Friday August 19, Saturday August 20, Sunday August 21 and Monday August 22

What a blur the last few days have been. It started with a big high on Friday night with a visit from Kady Lacey from Broken Hill. It was so good to see her and introduce her to our little Stella Karine. We got up to the hospital on Friday night to find Stella off optiflow and doing well which was a great feeling. The nurse on with her took lots of photos for us of Stella with nothing on her face which was so good to finally get a good look at her tiny little face.

The next morning we went up to the NICU nursery to find that Stella had been promoted overnight to the special care baby unit (SCBU). She was still off optiflow and going ok but was having some transient braddys and desats but considering she had no breathing help that was to be half expected. Saturday afternoon it all camwe to a halt when I walked into SCBU to find nurses and doctors around her cot trying to get her to breathe. The poor little thing got so tired trying to breathe all by herself that she finally thought she'd have a break. Shame it doesn't go too well when she decided to have that break by stopping to breathe. Needless to say optiflow was put back on and there was lots and lots of tears shed by mummy. I can't even begin to explain the feeling of seeing your tiny little baby go blue and not taking big breaths. My whole body was willig her to get oxygen into her lungs, but she just didn't want to co-operate. She still has her large PDA in her heart which they are thinking is the reason she can sit on the slightest flow of air going into her lungs with no problem, but can't manage without it. There has been no date given for the PDA operation, but we should know in the next few days what is going on. Basically, if the PDA is too large or not closed they have to work twice as hard to breathe which ultimately affects when they can get off all breathing equipment. She just got too tired trying to work against her PDA so hopefully when it's closed she'll be able to bound ahead.

She has put on good weight gain in the last few days and now breaks the scales at 1450 grams or 3 pounds 3 ounces in the old scale. Still tiny but going ahead nicely. They'd like her to be a bit bigger before they sent her to theatre but they also don't want her breathing to suffer to much either so its a real juggling game at the moment.

Tomorrow morning she'll move back to NICU 1 because they don't have any beds left in NICU 2 so it feels like a big back track but at least she'll get the specialised care she needs at the moment. Currently they have a NICU nurse in SCBU just to look after her and another baby because both NICU nurseries are full.

Unfortunately the last few days were filled with many highs and lows which is just the rollercoaster that the NICU journey takes you on and even though we've been through it before you never ever get used to seeing your baby in intensive care and the need to protect and help them along is always there and it tears my heart that I can't do anything to make her journey a little bit easier on her. Time, age and growth are the only things that will get her where we want her to be and we just have to wait for all of those to happen.

Dan and Harvey are leaving to come Wednesday morning. It will be great to see my boys and give them big cuddles. It will also be good to know that if Stella goes to theatre this week, they'll be here to see her before it. I'm so so proud of how Dan is managing working and looking after Harvey and look forward to spending time with our little tornado while Dan sits for a bit with Stella.

Hoping and praying that Stella puts on some weight and starts to breathe a bit easier,
Love to all our family and friends and thank you for all your continued love and support,
Lauren xoxo