Riley Eve Casey

Turns out that Riley is going to make an appearance sooner rather than later. We met with our Obstetrician last week to discuss many things but the one big thing that was on our minds was the date that Jess would be induced. What we were expecting was that the Obstetrician may have to consult with the Cardiologists, Midwives, Neonatal Specialists to make all the stars align so that the date works for everyone. This was not the case. He asked us point blank "So what date would you like?". His first suggestion was that Jess would get induced on the 7th January and Riley would be born the very next day. However that day also happens to be Jess' brother Caleb's birthday. He probably wouldn't have cared at all but we thought we would try to avoid Uncle/Niece combined birthday parties in the future by delaying it an extra day (Can you imagine the combination of birthday themes like Barbie/V8's or Peppa Pig/BBQ??).  In the end we came up with Jess being induced on Ja...

The past week has just been a whirlwind filled with lots of Christmas dinners with family and friends, a baby shower (it was fantastic by the way! Thanks to everyone involved), farewells and lots of goodbye hugs.  In fact I prided myself on the fact that I had managed to avoid shedding any tears through all of it. But then Monday came around, the day we would be leaving for Brisbane. We left our house and it just seemed to hit us both at the same time that we wouldn't be returning to it for quite some time. Then there were even more farewells at the airport as we were about to board our plane. Yeah I cracked. Pride comes before the fall; oh well. It was emotional but we pushed on and knew that our journey was only just beginning. We had spent so much time preparing for our move to Brisbane; it felt strange to think that now we were moving onto preparing for Riley. We arrived safely in Brisbane and made our way to our unit right near the Hospital (after a quick trip to Max Brenners ...

"It must be difficult". Those four words we seem to hear every so often. They are spoken by people who upon hearing the news of the journey we are about to walk through; are trying to understand what it would be like. Sometimes I feel like people expect us to be depressed or continually sad. That's because it's how they believe they would react in similar circumstances which is completely understandable. The strange thing is that throughout this, I feel like we have been really blessed. It doesn't look like it straight away but we really have. I felt like instead of just sharing with you how Riley is doing (though I will do that don't worry!), I want to share with you the wonderful things that have happened over this short period of time to give you some perspective. Yes this can be difficult and we haven't even gotten to the hardest part yet, but there is also a lot of things to be thankful for already... We are thankful because we didn't even kn...

Jess at 32 weeks This journey hasn't been simple. One of the things we had to let go of immediately when we began all of this was our expectations. Before all of this we expected that around this time we would probably be setting up the baby’s room.  Decorating the walls, assembling the crib and filling drawers with tiny socks. As of right now we have a new housemate living in that room. Thankfully he has stepped in to look after our house in our absence. We even have some friends who are planning a baby shower for us. At a baby shower; normally the expectation is that you receive little gifts from people to prepare you for looking after a baby 24/7. However we have asked our friend to let everyone know that even though we appreciate the gesture, we wouldn’t have much use for most things because Riley will be in hospital for the first few months of her life and we aren't exactly sure what she's going to need. Like I said, expectations change and you just have to go...

Riley has reached the thirty week mark which means we only have nine-ish weeks left to go until we get to see her in the flesh. We were told by the doctors at the Mater Hospital that they normally let a baby with Riley's condition go up to 39-40 weeks to make sure she has grown as much as she can. But if she hasn't been born yet in the 39th week they will induce her. I remember when we first heard that we were pregnant I read about 3 books on pregnancy within a couple of weeks; however since we heard about her condition I haven't read anything about what to do when you actually have the baby. Feel like that may be something I should get onto before she makes her arrival but on the flip side we will have a bunch of nurses and specialists taking care of her in the first few months of life. So maybe I shouldn't be too concerned. We had yet another growth scan yesterday as well as a doctors appointment today; we felt it might have been unnecessary since we had one only t...

Over the past few weeks we have been getting everything in order for the next season of our lives. Recently we got the chance to visit Brisbane once again, this time not for scans or tests but for a holiday. We decided to use it as a time to get a sneak peek at where we might be living and also look at everything that would be nearby. Thankfully we saw immediately that Southbank is a very quick walk from the Hospital with pools, a fake beach, lots of eateries etc. This will come in handy as we have to go a full month before the due date and with neither of us working during that time we will have a LOT of free time on our hands. We also got to catch up with some old friends and found a church that we are thinking we will go to. All in all we feel like our time in Brisbane will be good and with visits every now and then from friends and family, it will stem the feeling of homesickness we are bound to feel. Riley has even become more active lately as well, she seems to kick and move aro...

Jess at 24 weeks We have been waiting for this appointment. Finally we were going to go to the Mater Hospital in Brisbane to meet with a Paediatric Cardiologist! This was significant because we have been hoping to get a final answer on Riley's condition. In the interim we have spent even more time googling stories of people who had been to the Mater Hospital for similar conditions trying to prepare ourselves for the kind of life we could be in for over the next year. We were met by Dr Gooi (who I had been told looked like Jeff from the Wiggles) and began our scan, throughout the whole appointment we sat and watched Riley's special heart beating on the screen. Soon we were joined by a lady named Karen who is a Paediatric Cardiac Care Co-Ordinator; as the scan dragged on she kept our minds busy asking us questions about our lives and how we have been coping through the whole process. Dr Gooi finished and let us know that Riley definitely has Double Inlet Left Ventricle wi...

Some of you may know this and some of you may not but we have a very special little girl. We haven't met her yet, haven't even gotten a hold but we know that she is special. We got our first glimpse of her when she was only eight weeks old, at that time she looked more like a blob. Not human-like at all. But we knew she was was going to grow into someone beautiful. Our next glimpse was at twelve weeks then twenty week mark, we were looking forward to this scan because we had always planned to find out what gender our baby was. We didn't like (or more like probably I didn't like) having to wait and see, at least we could start preparing. What we were not prepared for was that the sonographer struggled to get a good look at the heart; she got Jess to take a walk, move all around, come back a few times until she got a very good look and I am thankful that she did. She let us know that she had concerns about what she was seeing and decided to let another sonographer ...