Family Resemblance?

I think there are some definite Ireland genes at work here...these are some pics of Eliza our niece (Zac and Fraze's daughter) and Cami at a similar age. Sometimes we feel we could be looking at photos of the same girl! If Cami had slightly chubbier cheeks.....

Eliza

Cami

Cami

Eliza

Eliza

Cami

Back to just us four

It has been a wonderful few months with visitors galore. My sister Sally was here for a month getting a behind he scenes look at life on maternity leave! A highlight of her visit was a Girls Week in Croatia. We stayed in the island of Hvar. It was beautiful, very relaxing and we had a great time. While it was sad to say goodbye at least it's only a few months until we see each other again in Melbourne. We are planning a visit around Christmas. Here are a few photo from Sally's trip!



Cami's 3rd flight, seasoned traveller!


The view from our balcony in Hvar



Taking in the sights and super yachts at Hvar harbor



Getting into the holiday mood!



Big eyes taking in the world



Beautiful Hvar



On a boat to one of the smaller islands. The baby carrier was a must - so many steps in Croatia = not pram friendly.




A happy morning girl, unlike her auntie Sally (at least until she's had her morning coffee!)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Summer Holiday in Fayence, South France

We returned a couple of weeks ago from a fantastic holiday - 2 weeks in the South of France. We were so lucky to be able to take Cooba with us - Joel drove our car down there and Cami and I flew down and met him and Cooba in Nice. It was such a wonderful holiday shared with two other families - Aud Trude, Kristian and Oliver, as well as Mari, Kev, Oscar and Elliot.

One thing I realised when compiling this album is we've become the typical first-time parents and taken 500,000,000 photos of Cami and hardly any of anyone or anything else! We will be sure to remedy this next time. Seasoned Campaigners Mari and Kev are clued onto this and have a much better set of pics showing the house we stayed in and lots of photos of the whole crew, the link to their blog is in the list of links in the top right so feel free to stop by there for some other photos. But boy do we have some cute photos of our little girl!

In other news, Sally arrives tomorrow, and I'm pumped!!

Double click on the photos to view the slideshow.

A Happy Little Girl

Well I blinked and already its May! Time flies when you're having fun, and I'm finding that so true. Our little girl is now 3 1/2 months old. I glanced back at some pregnancy photos and got a bit of a shock, I struggle to remember now how it felt to be pregnant, to have that huge baby bump and all the baby wriggles, awkward movement and how it felt to have a bladder capacity of an egg cup! I did love being pregnant, but it's fantastic to have my 'old' body back - more or less, be it a little battle scarred.

I really love being a stay at home mum. Its a dramatic change which happened literally overnight, but I feel I'm into the swing of things now. Cami is such a beautiful, happy little girl she makes each day a pleasure. I've been busy with all our wonderful guests (more on that in a minute), a weekly meet-up with a group of other mums who are all ex-pats whom we met through our birthing course, I just finished a 3 week baby massage course... the days fill up so easily and the weeks just fly past.

Cami is absolutely awesome. Seriously. She is amazing. There were times during the first 6 weeks of her life when Joel and I would look at each other and ask "is this what it's going to be like now? Did we get a dodgy one?" and we were only half joking. She is sleeping beautifully at night, and any parent will tell you that if you get a 'decent' amount of sleep at night then you can cope with most of what the day will throw at you. There's a reason sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture! We have a great night time routine with Cami now and she sleeps from 7pm until around 5.30am, with a wake up at around 2 or 3am for a quick feed. Joel usually brings her in to bed with us at 5.30am, and then after a feed he takes her downstairs with him while he gets ready for work while I get an extra 45mins or so of zzzz time (so precious). Then Cami and I usually snooze until around 8 if I'm lucky and depending on what mood she's in!

I know how lucky we are and that for many parents of a 3 month old that kind of sleep routine is just a pipe dream, so we're really appreciating our clever little sleeper! I think it has helped for us to create a definite ritual/routine which we do almost exactly the same way every night - bath at 6.30, swaddle her tightly in a wrap, top up feed (even if her last feed wasn't that long before), and down to sleep by 7. She may stir 2 or 3 times after that, but usually just plugging her dummy back in does the trick and her gorgeous little blue eyes roll back in her head and she's off to la la land again immediately. I also think moving her into her own room really helped, it makes the night feeds much more efficient and effective, rather than us both dozing off in bed mid-feed, this way although I have to get up for the feed I know she's getting enough milk, and I can sleep so much more comfortably when she's not in the bed! The rocking chair I upholstered is getting heaps of use for those night time feeds in Cami's room.

Cami is smiling all the time, in the last couple of weeks she has just started to grasp things and hold them, sometimes bringing them to her mouth. She is really interacting heaps with loads of eye contact and lots of adorable little noises and squeals. She isn't rolling yet, or laughing but I don't think those things will be far away. She's losing quite a lot of her newborn hair which was quite dark and she seems to be growing a new crop which is more blonde. I wonder if she might be a beautiful little strawberry blonde girl like her Auntie Sally. We'll see.

