My First Day
Monday, 25 August 1997

ittle did Mummy and Daddy know when they woke up on Monday, the 25th of August that I would come into their world on that very day. I had been conceived 29 weeks earlier and wasn't due to make my appearance for another 11 weeks.

Mummy was in the hospital. She had been there for several days and was suffering from high blood pressure due to her toxaemia. The doctors had told her that I would be delivered early but no-one knew when.

Daddy went to work on that Monday and told everyone that me and Mummy were doing fine and that it would be a few weeks before I was delivered. Little did he know ...

Mummy called Daddy just after 10 am and told him that the doctors would deliver me at 4 pm. They said some blood platelets could hurt Mummy's liver. Boy, did Dad get nervous! He had interviews that day but canceled all but one, then came straight over to the hospital. He had to take walks in the parklands and breathe deeply to calm down.

My parents were very concerned about me since I was being born so early but they were comforted by the fact that Adelaide's Women's and Children's Hospital has one of the best neonatal intensive care units in Australia. A very friendly paediatrician from Slovakia, named Peter, said I had a 93% per cent chance of survival. He said I was a 'very big' baby [compared to others in the unit, that is].

Mummy and Daddy's friend Judy Petering was with them to comfort them. She took this photo of Mummy and Daddy just before they took Mummy into the operating theatre. Daddy may look calm, but I assure you he wasn't!