Its your FIRST BIRTHDAY! A year ago, we didn't let ourselves dream about celebrating this very special day. A year ago, we sat by your bedside in NICU at KEMH, tentatively stroking your hand and wondering what your future held. A year ago, we fell in love again, with you, our precious baby girl.
You have been through a lot over the last year. When we look back and say you spent 34 days in hospital, we realise it wasn't actually that many days. But at the time, it felt like forever. I can still clearly remember the day you were born, being told by our midwife that I would get to have a brief cuddle with you before being ventilated, and I remember holding you and realising you were a shade of grey/blue!! Yes we knew you would come out not being able to breathe, but it was still a shock. However you stabilised quickly and did so well.
We both spent every day with you, waiting for our first cuddles on day 11, cuddling you when we were allowed to every day there after, holding your hand, feeding you and changing you when we were allowed, talking to you.
We wheeled you to surgery twice, once more than we had been expecting. It was heart wrenching to watch your tiny body being put through so much. But we are thankful too, as it means you are alive!
We have blogged about most of your achievements over the last year. You have learnt to sleep through the night, roll, crawl, sit and stand. You are still working on the standing by yourself and walking thing, but you will get there ... one day ... in your own time ... just like everything else about you :)
One of your more recent achievements that we have yet to blog about is that you have worked out how to go from crawling to sitting. We were getting a little concerned as your bother was doing this a long time before you, but Kate, the child health nurse, assured us it was nothing to worry about and that you were concentrating on healing your protruding abdominal hernia.
Tahnee, you bring our family so much joy. You have taught us many things over the last few years, ... such as patience and a capacity to love so dearly ... and your journey has made us face our deepest worries ... fears of hospitals, needles, surgeries and those very quiet thoughts that told us we would be unable to love another child like we love Lucas. We have travelled this journey with you and realised that when needed, we can sit by a hospital bed, with canula's, IV's, external organs and more, and that yes we are able to love another child as much as our firstborn.
We are thankful that you have survived and that you are so healthy now. Yes, we still have our worries and concerns ... keeping you away from yucky germs, your weight gain, your development. But these seem minor compared to the big worry of you surviving or not.
We love you Princess Tahnee, from your unruly, sticky-uppy hair to your feet that are already capable of producing bad foot odour and everything in between, but mostly we love your smile and your scar ... and we hope that we have been to able to show you what its means to be loved. We are looking forward to what the next year will bring us and we rest secure in that knowledge of this verse from Jeremiah 29 "For I know the plans I have for you,"declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future".
All our love,
Mum, Dad and Lucas
xxx
p.s. even though we celebrated your birthday early, so many remembered to congratulate us on the day. We received text messages, face book messages and comments and a little note on the CDH Australia forum.
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