My parents came to see us for 2 weeks and just left early this week. It's still a little raw for me actually, I'm sure you can understand why. Seeing Mum and Dad with their first grandchild was so incredibly special and beautiful. Mum especially just adores babies and children and she slipped into 'Grandma' mode effortlessly and perfectly. She was wonderful with Cami, very hands-on and took every possible opportunity for cuddles and time with her. No nappy was too pooey, no grizzle too daunting. Dad loved his Cami cuddles and kisses, I absolutely loved seeing them together. Watching Mum and Dad say goodbye to Cami at the airport to fly out for the rest of their trip in Europe broke my heart a bit, and to be honest it hasn't quite mended yet. Cami is changing and growing so much, and she's such a special little girl, it weighs heavily on my heart that she is not able to see all her wonderful family all the time, and they can't drop by for cuddles. Thank goodness for Skype and our fantastic family who are going to so much effort to see us and stay in regular contact. We've been absolutley blown away by the generosity shown by everyone with sending their messages, cards and gifts. Cami is such a lucky little girl to be welcomed into the world with so much love and care. It makes Joel and I feel very humble indeed.

In the coming weeks and months we have loads to look forward to. Joel's sister Emma arrives next week to stay with us for a week. She's so excited to meet Cami it's wonderful of her to take a week out of her European trip to come and see us. Not long after that Joel, Cami, Cooba and I are off to the south of France for 2 weeks with some friends for a holiday. We're renting a villa in a little town called Fayence, about 20km inland, north of St Raphael/Cannes area. We're going with Mari, Kev, Oscar and Elliot, and Aud Trude, Kristian and Oliver. Can't wait! After that Sally is coming to visit. So lots on the agenda and an exciting few months ahead.

with Mum and Dad in Oslo (overnight trip to get Cami's Aussie Passport)



Beautiful smiley girl

First cuddles with Grandma and Grandad

9 weeks and counting!

Cami is now 9 weeks old and is just going from strength to strength. We continue to notice and appreciate the change in her since she turned 6 weeks old. Looking back on that time we think wow - that was tough. Our sister in law Fraze said that the 6 week mark was a milestone and things can improve quite a bit, and how right she was. Cami is now in her own bedroom and we’re able to settle her in the evening between about 7 and 8pm and she will sleep until around 2, or if we’re lucky she’ll even last a few hours longer than that. The two biggest improvements are that she’s happier during the days – whereas before she’d be always grizzling or crying during her awake time, now she is very content and smiling and can happily sit in her bouncinette. The other big change is settling her to sleep. It used to take aaaaaggggeeeesssss and you could only put her down in her cot once she was really truly dead asleep. Now after a cuddle we can put her down and more often than not she will drop off to sleep on her own. This is a huge improvement and it has given us back our evenings and also makes the night feeds much easier.

We’re really enjoying our little girl. She is growing more alert and interacting more all the time. Lots of eye contact, smiles, she is just so unbelievably cute! Joel and I are feeling a bit more in ‘control’ of our daily routine now and understand her signals much better – when is she tired/hungry etc. We’ve also picked up some tricks (or maybe she has gotten used to the things we do to calm her) so now when she’s crying and upset we can sooth her more easily. We find putting her upright cuddling against our shoulder/chest, shooshing and doing squats really helps. We saw a midwife do it in the hospital and it worked brilliantly so we’ve been doing it ever since. Not a bad leg/butt work out either for us!

Joel’s mum Bernadette is visiting us at the moment. It has been wonderful to see her with Cami, her third granddaughter. She adores her and I think the feeling is mutual. She has been a big help to us and Joel has taken holidays while she’s visiting so it has been great. My parents are due in a couple of weeks too, and to say my mum is excited to meet her first grandchild would be a bit of an understatement!

Off now to enjoy some beautiful easter sunshine. Enjoy the holiday everyone!

It's a Girl!

So blog posts don’t get much bigger than this! Maybe that’s why its taken so long to write this one…! Well that or we’ve had our hands rather full!

On Tuesday February 15^th at 16:05 our beautiful little girl, the wriggly one I’d been taking care of for the past 9 months, was born. Finally we got to see those adorable little heels we could feel poking out under my ribs, see the hiccups that had been gently rocking my stomach, and thank our lucky stars that we managed to bring her safely into the world. She is perfect in every way.

She weighed 2.91kg, or 6 lb 6 oz in the old measurements, and measured 49cm in length. Her name is Cami Louise Ireland.

Her birth was absolutely amazing. My contractions started at about 3.30am on the 15^th, 6 days before my due date. I had an unsettled night’s sleep and was up and down to the bathroom a lot (even more than usual!) and some back pain and period pain type cramps had started. I waited half an hour or so before I woke Joel up as by then I had the feeling this could be it. Well…actually I wasn’t sure as Mum had told me she and Dad were at the hospital 3 times with false labour before I was born, but in any case I had a feeling it was labour, false or not!

