Finisterre | L'il Aussie Prems Blog

Dealing with four month milestone delays

November 8, 2007 By Finisterre 4 Comments

Our daughter Talia recently had her first developmental review, at four months corrected. Prior to meeting the paediatrician, we completed a questionnaire asking where she was in terms of gross and fine motor control, social/communication, problem solving skills and so forth.

As a 27-weeker with a relatively smooth journey through the NICU (no major complications other than 11 weeks on CPAP), we thought she would be progressing normally for her corrected age. However, as we went through the questionnaire, we found ourselves ticking more and more “not yet” boxes. For example, she wasn’t reaching for things, playing with her hands or feet, putting objects in her mouth or putting any weight on her feet.

Consequently it was not particularly surprising when the paediatrician told us that our “four month old” was presenting as a three month old, in terms of development. I had thought I might feel upset or worried, but actually I just felt relieved that she was not being diagnosed with cerebral palsy or anything more serious. Yes, she is behind where full term babies are at four months, but then that is hardly surprising.

Today I took my daughter to a regular check up held by the physiotherapy department at the hospital where she was born, and that is when I really felt miserable. Babies who were roughly the same size when we were in the same ward seven months ago have raced ahead. They have grown further and faster than Talia, and they are reaching, playing with both hands, rolling. I should feel happy for the mothers of 24-weekers that their babies are doing so well; and really I shouldn’t be comparing at all, but I can’t help it. I so desperately want everything to be OK with Talia.

Around healthy full termers it is easy to justify that she’s behind because she was prem. Being the last in a group of prems is a much harder pill to swallow.

Filed Under: Premature Babies, Premmie Baby Development

Even famous people have premature babies!

October 26, 2007 By Finisterre Leave a Comment

One unexpected thing about having a prem of my own – suddenly I discovered that prems were everywhere. A good friend I’d known for over 10 years told me for the first time that she had been born 3 months early. An older friend told me her strapping 26 year old had been born 10 weeks early. My yoga teacher asked a friend to pass on the message that he had been several months prem too, and he’d turned out OK.

One day I passed a familiar looking man in the hospital corridor going into the special care nursery. He smiled and said hello, and I felt that I knew him already from somewhere, but could not put my finger on it. Part of me wondered if I had seen him on TV, but that seemed unlikely, and I wondered if perhaps we had been at school together.

It was only a day or two later, when I overheard two nurses talking about cricket (in the football season) that the penny dropped and I realised who the man was – Mike Hussey, a member of the Australian national cricket team and one of the world’s top batsmen. I had been watching him play in the World Cup only weeks earlier, and now here he was, like me, with a premature daughter in hospital.

Our babies were in adjacent cots just before my daughter was discharged. I often wondered how little Molly Hussey was going, and so I was very pleased to see that the Husseys have gone public with their premmie story.

It is fantastic to see someone who can easily attract press attention using the opportunity to raise the profile of premature babies, the worries faced by their parents, and the great work done by our neonatal care nurseries.

Plus now I can openly brag about how close I came to someone famous while my daughter was in hospital!

Filed Under: Premature Babies

Mike Hussey feared for wife and premature baby’s life

October 24, 2007 By Finisterre 1 Comment

Article from: The Sunday Times
Braden Quartermaine
October 13, 2007 05:00pm

Test cricket star Mike Hussey has told how he feared losing both his wife and premature daughter earlier this year.

Hussey spent yesterday bonding with five-month-old Molly, who is doing well after being born at 28 weeks and spending her first nine weeks in hospital.

Hussey, 32, of Subiaco, described his three-week “world of darkness” immediately after helping the Aussies win the World Cup in the West Indies in May.

Just two days after his triumphant return, his wife Amy was taken to hospital when her pregnancy hit serious complications at the 25-week mark.

While Mrs Hussey spent three weeks in hospital before giving birth to Molly, Australia’s middle-order batting star played superdad, visiting her every day while looking after Jasmin, 3, and William, 18 months, at home by himself.

Molly Mae was born on May 19 and weighed 1080g, but then lost weight. A healthy full-term baby generally weighs about 3.5kg.

