Dear Baby

You've been in hospital for 28 days already; and I don't know when, or if, you'll ever come home.

We miss you.

Here is what we know so far:

You're crap at breathing.

On Friday night, 23 June 2017, I gave you your usual liquid iron supplement on the change table. Instead of choking on it or swallowing it, you just let it sit in the back of your throat while you turned blue from lack of oxygen. It's difficult to assess these things in the moment, but I think you stopped breathing for around 5 minutes.

Or maybe it was an eternity. It felt like an eternity.

When you finally spat out the liquid and started to breathe, you were not really with us for a good 3 minutes while you caught up with the whole concept of just being in this world.

By the time the ambo's arrived, you were a bit shocked but otherwise OK; or so we thought.

By the time I got to Maroondah hospital with you and waited in the hallway for an ED bed, you were actually smiling and laughing with me.

Poppy on the trolley at Maroondah Hospital ED, 23 June 2017.

I thought they'd monitor you for a bit and send you home. HA!

When we finally got an ED bed, they hooked you up to an oxygen monitor. You de-saturated frequently and continually. It became clear that you would not be coming home.

Maroondah wanted to transfer you to Box Hill for overnight observation but the people from PIPER said, "Hell to the no!" because Box Hill has no PICU. They took you to Monash Medical Centre around 2am on 24 June.

In hindsight, that was a VERY wise decision.