Joel phoned the hospital to get some advice as I’d been measuring quite small for the previous couple of weeks of my pregnancy and the doctor had advised us that the baby was 29% below average size. The midwife said to hang in there at home and to come into the hospital when things started to get intense. We stayed in bed until about 5.30am but by then I needed to get up and move around to manage the pain. Joel lit the fire and some candles, put on some music, fed Cooba, and actually we just sort of looked at each other a lot saying “wow, this is it!” The contractions started very regularly right from the beginning – about 5 minutes apart and lasting about a minute. Before too long I needed Joel to help me with heat packs, massage, and a hand to hold onto during the contractions. We felt really well prepared from the birth course we attended so we knew what we needed to do and just got on with it.

By about 9.30am I felt like I needed to go to the hospital. We’d almost used up the hot water already at home in the shower, the contractions were very painful and I wanted to make sure our ‘small’ baby would be ok – I wanted to be reassured that the baby’s heartbeat was strong and she wasn’t being stressed by the contractions (I had been told my amniotic fluid which cushions the baby during the contractions was at the low end of the normal amount). We actually walked to the hospital as it’s literally down the end of our street! A small aside – it had been a really windy couple of days in Stavanger in the lead up to the 15^th, there was a big exhaust tower at the hospital which had been blown by the wind and was at quite an precarious angle and at risk of collapsing taking out the ambulance station and probably the supermarket over the road, the whole street was cordoned off, there were police everywhere, we actually had to cross a police cordon to get to the door of the hospital. They tried to stop us and I think Joel really loved telling them he had a wife in labour and that they had to let us through! Which they did.

Once we got to the labour department they checked me, the baby was fine and I was 2cm dilated. It was at that point as I’m sure any mum would tell you I was of the opinion that I’d been having strong regular contractions for 5-6 hours so my response was “2cm – is that bloody all???!!!!”. We were told we could stay at the hospital or go home for a while, I decided we should stay. We were able to use the ‘fødeloft’ or birthing loft in the hospital – which is basically like a birthing centre up on the 7^th floor. We settled into our room with a nice view over the hospital grounds including the leaning tower. I was very keen to use the bath as I knew the benefits of pain relief that warm water could bring from my experience over Christmas. So we ran a bath, the midwife provided some aromatherapy oil, and off we went. Joel was again doing a great job with the massage and encouragement, iced water, whatever I needed. He was there with me through each and every contraction and didn’t leave my side.

It’s hard to remember the timing of everything as it all sort of went in a blur. It didn’t seem like very long (I guess it must have been a few hours) and I was checked again and was about 6-7cm dilated. So that felt like good progress. Back in the bath for a bit longer and before long the contractions intensified. I think some time around then my waters broke but as I was in the bath it was a bit hard to tell! As things really got going I got out of the bath. The midwife said I was about 9cm and almost ready to start pushing. I think at that stage they did a bit of acupuncture just to encourage the last cm or so of dilation. The midwife also attached a fetal scalp monitor to the baby. By about 2.30pm I went through the transition stage (holy moly) and was ready to start pushing. There is a policy at Stavanger hospital that you can push for an hour. If the baby isn’t born in that timeframe, they intervene to help things along. By about 3.30pm with a lot of pushing Cami hadn’t been born.

At that point things really changed. It went from being Joel, the midwife and I to all of a sudden I was put onto a bed and wheeled down to the 1^st floor. I went into a room with about 8 people in it – doctor, trainee doctor, midwives, nurses. Two nurses were inserting an IV, another doing a catheter (ouch), the doctor prepared the ventouse vacuum device. There was an awful lot of swearing, sweating and plenty of general yelling during the delivery, and that was just from Joel! Eventually, finally, excruciatingly she was born. She was put straight onto my chest, I asked if it was a boy or a girl, someone told us it was a girl. Joel was crying, Cami was crying as they rubbed her down but she was a little distressed after the tough delivery so her breathing and cries were a not as strong as they like to see. So she was whisked off to the doctor for a bit of help breathing. She was in great shape, and her condition improved really quickly.

They wheeled her in her warm humidicrib into my room within about 15 minutes so I could see her but then she had to go to the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) for check ups and monitoring. Frustratingly I had to remain lying in bed until my bleeding stopped. This took about 3-4 hours so Joel was ferrying back and forth between Cami in the NICU and me. The labour was so tough, but geez being apart from my baby for the first few hours of her life was the worst. It felt surreal “did that really just happen?”. My wonderful husband though managed to convince a nurse in the NICU to hand over her other patients to someone else and bring Cami down to see me. It was a few hours after her delivery but this was the first time I got to have a cuddle and we had a try at breast feeding. That was special. Finally my beautiful, perfect little girl was in my arms. Joel got my vote for ‘husband of the year’ for making that happen. Again, like at Christmas, I think his experience in navigating the hospital system came in very handy – he was able to be proactive and push for the hospital staff to meet our needs.

