Miracle Dad, Jacob shares the story of baby Ellie's early arrival and how hard it was juggling two other children at home whilst also living some distance form the hospital.

"My partner was pregnant with our third child. She had no issues with her two previous pregnancies and everything was going fine in this pregnancy other than some swelling. Up until she was about 28 weeks pregnant, that is. She felt unwell one night and went to Katoomba hospital where they examined her and gave her a referral for a scan for the following week and sent her home.

The next week rolled around and we went to get an ultrasound and as the sonographer was doing the scan, we saw her face drop. She then went and spoke to the doctor and told us to go back to the hospital as soon as we could. Arriving at the hospital, the doctor admitted my partner straight away because she had quite bad pre-eclampsia and the bub was measuring small. They then decided later on to transfer her to Nepean Hospital as they were more equipped to deal with Charlotte’s issues. That was on Friday 12th of April, 2019.

Charlotte was monitored over the weekend and come Monday morning they did a scan and noticed bub was in distress. It was decided that they would need to do an emergency C- section. Ellie Rose was born at 8.55 am on the 15th of April 2019, weighing a tiny 984 grams and measuring 37.5cms. She was 29 weeks + 6 days gestation.

Ellie was in hospital for approximately 9 weeks and had a fairly smooth experience. She was on CPAP for a few weeks before transitioning to high flow, followed by low flow and eventually came off all oxygen support. She had a slight hiccup with blood sugar three weeks before she came home but that was sorted quite quickly.

It was absolutely the hardest experience for us as a family because we lived 45 minutes from the hospital Ellie was at and we also have 2 other children. It was a very hard time for us all, but we are so lucky Ellie didn’t skip a beat and was so well looked after. She is now almost 7 months old and has progressed in leaps and bounds. She almost weighs 5kgs and has such a cheeky personality."

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