The NICU rollercoaster

At 2.35am, our gorgeous daughter "Tiana" made her grand entrance & the rollercoaster began.

Tiana came out breathing and was doing really well - fantastically well for being born at 26 weeks & 3 days and weighing 900 grams.

I got to hold my little girl when after one day. She was ventilated for the first 12 hours or so, just to make sure there were no issues and was then placed onto cpap. She was jaundiced, but so far everything else was going well.

At just 10 days old, she was doing so well that she was taken off cpap and placed onto hi-flow - i guess this is when the honeymoon period ended and the real roller coaster began.

It didn't last too long and she was really struggling, so back onto cpap. It was found that she had a pda so she was given medication which luckily sorted this out pretty quickly. She had a bleed on the brain, although the paeds were not concerned about this at all. She then went on to require two blood transfusions and was pretty comfortable on cpap until she was 6 weeks old.

I turned up to visit her on 18th April and during the doctors rounds i was given the great news that they were going to be taking her off cpap again and onto hi-flow. I thought this day would never come. I spent most of the day with her and had an awesome long cuddle.

Later that night my phone rang (around 9pm'ish) and i noticed it was the hospital - my heart started pounding in my chest as i answered, thinking the worst, but alas - Tiana was doing so well on her hi-flow that they decided to move her out of the NICU & into the Special Care Nursery.

That was possibly the best phone call i received during our time in Hobart.

Once we were in special care, Tiana went from strength to strength. At around 1.9kg she was finally transferred to a hospital closer to home. This was the point where what i had been through over the last 8 weeks finally hit home. Walking into my house and seeing her bedroom all set up and waiting for her and not having her with me was one of the hardest things i have dealt with - i cried myself to sleep that night.

I spent as much time at the hospital as i could and it wasn't long before Tiana was taken off her oxygen completely & could spend time in a private room with me each day.

After a total of 43 days in nicu, 11 days in special care & 18 days in our regular hospital - a total of 72 days. Tiana was discharged, weighing just under 5 pound.

Then my quest for reasons for her prematurity began....