By about 8pm Cami was back at NICU and my bleeding had finally stopped and I could have something to eat and a shower. Joel and I at that point headed across to the ‘birth hotel’ – a hotel within the hospital for parents with newborns. We were able to go and see Cami whenever we wanted but they recommended we come in every 3 hours starting at midnight to feed Cami. We then had the exciting task of phoning our family back in Melbourne. By then it was about 9.30 or 10pm so we were able to share the excitement with our family first thing on their Wednesday morning. Everyone was so thrilled and excited, it was wonderful but of course bittersweet as they are so far away and it would be a little while before they would be able to meet her.

Joel and I both went over to the NICU for the midnight visit and feed. I changed Cami’s nappy for the first time. We had a bit more success this time with feeding (the first time we only got her ‘latched on’ for a few minutes.

I went over for the 3am feed but Joel slept through. He was exhausted and I guess didn’t have the hormonal ‘high’ to keep him going through the night! But he joined us at 6am, when we were told she would be checked out by the paediatrician in the morning and hopefully could be ‘discharged’ to our care around noon.

So at noon the following day she was checked out by the paediatrician and given the all clear. She needed to have some follow up blood tests as there was a mild elevation in her CRP (infection) levels in her blood, but nothing to worry about and they were trending downwards. She was doing really well and we were so thrilled that finally we could take over her care. We spent 3 nights in the hospital (at the birth hotel) and the midwives were fantastic, available all day and night and they gave us loads of help and advice on everything from bathing to breastfeeding and much more. We came home on Friday ready for the weekend, we walked home with Cami in her pram. It had snowed so everything was white and it was a beautiful day, lots of blue sky and sunshine.

Latest News

Well that took me a while to write over a few snatched minutes at the laptop. Now Cami is just over 6 weeks old. She is growing heaps (4.24kg and 54cm at her 6 week check up) and already growing out of some of her newborn clothes! We have had some tough days and nights with her that’s for sure, but it feels like when we hit the 6 week mark things have taken a bit of a turn for the better. We’re finding her to be more settled with her feeding, digestion and sleep and overall just a more contented baby. We hope this new phase lasts as she continues to grow.

Other changes we’re seeing are that she’s now much more alert, making eye contact, and the big milestone – she’s started to smile! It’s wonderful to know that she is feeling happy! She is thoroughly gorgeous (of course!), we think she has Joel’s eyes, my nose and the rest remains to be seen!

We’ve had a lovely visit from Joel’s dad John who came to stay with us for 5 days in late March, and his mum Bernadette will arrive in a week to stay for a fortnight. My parents will be coming after that during May, followed by Joel’s sister Emma, and then probably Sally will head over mid-summer. It will be a busy time with lots of visitors but we’re very excited to introduce Cami to many of her family members.

Also we had a very exciting event in my family with Brett’s marriage to Sam on the 20^th March. It was a beautiful wedding which we would have dearly loved to have attended in person. Unfortunately Cami’s passport wasn’t ready in time. Luckily though I was able to see and hear all the highlights ‘live’ on Skype! Technology really came through for us thanks to Jeff and Denise Mills who arranged this using their wireless internet and laptop.

I will try to update the blog more frequently, but for now we’re off to start a busy day. Cami is asleep and mothers of newborns certainly know how those precious minutes are to get some things done before she awakes and needs my full attention.

38 Weeks, The Countdown is On!

It has been an eventful couple of weeks. Cyclones in Queensland, floods in Melbourne, a very special little baby arrived in Stavanger (not ours!).

I’m up to 38 weeks and I’m feeling great. I’m really enjoying being on maternity leave (started a week ago @37 weeks) and am working my way through a long ‘to do’ list of bits and pieces around the house, preparing for the baby’s arrival.

My thoughts now are really on the labour and really I’m just hoping and praying for a healthy baby.

My girlfriends in Stavanger threw me a gorgeous baby shower on Thursday night. I knew they had something planned but thought it was meant to be this weekend, so got quite a surprise when I showed up at Aud Trude and Kristian’s house for dinner only to find loads of pink and blue decorations and a room full of girls shouting ‘surprise’!! It was a really lovely evening, lots of baby talk of course and our mates all chipped in and bought us a beautiful hand crafted cradle which we will keep downstairs in our living room for baby’s daytime naps. Thanks so much to everyone and despecially to Louise and Aud Trude for arranging everything, it was a really special night. A baby shower isn’t a Norwegian tradition at all so for many of the girls it was their first (but hopefully not their last – it might catch on)!

On Monday 24^th January we were so excited to hear about the arrival of Mari and Kev’s baby, a boy, Elliot Murphy. He is a little treasure, absolutely perfect in every way and is sleeping and feeding like a champion. His big brother Oscar is so lucky to have a little brother, we can just imagine how much fun they’re going to have growing up!

I’ve also been asked to be a fadder (Godmother) to Aud Trude and Kristian’s beautiful little boy Oliver. His christening is 20^th February, the day before our due date so we hope to be able to make it either with a big belly or a little baby!

