Tahnee: 6

When you start to look at dates it can be quite confusing ... do you go by the date (ie. number), or by weeks when referring to ages? For us we generally go by the date/number, and only use weeks for the first 3 months or so.

Going by that rule of thumb, our baby girl is 6 months old today! I've said it before, and I will say it again, TIME FLIES!

Reflecting on the last 6-12 months is bitter sweet. This time last year we knew we were expecting a baby and just wishing the horrid nausea would go away. Then a few short weeks later our lives changed with the diagnosis of CDH. What followed was a stressful half of pregnancy. And then a tense and anxious 34 days in hospital, including 2 surgeries and countless hours of baby gazing, wishing we were free to hold her whenever we wanted, wishing she could breath on her own, wishing she was normal ... only to realise that she was normal, just a different kind of normal ... and the feelings of anxiety, stress, frustration, worry, scare, and relief ... yes, relief! relief that there wee competent nurses and doctors and surgeons and cleaners and ward clerks and anaesthetist who were looking after our a precious miracle and were caring for her when we couldn't be there.

Bitter sweet is definitely the right word. And in a weird sense I still miss the hospital. Without the care and medical facilities that PMH provide, I may not be writing this post. I miss chatting with the nurses and I miss being able to leave and know that my baby was under someone else's responsibility, and I was free to focus my attention on all the things that we pushed to the back of our minds while inside the NICU. I don't miss, however, all the other stuff. You know what I mean if you have been in that situation.

But enough of the hospital memories. We now have a beautiful baby girl who is growing up before our eyes. In her 184 days of life (of which 150 have been spent at home) she has accomplished much. She can roll from tummy to back and back to tummy, she has cut teeth, tasted solids and she can swivel around on her tummy. Wont be long before she can crawl, walk, talk, run, talk back, start school, talk back some more, finish school, graduate, start work .... but now I'm getting WAY ahead of myself. We'll just focus on her being a baby first, cos all the other stuff will come fast enough on their own!!

Tahnee, we all love you and are so very thankful that you are part of our lives. You truly are our miracle baby and we look forward to watching you grow and learn over the next 6 months (til you're 1) and beyond.