's wedding ring! Later you'll see a comparison picture and that wedding ring is on the left and right side of the picture. I'm ending this blog with a photo of her from Monday, when she turned five months old. Five months since she entered the world, five months since our lives changed, five months since I learned what love at first sight truly was.

Daddy's wedding ring went all the way up to her elbow easily!

Such sweet little feet. Poor feet were pricked over and over for 11 weeks for blood work.

On her birthday on the Vent

Holding Daddy's Hand (mommy was too sick to see her until the next day)

You can't even describe how little these little hands were!

Kangaroo Care - our once a day hold, was the highlight of my day for weeks!

Daddy's so in love, and loved Kangaroo care too! We split the hold, except on my rough days, he would kindly tell me that I needed it more than he did that day.