I finished quite a big project I started quite some time ago – a rocking chair. I quite liked the idea of having one for use when nursing. I found a really nice old second hand one and decided to try my hand at reupholstering it. I found some great videos on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/user/diyupholsterysupply#p/u/13/jWyZEbNAnmU) giving step by step instructions on how to do it. I bought some fabric on ebay and had to chase up a local upholsterer to buy some tacks and other supplies as it seems DIY upholstery hasn’t really taken off here in Norway and I struggled to find supplies online. Anyway I finally finished the job today. I’m really happy with the end result. I’m actually sitting in it by the fire as I type this blog post! I learned a lot about how to do it so maybe I’ll find some more projects during my year away from work.

So that’s it from us, waiting patiently and putting all the finishing touches on the baby’s room. We’ve now put up some shelves, a heater and curtains for the nursery. Here it is now almost ready for our little one to settle into.



Bump Watch

Ok ... so this is my first blog post in a while, so I have decided to show off my lovely wife and her gorgeous bump!  I borrowed my company's studio gear (studio flashes/strobes, radio triggers, backdrops, etc) and set up Emma for a photo shoot. 

These were shot on 12th December which was the week before we went to Switzerland for Bec and Terry's Swiss wedding.  Em was about 31 weeks along at that stage.  A lot has happened since then such as our Christmas and New year spent at the hospital. Now Emma is 35 weeks and getting bigger by the day.  I hope we will be able to do some more bump shots in the last 5 weeks so stay tuned.

Now for my beautiful wife and her lovely bump.





Getting on with getting excited

So a couple of weeks on from the surgery and things are most definitely looking up. My recovery has been quite quick and it’s such a relief to be free from pain, apart from the usual aches of being 35 weeks pregnant! I’ve had a couple of weeks off work to recuperate and feel like I’m physically and mentally ready to go back to work on Monday, at least for 2 more weeks before my maternity leave starts. Here in Norway it’s mandatory to start your leave 3 weeks before the due date.

So I’ve spent my days over the last couple of weeks just taking things easy. I’ve had quite a few days doing not much but watching telly and annoying Cooba with cuddles while he’s trying to snooze on his bed. I’ve been making the most of sleeping in, a lazy breakfast, loads of time reading The Age online, facebook stalking, all the usual pastimes!

Joel and I have also been getting the baby’s room ready. We’re planning to have him/her in a cot in our bedroom initially as I think it will make life a bit easier for me with night feeds, but we’ll have a room ready to go with all the other accoutrements for when we’re all ready to have a wall between us at night! Joel had initially planned to do the full box-and-dice renovation on the room (which used to be the study) involving plastering and down lights. But after our Xmas/New Years dramas we agreed it was just too much effort and stress to worry about, so we settled for a fresh coat of paint, new cornices and window/door edging (what’s that called again, the Norwegian word is Lists, I’ve forgotten the English word!) and a lovely new light fitting. Joel took care of all of that over a couple of days, and now has assembled a new cupboard (hooray for extra storage space!), the baby’s cot, change table and pram. We still need to put up some window coverings, add some shelves, a rug for the floor, a heater and some cosiness.



Before the renos





painting done, new light, before the cornices/edging





Ikea flat pack ready to assemble



My handy husband making short work of the Ikea assembly

Cupboard, cot, change table assembled. iRobot doing its thing cleaning up

I’ve pulled out all the clothes and things I bought at the second hand sale back in September and have washed all the little teeny tiny little outfits and things. Wow, cute. I have to say I think I may have overbought on the ‘newborn’ sized clothes and have loads of clothes in neutral white, green, yellow etc. I don’t mean to sound presumptuous at all but if you happen to want to shop for clothes for baby Ireland, he/she could definitely use some 3-6+ mth sizes in girl or boy colours or styles as we are honestly pretty well set now for 0-3mths with lots of gender neutral clothes.



Lots of teeny clothes ready to put into the baby's new cupboard

 So this weekend Joel is off on a cross country ski trip with Ryan and Charles. They leave Friday night and ski to a cabin to stay the night, then spend Saturday touring around returning to the cabin again on Saturday night. They’ll ski back on Sunday. I’m pretty sure this will be the last time I’d be happy for Joel to be out of phone range and not very accessible in the lead up to the due date, but he’ll have a fantastic time.

Me? Well I’m under strict instructions from Joel not to do anything remotely strenuous that might bring on early labour! I’ll hopefully be able to spend some time with Louise and maybe some other girlfriends while Joel is away.

A not so Merry Christmas after all

Well it’s been a bit of radio silence from the Irelands in Norway these last couple of weeks. You last heard from us returned from an amazing trip to Switzerland, and looking forward to a quiet but enjoyable Christmas and a trip to the mountains for New Years.

Well it was a great plan, but unfortunately wasn’t to be. I woke up on Christmas Eve morning experiencing quite a bit of pain. I guess this is a bit of a debrief for me as well just to write down what happened. Maybe I’ll be accused of over-sharing, so be it. I don’t mind sharing what we’ve been through, it’s a bit rare but just goes to show even the most ‘normal’ pregnancy can take a bit of a turn… but as I said it’s all ok in the end so don’t worry! Now if you’re not good with hearing about gory pregnancy details and medical stuff I suggest you skip to the happy ending in the last paragraph!

