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 for some chocolate of course).
Our first impression of our new home: "It's tiny". It is about the size of a hotel room. You know the type that have a bedroom that leads onto a kitchenette with a little bathroom. Beggars can't be choosers they say, we are just thankful we aren't footing the bill for any of it.
Jess' immediate response was to move furniture around and begin saying things like "We need to get a new bedspread, we will get some temporary hooks and hang photos on the wall...". If we are going to be here for a good length of time then we are going to make it feel like its our home. Plus it has the added bonus of giving us a project with our all our free time before Riley comes.
Today was the first of our appointments with the sonographers and doctors which ended up being a fairly long affair. I really feel for Jess in those moments because she has to just lie there uncomfortable whilst the sonographers prod her for good images of Riley. Sometimes it can drag on when Riley decides to move around causing them to lose that perfect position showing everything they need to see. Riley started off in the perfect position today, it was even remarked "If she stays just like that, it will be perfect for Dr Gooi". Yep you guessed it, she moved by the time he wanted to take a look.
In the end they found that Riley is up to 6 pounds 8 ounces (2.96kgs) and she appears relatively healthy. Dr Gooi spent a great deal of time looking over her heart so that they can begin to plan for her surgeries post-birth. We won't have another heart scan now as they have gotten everything they needed from it. Afterwards we got to meet the social worker and another midwife. All it took for us to warm up to Rachel the midwife was for her to utter the phrase "I use to live in Mt Isa". I think we spent ten minutes doing checkups and then 30-40 minutes updating her on Mount Isa and figuring out who we have in common (turns out quite a lot of people). For anyone who just naturally assumes if you live in a small town you know everyone, not true. However this time felt like an exception to the rule.
The next few days are going to be spent meeting the Obstetrician, taking a tour of the Cardiac Ward in the Childrens Hospital and doing some shopping. Until Riley makes her grand entrance there will be lots of appoinments and time wasting, but until that day we have a beautiful photo from our appointment of her to tide us over (I think she looks a LOT like Jess, she's not so sure). Oh and yes we were always worried she would end up with a big nose like her parents but she makes it look good.
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