Hussey said Molly’s battle had given him a new perspective on life.

“It makes you realise it can all change just like that, so you should really appreciate every day that you get to play cricket for Australia and just go out and enjoy it,” he said.

“As hard as I had to work just to get a game, and how much I appreciate playing for Australia, you would definitely give it all back to make sure everyone’s all healthy and happy in your family.”

Molly was one of 138 babies born in WA last year at 28 weeks’ gestation or less.

“It was pretty serious there for a while,” Hussey said. “It was a huge shock. I forgot about the World Cup win very quickly.

“Amy was in hospital trying to hang on for as long as she could and I was looking after the other two.

“I’d get to 7.30pm, have them both in bed, then I would just die on the couch. I was exhausted.”

Having already been through so much in the weeks before the birth, and despite being shocked at her appearance, Hussey said he was convinced she would make it.

“She was just tiny,” he said. “Her head was about the size of a tennis ball and she didn’t have any body fat — her arms and her legs looked like pencils.

“She was almost see-through, her skin was quite transparent, you could see all her veins and almost through to her bones.

“But everything inside was doing well, and that was the main thing.”

Hussey said he had thought about the possibility of both his wife and child dying.

“Thankfully it didn’t work out that way and the family’s intact,” he said.

Hussey said his teammates had provided great support.

“The Gilchrists are pretty close by, so they tried to help out wherever they could,” he said.

“The guys on the eastern seaboard couldn’t do a hell of a lot, but they certainly lent their support with messages and phone calls.”

Mrs Hussey said her husband had been amazing throughout their ordeal. “Emotionally, mentally, and physically with the kids, I couldn’t have done it without him,” she said.

And she said staff at King Edward Memorial Hospital had been fantastic.

“They put a big sticker on our humidicrib saying, `Hip, hip hooray, Molly’s one kilo today’, and when you go in and see that it just makes your day,” she said.

IN SAFE HANDS: Mike Hussey relaxes with his three children, including five-month-old Molly, who was born premature and weighing less than 1000g. Picture: Jody d'Arcy

IN SAFE HANDS: Mike Hussey relaxes with his three children, including five-month-old Molly, who was born premature and weighing less than 1000g. Picture: Jody d’Arcy

Filed Under: Media Articles, Premature Babies

When a mother’s milk is not enough

October 14, 2007 By Finisterre 1 Comment

I never realised just how emotional I was going to get about breast milk.

I remember the obstetrician asking me if I planned to breastfeed, minutes after he had told me I might be having a baby at 26 weeks. Yes, I replied sadly, assuming it would be impossible to produce milk under the circumstances, not realising that simply parting company with my placenta would trigger changes to the hormones in my body and kick start milk production.

For three months my life revolved around expressing “liquid gold”, which is a story all in itself.

The lactation consultants in the nursery spent hours helping me to coax my reluctant daughter to suck while encumbered with CPAP and feeding tubes. Tears flowed freely – more freely than my milk some days! Naively I had assumed that breastfeeding would be natural and instinctive, but for me it was a struggle. At the same time, it was one of the few things I could do to help my precious baby grow strong and come home, and so it became more important than anything.

I felt a great sense of achievement when I was finally able to breastfeed my daughter in the comfort of my own home, and as I relaxed I began to enjoy it more and more. However my joy and confidence were undermined by the inescapable fact that although my baby was gaining weight, it was only 30-40g per week – well below desirable levels. I consulted everyone: the breastfeeding centre, a local lactation research group, a string of child health nurses, the internet. I did everything they suggested to increase supply and improve my feeding technique, but it made no difference. She looks healthy but over four months my little one has slipped steadily down the growth charts. Amazingly, every time I queried this with a child health nurse or lactation consultant, they told me not to worry about it because she was doing fine “for a prem”.

Finally, she fell below the lowest line on the chart and I was forced to confront the reality that as much as I loved her, my milk alone was not enough to keep her going. There’s no objective reason why it should bother me so much to give my baby formula. I know it’s an adequate alternative, and for that matter I was formula fed myself. Why is it so hard to shake the sadness within me, as if I have somehow failed one the most basic jobs of motherhood?