So yes, pain. Right side abdominal pain. It has been a somewhat reoccurring theme for me in this pregnancy to have some pain – I was hospitalised for 2 days back in October for the same thing and have had a couple of milder doses in between. But then I believe the diagnosis was something many pregnant women experience – constipation. Glamorous isn’t it, this pregnancy caper! During pregnancy the hormones in your system slow down your digestion so that the baby can get as many nutrients as possible from the food you digest, just my luck that my damn system was so good at this that things would grind to a halt every now and then. I was managing it with diet and fluids and exercise (or so I thought) so was quite annoyed when I got this mega pain on the 24th December.

So I just thought, ok I’ll just get through this painful few hours and all will be fine. Problem was the hours turned into a day, turned into 2 days, 3 days and no relief. I was very sick (pain and vomiting) and on Boxing Day we decided it was time to go to the hospital to make sure the baby was ok and to see what was going on. They monitored the baby at hospital and told us he/she was fine, that it probably was constipation again and I should take some pretty simple treatments (I won’t go into details there…!) and it should be ok. By then I had stopped vomiting, and was just feeling drained and still in a lot of pain.

I managed to get my system ‘working’ again, was able to start to eat and drink a bit and thought things were on the improve. But there was still the pain. And the pain if anything got worse. So I soldiered through a few more days at home with paracetamol and hot showers until on 30th December I thought I needed to go to the GP because the pain was terrible and it just wasn’t going away. I was pretty sure this wasn’t just a stubborn poo anymore…

The GP took a simple finger prick blood test which showed some elevated levels of infection/inflammation, so it was over to the hospital for more tests. At the hospital they were thinking along the lines of appendicitis. This wasn’t news to us – it was what they had to rule out back in October during my last hospital visit. Problem was it some of the symptoms didn’t really support it and the stage of my pregnancy complicated it all – everything in the abdomen moves around and changes so much it’s hard to know what is going on. Anyway, they did an ultrasound and found an area of inflammation, and came in on the evening of 30th December and said they wanted to operate on suspected appendicitis.

GETTING EXAMINED IN EMERGENCY ROOM IN HOSPITAL

Joel and I were of course very worried and nervous about the affects of an operation and general anaesthesia on the baby (32 weeks). We were also a little nervous that the particular young surgeon who bowled over to my bedside and announced that they wanted to operate right away seemed a bit scalpel-happy and wasn’t doing the things we asked – ie. To consult with a senior obstetrician and senior anaesthetist (who we would also like to speak to) to get some advice. So to be honest Joel and I were being difficult and asking lots of questions.

Fortunately there was a shift change and the next surgeon who came on duty was a lot more diligent and came and spoke to us at length. He’d sat down with the radiographer who did the ultrasound and his consultant surgeon and discussed what it could be. After much discussion of the ultrasound and my case history (6 days of pain) they felt it was likely that the appendix had already burst and created an abscess and that the best approach would be to treat it with antibiotics overnight and then drain the wound. They could also see if the antibiotics had any affect to shrink it overnight. They/we were cautious about doing any more tests such as a CT scan due to the risk of exposing the baby to harmful radiation. So it was a bit of guesswork and deduction involved.

So I was of course happy that I wasn’t about to be wheeled into surgery, but also not that thrilled with the idea of a burst appendix in my abdomen! The next morning, New Years Eve, they did another ultrasound and Joel, the radiographer and I were joined in the lab by about 4 other radiographers, including we think some pretty senior doctors, and our original radiographer came up with a new theory, that it was actually a twisted ovary, not the appendix after all. There were lots of nods and pats on the back for this switched-on guy as all the pieces seemed to fit that diagnosis, and it was quite left-of-field.

So then I was transferred over to gynaecology, and they advised the only treatment was surgery. Fortunately there was a very experienced laparoscopic gyno surgeon on duty and she would be operating on me. Some calming words from our friend Jonno Evans, an anaesthetist in Melbourne about the surgical risks to the baby (minimal) and I was in the theatre within the hour. I was scared of course but just trying to remain calm for the baby. One of the biggest risks for the pregnancy was that I would go into premature labour, and I knew that I just had to remain calm and composed, I’m quite proud that I managed it. As I was being taken to theatre a surgeon said to me “normally we’d give you some relaxant drugs before you go into theatre but you seem quite calm, I don’t think that you need that”. Our poor baby had already had to put up with more drugs than we’d ever want, so I was pleased that at least I could do that.

