Update on our *Grayce*

Time flies by and after so long I again find myself asking questions to decide if we should dive back into our journey to have another baby. In one way I feel so selfish asking God for another baby after he has blessed us so generously with our Summer-Grayce, and then in another way feel selfish not giving her a sibling, a friend for life, a partner in crime, a shoulder to cry on when I can't be there oneday.... the decision is difficult, as the road in trying to conceive was long and painful, and its a road your heart just does not want to jumb back onto in a hurry. Time is running out for me as I am 37 and did not have a great ovarian reserve all those years back. I find myself daily asking God to just give me a clear YES or NO... but as I learnt its a desire of your heart and if its meant to be it will happen. With us falling pregnant naturally is no longer an option (as you will know if you followed my blog) so its a decision we have to make to actively decide to head back to Cape Town and try again.....

[watch this space]

Our little gem of a daughter will be 4 in Feb... and what a gem she is! Blows us away daily by her gentleness, love, kindness and funny sense of humour! (like her dad:)

*photoshoot in Mauritius - June 2015

Our biggest G I F T is almost 3 x

What can I say, time flies when you having fun! After many years of struggles to have a baby, fast forward nearly 3 years later - and we are just loving our beautiful blessing - little miss summer-grayce. Not a day goes by that I don't thank God for giving her to us! She truly is such a joy and can't imagine life without her. She is a real daddy's girl in looks & character! Guess its time for another one? yes, no? maybe :) Not that easy when making a baby involves, loads of injections, hormones, mood swings, tears, finances, hope, pain, fear, joy, expectation, nerves, patience, doubt, faith, love, anger, scans, doctors, labs… I will say it again… Yes, No, Maybe? …. only time will tell! Time is not on my side, but when it comes to God, age is nothing and timing is everything… so we wait… wait on God…  xoxo

*our family photo shoot - September 2014. TRPHOTO.

...and Summer turns one!

I can't believe how one little girl can keep a mommy so busy :) (no time to blog:) Life sure is full having this little bundle of joy in my life! This year has just flown by.... with a jam packed social schedule of swimming twice a week, moms & babes, play dates & parties! ...already!

On the 3 Feb 2013 Summer-Grayce Bloom turned 1 and what an awesome year it has been - the happiest year of my life! To think we struggled through so many obstacles and went through very trying times to have her - and what a little gem she is. She's such a happy little girl - always smiling and ever so happy to wave and smile at everyone! Her joy is contagious and I often find my cheeks sore from all the smiling I do when I am around her - she just completes us! She loved her party very much - and played the whole 3 hours:) Her theme was 'Sofie the giraffe' after her favourite teething toy, so I thought why not do a whole Sofie party too :)

If I look back to when she was born I thought sleep was definitely something I would NEVER do again :) well lets say a full (uninterrupted) nights sleep was a thing of the past - but what you dont realise as a new mom is that it gets easier! It really does. In the beginning you think ok 1 baby is enough - then they get older and your heart starts longing again for another.

Here are a few of her milestones.....she sat at 5 1/2 months, crawled at 9 1/2 months and is still crawling :) She stands on her own but is not interested in talking any steps....why would she when crawling gets her everywhere she wants to go and faster :) She is quite a talkative little thing....says all her basic words like dada, mamma, nanna, ta....and tries to say cold, cami, coming, purple. Her baby babble just flows and its so gorgeous to hear her little voice as she tells me stories and moans at the barking dog :) She is really into packing and unpacking boxes, bags, shoes (her love for shoes is already emanent)  - she loves art or pictures on the walls and insists on touching and feeling the textures...wonder if she will be creative like her mom:)

Highlight of the year - our trip to Dubai - In her first year of her life she has been 3 times to the UAE (first in utro:) the second time she was 3 months and now she was 11 months. She had an absolute ball and got spoilt rotten by her Nana & Papa. Having them live so far away is the hardest thing - thank goodness for Skype else we would not manage the distance! She was an absolute angel on the flight, she got alot of attention from the air hostess as they kept wanting to take photos with her :) She was so friendly to them that they couldnt help but love her! Shes a real little social bunny like her dad - loves people and adventure! The world is her oyster!




