On Sunday 9 May 2021, we celebrate Mother’s Day and for Wesley mum Kerry-Anne it will be her first since welcoming baby Rex at The Wesley in November 2020.

After trying for a couple of years to fall pregnant, Kerry-Anne and her partner Nathan were delighted when they found out they would become parents.

“We had purchased a house and were settled, but it just felt that there was a missing piece and after trying for so long, we couldn’t have been more excited with the news!” Kerry-Anne said.
 
Kerry-Anne endured a tough pregnancy, both mentally and physically, suffering morning sickness for more than 22 weeks, gestational diabetes and other complications.

“At about 35 weeks I was in hospital for two nights for tests and observation. On the Tuesday night both Nathan and I thought everything would come back fine and we’d go home again the next day, as we’d done on a couple of occasions,” Kerry-Anne said.

“We decided it would be safe for Nathan, who is a Police Officer, to go to work that night and come into the hospital the next day to pick me up after having a bit of a sleep in.”

But the next morning, Kerry-Anne got a shock when her obstetrician Dr Ben Kroon told her that her blood platelets had dropped again and it was time to deliver that morning.

“I was madly trying to reach Nathan on the phone to get him to come into the hospital, but he was still asleep after night-shift. I ended up having to call our neighbours down the street who were able to go over to the house and bang on the door to wake him!”

At just 35 weeks, baby Rex arrived. The first-time parents spent the next 18 days with Rex being cared for in The Wesley’s Special Care Nursery.

“Although challenging not being able to bring Rex home with us, I’m so grateful for our Special Care Nursery experience. I made a great mum-friend in the Nursery, who I still talk to daily, and had the incredible support of the nursing and midwifery team every day and night in those first few weeks,” Kerry-Anne said.

“I gained so much knowledge and felt so well prepared thanks to the nurses who cared for us. They are phenomenal and I can't speak highly enough of the care and support we received.

“While Rex was their priority, the nurses always made sure to check in on myself and Nathan and ask how we were going as well. It’s that genuine care that we are so appreciative of.”
 
While Rex was being cared for in the Special Care Nursery, a special connection to the hospital for Kerry-Anne and her mum was revealed.

After mentioning to the nurses that Kerry-Anne had been born at The Wesley, the nurses were quick to look up the records.

They found that not only had Kerry-Anne been delivered by the first caesarean performed at The Wesley in January 1988, one of the midwives there on the day she was born was still working in Birth Suites today!

“Jeanie, the midwife who had cared for mum all those years earlier, made a special visit to the Special Care Nursery to meet us and my mum.”

“Mum, also a former nurse from The Wesley, swapped stories with Jeanie, and I’m sure it was nice for her too, to see where one of the babies she helped deliver ended up!

“That extraordinary connection just made our time at The Wesley even more special.”

Despite an earlier than planned start to life, now six months old, Rex is growing and thriving, and of course bringing unmeasurable joy to his family.

“Rex has been a dream baby…so far! He is growing, loves giving a cheeky smile and is sleeping well which makes things just that little bit easier at the moment. The whole family are just smitten with him!”

“I always love an excuse to go back to The Wesley to visit the fabulous staff in the Special Care Nursery and Maternity. Now I just need my friends to have more babies at The Wesley!”

Wishing all of our Wesley mums a very Happy Mother’s Day!