So the surgery went very well, they found that my ovary had twisted twice and the tissue had died. There was absolutely no chance to save it so it was removed. Post-op I was moved into a really lovely private room up on the top floor of the hospital with a fantastic view over Stavanger. Joel was with me as we watched the fireworks start to light up the sky on new years eve. We felt quite happy at this point – happy the surgery had gone well, happy the source of my week-long pain had been identified and resolved, happy that I wasn’t in labour! We were happy that we’d worked together and with the doctors to continuously question the diagnosis, the risks and benefits of the plans that were outlined to us, and advocated for ourselves and our baby to ensure we got the best possible care. We also put our faith in the doctors who we know were thorough, diligent and skilled, and who communicated with us about what was going on, including those things they weren’t sure of.

JOEL WITH SMUGGLED IN RED WINE TO HOSPITAL ON NEW YEARS EVE (7th FLOOR WITH GREAT VIEW OF FIREWORKS ALL OVER THE CITY)

JOEL SMUGGLED IN SOME SWEETS AND TREATS (INCLUDING S&V CHIPS) TO HELP ME RECUPERATE

So now I’m into day 3 post-op and although I have some normal post operative pain, I can’t say how relieved I am to have the original pain gone. The focus now is just to rest, get moving again (physio Joel has me on a pretty good rehab plan!), eat well and recuperate. Joel has been an absolute solid rock of support over the 10 days, I couldn’t imagine going through this with anyone else, he is just amazing. He’s been running around after a wife in pain, keeping family informed, talking with doctors, taking care of Cooba. He has spent almost every minute with me at the hospital just going home to feed Cooba and sleep. I am so lucky to have the most wonderful husband in the world. So now we’re just looking forward to a completely uneventful next 7 weeks or so until the baby arrives. We are also hugely looking forward to the arrival in a few weeks of Mari and Kev’s second child, a little brother or sister for my god son Oscar. So much to be thankful for.

Happy New Year everyone!

A Month of Pre-Baby Travel

This month is a month of travel. Joel has spent a week with 3 mates in Iceland on a bit of an adventure holiday. I had 5 days away at the European Resuscitation Council conference in Porto, Portugal. We’re about to hop onto a plane this week to go and see Bec, Terry, Jade, Diane, Rene and all Bec’s lovely Swiss friends for their wedding in Solothurn! It’s so exciting, one of the biggest bummers about living overseas and so far away is missing out on some of those big occasions in the lives of our friends and families. We’ve missed out on heaps of weddings. So when we found out that there’d be one in Europe, and especially for our lovely Bec who was one of my beautiful bridesmaids, well there’s no way in the world we’d miss it! We’ll be sure to upload some pics.

Late last month Joel and I also celebrated our 1 year wedding anniversary. We made the most of the excuse to get away for a  romantic pre-baby long weekend in Italy. We flew into Milan, took a train about an hour north to Lake Como and spent 2 lovely nights there in the little town of Torno on the lake. We spent the days just meandering around, eating well, drinking well, shopping, and taking in the sights. We then went to Milan for a night where we did more of the same. It was a wonderful trip, we talked a lot about our wedding 12 months before and how special it was.  He

We are so blessed and lucky to be living this amazing life together. 12 months on and marriage has been a blast! In many ways not much has changed, but for us our wedding was really a milestone in our relationship. It signalled for us a commitment to each other and was a way I guess of cementing that we’re moving ahead together in the same direction. For us, that also meant wanting to start a family. We’re making our preparations, practically and mentally, for our much anticipated new arrival in February.

Pregnancy is a weird and wonderful thing. I’m now up to 30 weeks, only 10(ish) more to go. I’m definitely into the third trimester now and have to say I’m really feeling rather pregnant! I hear that in the next 10 weeks the baby’s weight will double. Given that I’m already feeling pretty big in the tummy, struggling to lean over to tie up shoe laces, need some help to get up if I have to squat down or kneel down or something, the thought of doubling the size of my baby bump (which I actually think is a bit cute just at the moment!) seems a little daunting! My latest trick, squatting down to do something (today it was to put paper into the paper basket) and falling straight onto my bum. Seems my centre of gravity has changed a little these days and my brain is yet to catch on!

The baby’s movements have changed in the last few weeks from being fairly indecipherable wriggles and kicks to something quite different. Now you can really feel that the baby is in there and you can feel very distinct movements under the skin, little limbs pushing against the outside of the uterus. I really am enjoying being pregnant and for the most part have felt really well. I think I’ll need to slow down a bit now though, I get a bit tired these days and my body doesn’t react well to ‘overdoing it’. So I’m going to take the hint and ensure I get enough down time.

In other news, our friends Aud Trude and Kristian (who you may remember from our wedding) had a beautiful little boy Oliver a few weeks ago. Aud Trude is already showing her super mum skills and is managing beautifully. Mari and Kev are next with their second baby due Jan 19th, then it’s our turn!

We’re planning a pretty quiet Christmas at home, probably focussing on ‘feathering the nest’ for the baby’s arrival. Joel is planning to continue the renovation plan and tear down the walls and ceiling in what used to be our study and will become the nursery. Personally I think a coat of paint would do the job, but he’s insistent, only the best will do! I plan to leave him to it and instead focus on reupholstering the rocking chair I bought second hand, reading up about birthing techniques and pondering on baby names. Until next time, Merry Christmas!

