Two and a half weeks after my due date, we were finally able to bring baby Kate home.

She was nine days overdue and delivered via c-section twenty-two hours into my labour.  I know it sounds horrific but it actually wasn’t as bad as I thought. That’s really saying something considering nothing went at all as planned.   The really hard part came after she was born.  She inhaled meconium during delivery and had air leak from her lung to her chest cavity.  Seeing her being carted of immediately after delivery  in a large incubator with a million tubes stuck in her without being able to hold her or even touch her was heartbreaking. She spent a week in NICU and it was the longest week of our lives.  We were lucky enough to get a room at the Winnipeg Ronald McDonald House.  I don’t know what we would have done without it. But, every day she got a little better. We went from not being able to hold her to providing all of her care in hospital over a few days.

 

That we can care for her all the time without the constant gaze of well-intentioned nurses, doctors and social worker watching us constantly is amazing and scary. The fact that she is the most beautiful baby ever makes it a lot easier.

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