Many of you may not know but our daughter was born 4 weeks early weighing 2490 gms or 5lbs 9oz. She spent the first 5 days of her life in the Special Care Nursery at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital (WCH) where she was lovingly monitored and tube fed.
Even though she was tiny to us and seeing her with a tube up her nose for feeding was hard to see, I was well aware of the other, even smaller babies and the many other families with their own struggles much greater than ours – especially those with babies in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).
Today I met one of those families, Verity and Daniel, new Mum and Dad to little twin girls. Born at only 28 weeks and 4 days gestation, Taylor weighed just 1150 gms and Lily a tiny 840 gms.
Now at 5 weeks and 5 days old, they are both doing well thanks to the support of the staff and resources of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the Woman’s and Children’s Hospital in Adelaide.
For a brief moment, Lily came out of her incubator to join her sister, Taylor, for a very quick cuddle together and I had the pleasure of taking a photo of this very precious moment.
This image will be submitted to the ‘Creative for a Cause’ competition run by Canon in the hope of winning the $60,000 cash prize which will be donated in full to the National Premmie Foundation.
The image with the highest votes wins so get on board and support a wonderful cause. Lodge your vote before voting ends on Friday July 10, 2009.
Thanks to those involved in the Special Care Baby Units, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, the Woman’s and Children’s Hospital Administration and the wonderful Mostran family of Verity, Daniel, Lily and Taylor.