Some pics from Joel's recent trip to Iceland:

Bump Watch

It has been ages since we've posted a blog. Sorry about that, life gets in the way!! Everything is going really well and Baby Ireland is growing like crazy and giving us lots of kicks.

Joel has just got back from a week's project management course in Aberdeen (Scotland), and we have now completed our weekend birthing course. Tonight we did a tour of the hospital including the 'fødeloft' or 'birth loft' which is where we will most likely end up when Baby Ireland decides to arrive. It was great to see where it will all happen and we both feel really comfortable with what's to come.

Here are a couple of bump watch photos, we'll have more to post soon with a long weekend in Milan coming up and Joel's week long boys trip to Iceland in early December. Loads to look forward to.

From Bump Watch Nov

Week 23

From Bump Watch Nov

Week 27

PS. Huge welcome to little Oliver, Aud Trude and Kristian's beautiful little boy who arrived in the early hours of Sunday morning. We haven't met him yet as Joel and I are recovering from a cold, but we hope to meet him very soon.

21 Weeks

We had our 21 week ultrasound last Friday 8th October. Everything was great, the baby is growing and developing normally. My official due date has now been set at Monday 21st February. Despite some last minute wavering from Joel we stuck with our earlier decision not to find out the gender of the baby.


Here are some pics from the ultrasound, my favourite is the 2D view where baby has its legs over their head. No wonder I’m feeling lots of wriggling from this little baby! Practising their cycling moves overhead perhaps?

Some old pics

I've just been going through our little digital camera (which we don't often use) and clearing off some photos and have found some really lovely ones that I had to share with you. They are mostly of Bec, Jade and Terry's visit (though strangely Terry doesn't feature in any of the pics! Think we took those ones with Joel's proper camera!). There are also some pics from my trip to Greece with Mum and Dad this summer.

So here they are!

Girls Weekend in Oslo

(Note: This blog was written earlier this week!) I just returned from a lovely weekend away with Louise in Oslo. We decided that the blokes are always off here or there on boys trips and seeing as Joel was offshore this would be a perfect time to get away for a girls' weekend! We looked into London but the flights were too expensive, so Oslo was our next best option. We went to a concert on Friday night, Amy McDonald. It was a venue called Sentrum Scene, a fantastic venue, really small and intimate, and even short asses like Louise and I had a perfect view!! Amy McDonald is a really great Scottish singer/songwriter, she has a fantastic, unique voice and great songs. You may know her songs This is the Life http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6MRYLWJb1o&feature=channel and Mr Rock and Roll http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR7SdaXHPH4&feature=channel. She's great, buy her albums!

Amy McDonald playing at Sentrum Scene, Oslo

We did some shopping on Saturday morning and then went to a pub on Saturday afternoon to watch the St Kilda v Collingwood grand final "live". The actual result was known by about 10am on Saturday morning but I switched my phone off and managed to avoid finding out the result. The Aussies out there of course know the outcome of that saga - the scores were even at full time, and unlike most other sports, a drawn grand final means a rematch the following week. It was such an exciting, nerve wracking, depressing, inspiring game of football, I was absolutely beside myself for most of the game. Poor Louise - I'm impressed she didn't leave the pub after my carrying on! It was actually Louise's first game of AFL football (she grew up in the States but spent most of the last 10 years in the UK) so I definitely blame her Aussie husband Charles for leaving her this long in the dark. Louise is a fan of rugby and cricket, so I reckon it's a matter of time before we get her hooked onto AFL!

Game (GF1) about to start

Me and Louise at the pub about to watch the GF1

Dinner at a lovely French bistro Saturday night, then Massages on Sunday, lunch at Aker Brygge and we met up with some of Louise and Charles' friends in the afternoon for a while. We had a ball, thoroughly enjoyable and just the right mix of activities and relaxation! So thanks Louise for being a great travel buddy!

Meanwhile Joel is now up to day 24 offshore, working like a trooper doing really long hours and having to deal with lots of issues due to bad weather. AT this time of year the wind and waves can really pick up and cause a lot of issues for the cranes onboard the ships to lift the heavy equipment off the sea bed and into position. They are doing a lot of Waiting On Weather which at this stage of the project, in what should be the final days/week it's extremely frustrating. They just want to get the job done and get home. His return date may be this Sunday but could very easily stretch into early next week. But there's not much we can do about it, we're at the whim of the weather, so we're just hoping for some calmer seas and good progress out at BP Valhall.

Cooba is missing his daddy

Bump Watch 18 Weeks (2 weeks ago) ....and new hair!

Update Today (Saturday 2nd October)
Baby - We've hit the 20 week mark now with the pregnancy, everything is going well. Next ultrasound was postponed until the end of next week so Joel could be there. Really looking forward to seeing Baby again!
Football - I don't want to talk about it.
Joel - Still off shore, finishing up the last few things at the field and will start heading back soon. Hopefully home Monday night, maybe Tuesday at the latest.