Final 2004 Weigh-in

Well tonight's the night I personally say a heartfelt 'good riddance' to 2004, an absolute sod of a year. I shall be glad to see the back of a period of time littered with more bad news and cursed events than I'd care to mention. The upside of course is that we have our wonderful Amelia to see in 2005 with, it's just a shame that the plight of those so much worse off than us is currently so prevalent.

Anyway Amy was weighed this morning and came in at 8lb 10oz, an increase of 6.5oz. I think she's probably carrying a little 'holiday weight' though (aren't we all). On the eating and sleeping front she has for the last two days gone from a last feed at around midnight to 7-ish in the morning so fingers crossed we may be waving goodbye to the night feeds.

Happy Christmas!

Well there were one or two occasions when we weren't quite sure we'd make it but here we are, full of festive cheer and ready for Christmas. There'll be posts over the holiday but if you check in from work you might not see them until the New Year. That being the case, have a great Christmas and for those of you who won't be seeing Amelia in the flesh, here's a festive scene with familiar face in it.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!!

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Oi Fatso!

Ahhh I remember my schooldays with such fondness. Anyhow the health visitor weighed her ladyship this morning and registered a whopping 7lb 14oz. This is especially good as Amelia has been much more active than previously this week. She was also very pleased with her progress generally. She is now very alert and has started coo-ing and making more baby noises as opposed to the little sheep & goat chunnerings we've been treated to up until now.

It's OK, she's poo-ed!

We've protected most of you from the trauma of the last few days (only joking). Basically young regular-as-clockwork-3-times-a-day Amelia went from Friday morning until last night without so much as a fart, literally. We were at the point of beginning to be slightly concerned when the trap-door opened and a payload worthy of a White Rhino tested the Pampers New-Born to it's limits last night. Sorry if you're having lunch but you did ask for the updates.

Anyway you can see from the first picture the relief it brought to both mum & baby. Pic number 2 is Amy reading her very first Christmas card this morning. I've also added a not-too-enthralling movie clip of her ladyship patiently waiting for her parents to get their act together and give her some food. Bless.

She's off for more jabs today. I've ruthlessly left Anna to hold her down this time so I hope she's OK with it. Polio too so I can't wait to see what's in her nappy tomorrow morning. Am I getting obsessed with this or what?

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Waiting for tea

15-second clip will take around 40 seconds to download with a 512kb/sec broadband connection. Those on dial-up, put the kettle on.

Never Miss AFC News Again

OK someone asked about this the other day and it's probably more important now that news is only posted to the site 2 or 3 times a week.

Is there a way my PC can tell me when news is posted to Amy's Fan Club?

Yes there is! Basically you need a free general piece of software, called an RSS Newsreader, which allows you to specify what kind of news you would like to be told about. This software takes a special newsfeed known as Atom or XML and puts just the news bulletins you're interested in all in the same place.

As you browse around news sites (and Weblogs) on the internet you'll see little icons like this: . When you see this icon it means you can tell your RSS newsreader to keep checking that site for news on an hourly basis. Amy's Fan Club of course has an XML feed which you can use just for this.

Where do I get this amazing software?

Easy, just Click Here, have a quick read about the software, click on the download button and follow the instructions. N.B. don't forget step 1 about installing the Microsoft Framework software, it'll only take a minute. After you have downloaded RSS Reader, simply open it, click on the ADD button for adding a newsfeed and type http://awbfanclub.blogspot.com/atom.xml in the box. Then click Next, wait for the software to find Amy's Fan Club and VOILA!

If any of this proves too tricky you can of course email Amelia for help.

Weekly Weigh-In

This morning's weight is 7lb 9.5oz which is up 6.5oz on last week.

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Tag-Board Returns!

OK folks it's time to get that graffiti flowing again because the Tag-Board is back. Let us know you're out there and let's have some yuletide words of joy to spread around. It's easy, it's fun....it's pointless but what the hell, it's easier than email and it's free. Amelia wants YOU to post your thoughts so keep it short, keep it clean and let's have some.

Eastern Promise

Well the baby massage session seemed to go really well yesterday. Apprently this is especially therapeutic for preemies but is obviously beneficial to all.

Great news last night was that Amelia managed to sleep from 1:00am until 5:30am, a new record for her. This was after I had fed her around midnight but I have to tell you it was a comical scene at our house yesterday. I have quite a cold and having realised that we should really be wearing masks to prevent Amy from catching it and having discovered that everywhere that might sell them was closed, we spent most of the evening with muslins wrapped around our heads tied with schrunchies. It was like a bad production of Lawrence of Arabia. Still I picked some up this morning so with a bit of luck we can keep the germs off her ladyship.

For anyone who's still following the thread I am finally managing to commit the rest of what happened on August 6th to words and this will go online over the next couple of days.

Baby Massage

Anna & Amelia were off to the post-natal class today for a spot of baby massage. Will let you know tomorrow how they got on.

Happy Bunny

Amelia was in particularly good spirits this morning so I thought I'd capture her good humour for posterity. For the record she's feeding approximately every 3 hours but is still very windy and quite sicky at times although her persistent weight gain means this isn't currently cause for concern.

At her first clinic appointment since being discharged yesterday Amy's heart, lungs and hips were specifically checked and found to be A-OK which was a great relief. Apparently both breach and preemie babies are very prone to hip problems so it was nice to cross this one off the list.

Also, as there have been so many requests, I'll be posting more pictures of her ladyship in the spectacular reindeer outfit soon.

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Room Full Of Miracles

Saturday was the SCBU Christmas party and we three were really looking forward to it. To be honest we thought that maybe a couple of dozen people would turn up, we'd all have a quick chat and be on our way. In all I believe over a hundred children were there, all previous customers of the Special Care Baby Unit; a real roomful of miracles.

We saw many of the parents and children who came and went while we were in attendence and it was great to catch up and compare notes. I embarrassed us because went I saw a tin with money in it I assumed it was for a collection and duly chucked in a tenner. I was then furnished with half a book of raffle tickets meaning we ended up with 4 of the prizes. Oops.

Below are various pics from the day including a certain lady dressed as a reindeer. As always click on the pic for a larger image.

SCBU Xmas Party Picture Gallery

Weekly weigh-in

Well we're maintaining a steady ounce a day with Amelia tipping the scales at 7lb 3oz today. She's been a bit grizzly and windy today but that's not unusual for the last few days. She seems to be feeding a little sporadically and we're still nervous about trying to stretch her feeds in an attempt to get into a routine. Maybe in a week or 2.

Here's how the (not-so) little lady looks at the moment.

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Yuletide season frolics

Well it's December and aren't we pleased? Seems a million years ago that I was pacing up and down outside the maternity unit in the baking August sunshine waiting for news. The nights are drawn in now and we're ready to be huddling down for a crisp few weeks with little Amelia wrapped up warm & cosy.

This weekend will be fun, it's the Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU) Christmas party and I for one am really looking forward to it. We'll be able to say hello to some of the people who came and went during our tenure at the unit and also catch up with some of the doctors and nurses responsible for helping us get to this point at all. Get ready for some jelly & ice cream-loaded photos next week.