I continue to thank God for her - she is more then I could ever have asked for or imagined! He really has blessed us. We continue to seek Him as we start to plan for our next child. Children are a God-given blessing and I speak for my husband and myself when I say we are so so grateful for our little princess. Mommy & Daddy loves you soooooo much! xoxo

Mother's Day

Firstly Happy Mothers Day to all you fabulous mom's out there. Being a new mom myself, I have a new respect for what being a mother means ... Complete self-sacrifice ... A choice you make every single day, to put someone else's happiness and well-being ahead of your own - willingly!  Taking a step back... I'm reminded just how difficult Mother's Day use-to-be for me ... How it reminded me every year that i was suppose to be a mom to the baby girl we lost and the heartache of failed attempts to conceive again ... But God had a plan ... A perfect plan!  I hold Summer in my arms and stare at her perfection, tears streaming down my face, heart bursting with joy, I just thank God over and over again ... for breathing life into my womb and entrusting me with this blessing. She's a miracle. She grew in my broken womb ... and she's perfect. Today my heart is breaking for all those hundreds of women trying to conceive their miracles, doing everything in their power to get their hearts desire ... today is hard for them ... Very hard! I know. Lord please see their hearts, their desires... Amen x

Our 'Proud Parents' photo shoot - with Summer-Grayce

Little Miss Bloom - 6 weeks

The time is flying - our princess is already 6 weeks! She is an absolute angel and such a blessing! She really is a good little girl! Nights are not too bad either - waking for 2 feeds - and then she goes straight back to sleep. Today she started the cutest little girgling sounds and cooing - with a smile! She just loves her nanna and seems to perform her little cute antics for her....:) Im just food to her :) Still breast feeding and loving it - I still think its so wonderful the way the body works and that I am able to keep her alive with the milk my body produces - is the body not an awesome thing! God is so good! Here are a few pix of our princess! Will post her shoot pix when I get them - should be this week! Off to get ready for bed...Summer will be waking soon for a feed... *night world xxx

Our Birth Story

Scheduled due date for caesarian - 8th Feb 2012. It all started on friday the 3 February. Woke up early that morning with loads of excitement - my mommy was arriving from Dubai - a few days before our baby girl is born! I am so excited to see her and share with her the excitement we both feel for the arrival of Summer-Grayce. I fetch her at the airport and we rush for my last check up at my gynie...he requests I do a stress test in the maternity ward before I go up to his rooms...the test takes longer then before - for some reason Summer-Grayce was jumping around and they have to redo the test! By now my mom has not slept for 24 hours as she flew through the night and she catches a few winks on the chair next to me as I watch the machine beeping at every movement she makes. We rush up to the doc's rooms as we are now nearly an hour late for our appointment, when I arrive I go straight through and do all the usual urine checks, weight and blood pressure - all looks great! Then doc scans me and does all the necessary measurements - baby girl is doing well - all on schedule. My mom starts asking doc all these questions about what she sees on the screen - mom says, "oh cute doc is that her hand" doc replies "no thats her stomach :) hehehe

Eventually doc scans over her abdomen and mom asks again - "doc what is that" and he is quiet... he replies I'm not sure - never seen this before.....now that is not something you want to hear! My heart sinks and my mom and I stare at each other...thoughts start rushing through my head oh no how can this be - I have been blessed with the most amazing pregnancy - healthy all the way, now 5 days before my due date and there seems to be something wrong! I start shaking....

