Happy Birthday Olivia Faith...

Phew…what a busy, happy, emotional day!

Olivia turned one today… a whole year has passed since that early morning in that cold sterile theatre as the slow steady rhythm of the beeping machines in the background lulled me to sleep.

Beep, beep, beep … as I think back I can still smell the disinfectant in the room  and feel the Goosebumps prickle my skin under the warm blanket on that hard operating table.  I gulped back my fear, said a final pleading prayer and held on tight to Shane’s hand and then there was nothing…

Today those early days of anxiety mixed with excitement, and pure relief every time we got an update on Olivia’s progress seem light years away – did it really happen to us?

I watch Olivia play on the mat in the early morning sunshine, and I marvel at the miracle in front of me… to think, had I not the faith and the stubborn belief that we could make it, had I listened to the Doctors early warnings of deformity, mortality and more, had I made the choice to terminate this little mite, I would not be sitting here today watching a dinky, strong, feisty, loving little girl busily moving around the floor, playing with this and that, jabbering quietly and coming over every now and then to give her mum a cuddle and show me the toy she just picked out…

And then I am thankful, so very thankful that I was brought up in a Christian home, that I have the mother I do and the family that jumped to my support. Without my faith and special people this miracle girl would not be here, and were it not for one very dedicated and supportive Dr Coetsee, we would not have completed our family and we would have missed out on so, so much joy!

The world is a better place with Olivia in it and I thank heaven above for my daughter and my life.

Happy Birthday special girl, you have so much ahead of you and I would do it all again in a heartbeat, just to be able to see your silly smile and tickle those tiny feet.

Happy Birthday Baby Girl, Mama loves you lots and lots more than jelly tots…

PS: To all our special people; family, friends, doctors, nurses and even strangers…thank you from the bottom of my heart for standing with me through this last year and while I waited. Your prayers and encouragement kept me going and made today possible. While Olivia and my journey is far from over, I have been overwhelmed by your kindness and compassion and feel truly blessed for knowing you xxx

Note to self...

Funny thing life is, I am amazed at how awful it can feel one day and a few days later I feel just peachy again!  When I re-read  my last blog post I completely cringed…I so mustn’t blog when I’m down!  So I officially apologise for sounding so “all doom and gloomy”.

I think it is just taking me time to get my head around the fact that life as I knew it is no more, but I am sure that that is not the end of the world…I am just going to have to go through an adjustment period and learn to get over the frustration that I sometimes feel, and get used to my new normal.

My very wise mom always taught us that “you can do anything you put your mind to”, so clearly I just need to put my mind to this! It’s always worked in the past and is probably a contributing factor as to why Livie and I are here today!
So instead of longing for what was, I will have to redirect myself to focus on the little things that make my heart melt, make me laugh till I cry and just plain make me thankful to be alive…

For example;  Ballet watching day for parents at Izzy’s school, being able to be there and help for Kayla’s Zulu Day at school, watching Livie cuddle the baby bunnies with absolute glee, celebrating Father’s day with my long suffering husband (and reading the special cards our girls drew and wrote in for him). Being tickled by my nephew Tyler, the tickle monster and enjoying his subsequent waterfall of giggles! Laughing at my husband’s silly jokes, spending time with special friends, baking pretty things for my girls and the list could go on forever….

So in essence it always comes down to the little things and finding joy in them, and for that I will count my blessings daily!

Happy Father's Day!

These are my precious Girls as they are right now… we had so much fun taking these surprise pics for Shane for Father’s Day and I thought I’d share.

So enjoying my photography, and so enjoying my girls…

Very blessed.

Hospital Blues...

It’s been a tough two weeks for me, first Olivia had her next set of vaccinations on Tuesday. Three jabs, one in the leg and one in each arm…I thought by the third child I was pretty tough and could do this thing, but I had not banked on my littlest’s response! After distracting Livie after the first Jab, the clinic sister routinely swabbed Olivia’s arm for Jab #2 but my tiny girl knew exactly what that meant and starting shaking her head vehemently saying “ no, no, no”…my heart broke there and then…I felt like the meanest mom ever while trying to console her as she sobbed uncontrolably in my arms. Being a mom isn’t for sissy’s…

Then on Thursday Olivia had her one year ( insert EEEK here)check-up at the paed, which I was kinda dreading as I knew she had not grown like we had hoped. And sure enough, although her milestones are ahead of a full term 12 month baby {Go Livie}, her size and weight is still just dinky! At 11 ½ months she weighs just 7.02Kg’s and is still very comfortable in 3-6 month clothes. {So in essence she looks like a seriously advanced  5 month old  baby.}

The Paed ordered a full blood work up to see if we can find any contributing factors or problems…

Now that is where my tough week got worse, my little mite’s veins are just as tiny as her so you think the nurses at the pathology lab could find a vein!? I very dilligently an hour prior to going applied emla patches in all the relevant places to numb her so as to minimise any pain. What a joke!

