Welcoming Baby Daniel Matthew

It was this time last year we were welcoming little James into our lives – now we welcome Daniel Matthew, born at 7.30pm on Monday 25th January 2010, after 60min established labour!  My, they are getting quicker!!!  Daniel was born almost exactly the same weight as his brother James at 8lb 4oz (3.77kg) – 20g difference between them!!

It’s been a hectic week, with Daniel being admitted to the Special Care Nursery, then transferred to the Intensive Care Nursery with Respiratory Distress Syndrome.  I am blessed that something that should have been very stressful and terrifying for a mum of a newborn, was actually quite calm and easy to deal with, due to my association with the ACOCP.  Sure, I have been plenty worried and I was really keen to just scoop my baby up and cuddle him, but when you can see everything is being done for him and have seen much, much worse with other sweet babies, perspective helps keep your cool.

I am eternally thankful for knowing my lovely friend Amanda, who works in the Mater ICN.  Amanda helped me through my first couple of ACOCP shoots (and Fiona Carson was with me for my first, too) and was a huge part in making me comfortable in the ICN.  Strangly, it seemed fairly routine from my very first visit to Daniel as I had been there before for other people’s bubs.  Amanda was also relentless with the txts, checking up on Dan & I, even after leaving the hospital.  Thanks.  xx

So, as surreal as it seemed photographing it, here is Daniel’s second day in ICN.  The feeding tube in his mouth was moved to his nose just after the photos were taken, though he was still being IV fed at this stage.

Daniel is a lot better now and we are both home from hospital.  He is eight days old.

“Yay!!”

Thanks for everyone’s well-wishes, texts, emails and notes on Facebook.  As a family, we are blessed to be surrounded by such loving and caring people.
xx S.