I am trying to see the positive. Thank goodness for the blessings of the modern age, which enable our children to survive and thrive when our bodies let us down. And unlike EBM, at least I can tip formula down the sink without any regrets.

Filed Under: Feeding (premature babies)

The Joy of Ex (pressing)

October 12, 2007 By Finisterre 3 Comments

Lactavista The other day I discovered the wonderfully cheeky League of Maternal Justice, committed “to expose the injustices perpetrated against mothers everywhere and to exact vengeance through aggressive finger-wagging and online shaming”.

Superhero Lactavista single handedly defends breast feeders with her super action nursing bra and double power breast pump, but what made me smile was the way she is shown clutching an expressing bottle and breastshield, like a weapon of mass milksuction. My husband always said they looked like science fiction rayguns.

Enough milk has passed under the bridge, so to speak, that I can look back on the three dedicated months I spent expressing and smile about it. It wasn’t always so easy.

From the day I was first introduced to a breastpump, I became a woman (or possibly a cow) on a mission, pumping every three hours around the clock. A sample of my daily routine: pump, sleep, pump, eat, pump, visit hospital, pump, wash expressing gear – well you get the picture. The only exciting thing I did during those three months was to pump, rush to attend pop concert, queue to meet pop star, hug pop star (woo hoo!), rush home, pump again. Other than that it was pretty darn dull.

Our cat took an immediate dislike to the vibrating machine of similar size to him and which seemed to be a rival for my attention. He would often glare at it, purring extra loudly so that I would hear him above the whirring of the pump.

Before I started taking Domperidone (known affectionately in our household as Dom Pérignon) my milk supply was woeful, and it never really took off. Where others squirted, I merely dribbled. I envied the mothers whose freezers overflowed, as I carefully syringed out every last drop and took photographs the first time I filled a container larger than a test tube.

Cry over spilt milk? You bet I did.

I spent lot of time surfing the web while expressing in the middle of the night. I found a lovely story about another woman’s experience, called Help! My Breastpump is on Fire

When I finally parted company with my hired pump, I almost felt a tiny pang of sadness – but only for a millisecond. If I ever have to set my alarm to wake me at 3 a.m. again, I hope it will be for something a lot more exciting.

Filed Under: Feeding (premature babies), NICU Life

Could somebody please stop the roller coaster, I’d like to get off now

October 8, 2007 By Finisterre 3 Comments

Three months after we left the Special Care Nursery, last week I finally ran into a brick wall, emotionally. Perversely, I think it is because the weather improved. All winter I complained about being stuck indoors due to the rain, but now the sun has come out I still can’t stop feeling fragile and anxious, to the point where some days I don’t want to go out, or do things I used to enjoy. And last Tuesday when my appointment to see the child health nurse was unexpectedly cancelled, I just sat on the sofa and cried.

It makes no sense, but all my emotional resilience just seems to have gone out the window. Although it was stressful, tiring and frustrating during Talia’s hospital stay, I just focused on the positive things and “soldiered on”. Taking her home opened up a range of new challenges, but they are what any new parent has to deal with. Mostly I think I am doing OK – but some days I am finding the hole just seems to be bigger than the doughnut.

We do have some issues. Talia is difficult to settle, often screaming and hardly sleeping during the day, which means both of us are cranky and frazzled by evening. I feed her on demand but she remains very small, even for her corrected age. She looks healthy but has only gained 1kg in the three months since she was discharged from hospital. This has been causing me a huge amount of worry, and last week it reached the point where I was clearly showing some of the symptoms of postnatal depression.

The NICU staff told me that mothers of prems are more likely than mothers of full term babies to suffer from postnatal depression (PND). My own mother suffered terribly from PND and I really don’t want to go there.

I hate to admit it, but I couldn’t stop crying as I phoned the hospital last week and asked to speak to someone about getting some help. I felt like a failure, even though I know it is not my fault. I also went through quite a few tissues while talking to my GP a few days later, but now I feel a sense of relief that, even if I don’t feel in control of things, I don’t have to try and cope with it all on my own.

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I found the following websites helpful in learning more about PND

Filed Under: Premmie Baby Health Issues