Author: Darren

On her third attempt, Joyce finally made it through the bushfires to Kiama to meet her first great-grandchild. At the end of a thoroughly enjoyable day, Joyce still couldn’t believe she’s now the mother of a grandmother! Joyce’s first cuddle with Grace: Four generations together for the first time: Of course, everyone else wants a…

Joyce, my grandmother, travelled up from Malua Bay (near Batemans Bay) today with Mum, Dad and Todd. Grace is her first great-grandchild, so she was understandably anxious to meet her. Only the bushfires down south have been able to keep her away this long! Joyce still can’t believe she’s the mother of a grandmother.

On the Friday after Megan and Grace were discharged from hospital, we invited our neighbours, family and some local friends over for drinks. It was a great opportunity to catch up, have a chat, and introduce Grace to the people she’ll be terrorising over the next few decades. The number of kids at these get-togethers…

The midwife told us we were likely to be allowed to leave today! After a seemingly endless procession of doctors, nurses, counsellors, etc came to see Grace and Megan and sign off on our discharge papers, we were finally allowed to check out at about 2pm. It was a long hot drive home, and fortunately…

Happy New Year! Robyn, Ian and Todd visited us today, and we had lunch at the Doncaster again. Grace’s breast feeding is going a lot better now, and she’s getting into a regular sleep/feed pattern of roughly every 3 hours.

More visitors today – Basil, Ros, Maryanne, Gus, Therese, Alf, Jo, Lauren, Jenny, Mel, Brian, Marion, Stuart, Craig and Corinne (who is 4 weeks away from giving birth to their first child). Grace had her first bath today. She cried a lot until she got into the water, but seemed to love kicking around in…

Lots more visitors today, including Mark, Narelle, Emma, Ryan, Adam, Paula, Bradley, Mat, Sharon, Jamee, Kayla, Nina and Paul. We just got everyone through one-at-a-time visits to see Grace in intensive care, when the nurses told us she was being released! Grace is now totally unplugged, and is staying in Megan’s room.

We had heaps of visitors come to the hospital to see Grace today. You can only take one visitor at a time into intensive care, so it was a long process getting everyone through! Maryanne (Nan), Gus (Pop), Mary, Christine, Robyn, Ian, Todd, Jenny, Kirk, Michelle and Boston stopped by in the morning, and we…

Good news! Grace was moved down to Level 2 care this morning. She still has the glucose drip, but doesn’t need any of the extra stuff (like oxygen helmets, heat lamps, etc) they had at Level 3. She took her first bottle of formula tonight, and drank 11mL. Megan’s Aunt Marion and Uncle Brian visited…

After a fairly smooth labour, Megan gave birth to our daughter Grace Anne at 12:11pm (Megan is very proud she beat the countdown timer I posted on this site!). She weighed 3.340 kg (7lb 5oz), and was 51cm long (just over 20 inches). Both mother and baby are now resting, and are doing extremely well.…