...doc calls in his assistant and says "Nikki get Dr Nicoli on the phone..." its late on a friday afternoon and no reply from Prof...so we start hunting for another doctor for a second opinion as to what this could be in babies tummy. Eventually I get an appointment with another gynie (lets call him Dr H) in the hospital and they are waiting for me in their rooms....I am tearful and concerned as my doc suspects there is a block in babies colon and a block in the colon could perferate at anytime. Dr H asks me my history ....how far am I, "37 weeks 3 days", etc etc...eventually he scans me does a few measurements and says baby girl looks healthy - then he gets to her tummy and sees the same thing (it looked like honeycomb on the scan). I had never seen this before on any of her scans. Dr H says the same thing - I've never seen this before! He manages to get Prof Nicoli on the phone and they all make the decision to take her out immediately as she was estimated to weigh 3.1kg's and over 37 weeks. Within 30 mins I was in the theatre being prepped for surgery. Called my husband immediately who was at a lunch with his Directors on their 3rd bottle of vino :) he got there in 15 mins! (broken side mirror later - thats another story for another time)

I had the spinal block (ouch) I am so tall that they battled to get the needle in - they kept telling me to bend more into the fetal position (a bit hard when you have a big bump in the way). Eventually all went numb and operation could start! I was still feeling quite emotional but also excited to meet our little angel. They had prepared me that baby would have to go to the NICU for tests and maybe have to have surgery. So all the top surgeons were called in and all was arranged ahead of the birth - my doc did not want to take any chances - it had been a long road getting here and we were hoping everything would be ok. In my heart I felt a sense of peace, and just had a feeling all would be ok....

At 5:54pm Summer-Grayce Bloom was born, weighing a very healthy 3.54kg's and 52cm long - my Paed was absolutely amazing, she held my hand the entire time and kept telling me what was happening. She lifted my head and I watched them pull our princess out - wow amazing! Just after they cut her cord she started to cry - that was just mind blowing - hearing her for the first time! Tears began to flow... my Paed placed her on my chest immediately and told me as far as she could see she looked perfectly healthy! I held her for a few minutes but all of a sudden felt very nauseous and felt like I was going to faint... apparently I lost alot of blood due to low lying placenta (doc managed to get the bleeding stopped thank goodness) but I had to be placed on oxygen till I felt human again. They then brought baby back once she had been checked and weighed and all wrapped up. I was then stitched up and my husband went with them to take baby to the NICU for further tests. The caesar was really quick, a little overwhelming having them cut you open and pull and tug at you but you cant feel a thing. In recovery I started to regain movement in my feet already - I was amazed - but just wanted to feel like normal as soon as possible. With the feeling of my legs came the burning pain in my tummy - pain was manageable. All I could think about was holding my baby and getting her to latch. By now I was not too worried I just have this great sense that all was going to be fine. I was then taken to my private room and immediately they brought my baby to latch.

Back in the NICU they put a pipe down her throat and took an xray to see what was going on - fortunately the block (merconim illious) had come loose when she was born and all looked 100% fine! Thank the Lord! Prof Biel was called in to look at her and he gave her the all clear!\

I was so blessed with the breast feeding - she latched first time - I had lots of colostrum. Day 3 my milk came in and the nurses showed me how to massage the knots out and helped me over the next few days how to latch. They were amazing. By the time I went home we had the breast feeding thing under control. Fortunately for me no cracked nipples, not engorgement! All went so very well. 6 weeks later and we still going strong!

The worst part of the emergency birth was I had nothing with me, all our cameras and video cameras where fully charged lying ready for the day of action. My bags were packed but were 60 km's away - at home! My mom who had not slept in nearly 48 hours by now had to drive all the way home to fetch all our stuff as the nurses needed clothes for baby - my stuff arrived at 12pm!

The next few days were amazing - we were all on cloud 9 - the happiest time of our lives! The pain was managed with omnipon injections (1 after the op and another the next day) after that it was suppositories and painkillers. I must say I did not battle at all from the caesar - I was up the next day and felt no pain at all! I recovered about 1 week after the op.

The best thing of all was brining Summer home to her bedroom - eventually I got to use all her stuff in her room - all those days of preparations and the little one was here!

The next few days were difficult adjusting to the lack of sleep, and the constant changing of nappies and learning to care for this new little life! After 2 weeks I finally felt human again and that I was getting a grip on things. At 6 weeks things are starting to feel alot more normal. We take her out quite alot and keep busy where and when I can. I am so grateful to finally have our little miracle with us! She is here! We are so blessed. I am forever grateful!

Thank you Lord for this blessing!