After trying with no success while holding down my screaming baby, it was concluded that the standard technique was not going to work, and we’d have to revert to the “messy way” {insert cringe here} this meant inserting a tiny needle into her vein on the top of her little hand (which by the way, was bent backwards in a way that shouldn’t be possible) and over the course of the next hour I proceeded to hold her down while the nurses dripped her blood into the seven vials needed for testing! I don’t know who it was more traumatic for; Olivia, the nurses or me…

Fast forward to Monday morning 2am…I awoke, as I do now and then, wanting to crawl the walls in pain. I dragged myself up, careful not to wake anyone, took my painkillers and warmed my trusty bean bag in the microwave, crawled back into bed and braced myself.

A few hours later, the alarm went, Shane got up dressed for work, brought Livie to me for her feed and left, as he does at 6am…usually by then I have managed to get ontop of it and can get up, get the kids ready for school and take on the day. Not this morning… Kayla came through complaining of not feeling well and Izzy had been up a few times the night before with what I thought was a bladder infection. So I decided to just let them stay at home, as the thought of trying to get up was intimidating to say the least.  By 9am I called Shane at work as I could no longer handle the pain and he rushed home to help and took me straight to the nearest hospital.

There I proceeded to update the General Surgeon on Duty in Casualty as to my condition…here I received the normal expressions such as “you are one lucky lady to be alive!”…But I’ve got to say not feeling so lucky now!!!

Anyway after much discussion, Xrays and failed anti-inflammatories, it was decided to just take a 20mg shot of Cyclomorph (morphine mixed with an antiemetic to stop nausea) intravenously. This eventually numbed the pain and it was agreed that Shane could take me home and if I needed another dose or started vomitting (a sign of a full intestinal obstruction) I would just come back.

Sigh…Today the pain is a bit better and I can function again, but I must say this really is starting to get me down. I know that I should feel lucky to be alive, with all the good things in my life, but…being told that this is it, there is no more that they can do for me for now, that the adhesions are the result of saving my life and that until it is a matter of life and death they will not operate (not that I want another op anyway), and that who I was and what I was capable of is no more – well that just totally sux!

So today I have the blues…but not to worry tomorrow I will put on my big girl panties again and I will be better.

I haven’t scrapped for 2 years!

Right…my technological disaster is behind me now, although I am still in mourning for the loss of a few years’ worth of photographs, I have upgraded my computer, replaced all hard drives and set up an overkill backup system so that this NEVER happens again!

And so now I’m back to blogging and telling you all about the joy I find in the little things!

One of those “little things” is my scrapbooking… after the surprise birth of our first litter of bunnies; Kayla was desperate to take the bunnies to school for Show and tell. Clearly I refused due to a number of reasons and the negotiation was that if I took nice photo’s and did a scrapbook page, she could take that instead. *{all her idea}

Hence I was sentenced to a week or two of incessant nagging as to whether I had done “it” yet! Finally I pulled myself towards myself and voilà…

 Needless to say through the process I was reminded why I was so addicted to this hobby…it is sooo rewarding and I just love the feeling of achievement that I experience upon completing a layout. And the adoration of my biggest fans {Kayla & Izzy and Livie too} just completes the whole feel good process!

Being able to create just so feeds my soul! {Although Pinterest  has kept me going in the meantime} But the point is that I realised that I had not created a complete scrapbook layout in almost TWO YEARS!!! What was I thinking!?

So I’m going to attempt to do a layout a week {give or take} and here is my next one…

  The first layout of my beautiful baby girl – I just love it!

Well – watch this space as this afternoon if the weather holds, I’m going to attempt an autumn shoot with my Gorjus Girls xxx

Have a very happy weekend everyone - I plan to ;)