FSMA New Zealand

Tylah Millicent Bell

"Poppet"

It’s 2am on the 4th of September 2005, for the first time in my pregnancy I’m uncomfortable but never for a second did I consider that I was in labour even though I only had two days to go. I always thought I would go a couple of weeks over, so much so that I was still at work and wasn’t planning on leaving till Friday 14th September.

I had a wonderful pregnancy and I had a rather active baby who loved kicking my desk at work and waking my husband through the night with kicks to his back. All my friends had talked about how they got uncomfortable towards the end so I had been waiting for this to happen, which is why when I couldn’t sleep that night as my back hurt I naturally presumed that was what was happening.

At 9am, I spoke to my dad, it was father’s Day, and only then with my mother saying that I was probably in labour that I realised I was soon to be a mum, our first baby was on it’s way. Finally we are going to meet our precious baby. I knew if I told Gary he would say we couldn’t go round to my parent’s for lunch, so I waited till we got there and the smile on his face was huge, led by panic to ring the midwife. Penny came to check on us but she thought it was just early labour, I was so excited, I was determined our baby was coming today, what better gift could a father and grandfather receive on Father’s day than the birth of a new baby, so I went walking to bring the labour on.

At 7:39pm the most perfect little girl blessed our lives, the best Father’s Day gift her Daddy could ever ask for. We named her Tylah Millicent Bell; she was just beautiful with a full head of hair and big bright eyes. She was 3780grams(8pound 5ounces) and 51cms long, she was absolutely perfect and seemed to be healthy in every way. I was so relieved, I had stressed about her being okay throughout my whole pregnancy.

She was extremely bright and alert and was very strong; she held her head up and looked around to meet her family. Our niece had wanted to come to the hospital with us but we thought it was best she stayed at Nana and Grandad’s, all they got every five minutes was "When’s Uncle Gary going to ring for us to go to the hospital". She desperately wanted to meet her new cousin, she was determined it was going to be a girl, she had five month old twin brother’s so her new cousin just couldn’t be a boy. Within minutes of receiving our phone call that Tylah had arrived she had them in the car. Madeleine and Tylah connected from the first time they met and that connection will last forever, all she wanted to do was hold her at every chance, she was meeting her little cousin whom she had sung songs to over the last 20 weeks and she was the little girl she so desperately wanted.

All night I watched her sleep, I couldn’t believe that she was finally here and I was lucky enough to be her mum. Tylah breastfed within the first hour of being born, but what a mission it was to feed her for the first couple of weeks. She would push off me with her feet and when we had cuddles she would climb up me, I couldn’t believe how strong she was for a newborn. She was a typical new baby, she fed every two hours and she would much rather sleep on her mummy and daddy than sleep on her own.

For the first six weeks of Tylah’s life she seemed to be growing and learning like any new baby. Once Tylah reached six weeks I started to be concerned that she didn’t seem to be getting any stronger, everyone told me I was being silly. As time went by I couldn’t let go that something was wrong, I tried everything to help her strength but she hated being on her tummy and she didn’t move her legs much except in the bath. That’s when I got told she was probably just a lazy baby by my family, don’t worry she’s ok. Even my sister who has three children said she thought she moved fine. My concerns grew as she wasn’t trying to reach for her mobile nor did she kick her blankets off.

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