See you on the other side....

I woke up on our lounge this morning to Miss Katelyn crawling in to nestle under the warmth of the Winter quilt. I had decided to camp out on the lounge rather than risk waking Grant as I tossed and turned and, besides, there was another restless (little) woman sharing our bed last night with flaming pink teething cheeks.


As the morning sun crept through the crack in the curtains, I relished this lovely quiet moment, choosing to stay awake rather than surrender to sleep. I savoured the sound of Katelyn's steady breathing and the scent of her hair as she cuddled her soft little sleepsuit-clad body against mine. As she murmured and gently curled her fingers around mine in some sweet dream, I watched the early light dance across the room and made plans for the day.


We'll need to be at the hospital by 7am tomorrow for Katelyn's 11.45am surgery. I suppose I'll have to pack our bags, but that can wait. Packing will just make it all seem real, so denial will work for me today.  I'm going to kit Katelyn out in her pink Oobi jeans, her twinkle-toe Skechers and one of her cute little tops which will be too small for her once she's in her cast. The boys are battling the dreaded pinkeye, so we can't venture too far from home. We'll play outside on the swings and let Katelyn go up-and-down-and-up-and-down the slippery dip to her heart's content. We'll have a little disco party so the kids can dance along with me and Grant to bad 90s music clips. I will serve some of Kate's favourites - spiral pasta chicken bake and crumbly choc-caramel tarts - without having to worry about any mess slipping down into her plaster. And tonight, she can have an extra deep and extra long bath-time with her brothers and they can splash around as much as they like.


I am grateful for all the hugs, offers of help and words of reassurance. We are buoyed by the support and I know it will help keep us all strong. See you on the other side xx

Busy, busy, busy - not long to go now

With just over one week to go now until Katelyn’s operation, we’ve been super-busy trying to get everything organised and everyone ready for our hospital stay.

As 28 May draws closer, we’ve been overwhelmed with messages of support and offers of help and it really does help to know we won’t be alone on our journey. I’ve found some excellent support online and have been drawing strength and absorbing lots of practical tips from the worldwide members of a couple of really great DDH Facebook groups.

We have also been, as much as we can, trying to solve some of the logistical problems of transporting, clothing and entertaining a 20 month old encased in a big, heavy plaster cast for three months!

A special temporary mobility permit from the NSW Roads and Maritime Service will allow us to park our car in extra wide spaces and hopefully make it easier to haul Katelyn out of the car and into her modified stroller (without damaging the car next to us!). It was a hard-fought bureaucratic battle, but we won. We learned that doing the research beforehand and being pedantic, polite and firm can has its advantages. The RMS learned that you don’t get in the way of Lion and Lioness Bailey when they’re protecting one of their cubs.

We have also started to amass a whole load of new toys which will be perfect for play in Katelyn’s special spica chair. Thanks to a lovely lady on Etsy.com, I arranged to have one of my favourite (and very hard to find!) childhood toys, the Family Tree-house. shipped over from her vintage store in the United States. It's the perfect height to sit on a table and play with (and the little family is sooo cute!). Reckon I might spend a bit of time playing with it, too! We've also sourced some really cool toys from Educational Experience, such as the magnetic Dressy Baby Set, to help refine Kate's dexterity while she's confined to her spica chair and unable to develop her gross motor skills. Oh, and thanks to a suggestion from my lovely friend from work, Tania, we bought an iPad and have loaded it with heaps of toddler games and applications. I'll also be armed with plenty of baby-sized musical instruments, bubble blowers, play-dough and crayons - but, if you can suggest any other ways I might be able to keep a very busy and bright baby occupied, pleeeeaaaasssse let me know!

Another wonderful long-time friend from work, Inez, has bought us a fantastic portable booster chair with ‘open sides’ to accommodate the y-shape of the cast, and this should allow Kate to sit with us at any table to eat.

Katelyn’s already enviably bulging wardrobe also now has a whole array of tops , dresses and nighties in bigger sizes (2s and 3s) to fit around her body while she’s in the plaster cast. And, depending on how far the cast extends along her feet, she’ll also have a lovely selection of leg warmers (I even found a glow-in-the-dark pair!) to dress up her purple cast. Grant has volunteered to 'engineer' a solution to allow the legwarmers to accommodate the metal bar which will run between Kate’s knees. Even after seventeen years, he simply amazes me. I think he is truly the best husband and daddy in the world.

The Princess, herself, is oblivious to all the activity. She’s had a rough few weeks with the inevitable coughs and sniffles which herald the start of the Winter season and we can see her hip is giving her some trouble. There are some days where she walks with a pronounced limp and others where she’ll fall over, land awkwardly on her bottom, and start to cry. We know we’re doing the right thing. We are going to fix this. And she is going to be perfect.