ANNOUNCEMENT: Milea Dara Cronje enters our world!

Jaco and I would love to announce the arrival of our most precious and beautiful baby girl, Milea Dara Cronje.

She was born at Kingsbury Hospital, Claremont on 25 May 2011 at 18:45 and is healthy and strong!



We loved the second name of Dara who was a biblical descendant of Judah, known for his wisdom (1 Chronicles 2 v6) carrying a connotation of 'wisdom and compassion'. Since we are firmly rooted in Africa, our little girl also carries the name Dara, which means 'caress' and 'the beautiful one' in Swahili.

Playing the Waiting Game

I have been on 5 days of maternity leave already and I don’t know where the time has gone! I swear that sitting at home ‘doing nothing’ is busier than anything I’d do in a full day of work. Let’s just say that I’ve hardly had anytime to sit and do nothing – the days just seem to fill themselves with stuff to do! I’m starting to worry about how quickly my 4 months of maternity leave are going to just fly by! Jaco has ensured that I don’t get bored by giving me a to-do-list as long as my arm which included the following:
- make dinner every night
- buy food to stock up the cupboards so no shopping needed in the next 4 months
- vacuum the car so Milea can have a clean, comfortable ride home from the hospital
- pack the hospital bags AGAIN and double check I have everything (3 jam-packed bags so far…and possibly need for a 4th one)
- see friends one last time before life of a non-mother ends

So as you can see I’ve been pretty busy!

This week was crunch time in terms of whether I had enough amniotic fluid in order to go to full term of 40 weeks. The gynae visit yesterday confirmed that my amniotic levels have increased and baby is now around 3kgs. So all is good in Camp Cronje! In general, she is very happy to let me go to full term and no induction is necessary at this stage. The waiting game begins. Jaco and I are not very good at playing this game so we’ve decided to help Milea along into this world by practicing some tried and tested methods of inducing labour or some might say, plain old wive’s tales:
- Jaco made me eat a whole pineapple for breakfast. Pineapple is said to have an enzyme called Bromelain which is the key ingredient to forcing labour. My mouth is now rather raw!
- I walked the Sea Point Promenade ‘stukkend’ yesterday with the hope of bouncing her head on my cervix so it would open up. I did have lots of Braxton Hicks contractions thereafter so it must have done something
- Stimulating a whole lot of other areas of the body which we won’t go into!!
- The only thing left to do is eat a hot curry so Tandoori night, here we come!

Essentially, it is down to her own timing and we should really be enjoying the last few days of just the 2 of us. But naturally I have this urge to be in control and know when things are going to happen so I can plan my life a little. Waiting for the inevitable is so hard to do and not being in control is even harder. I think she is trying to teach us a well-deserved lesson of patience……

T minus 10 days

So back to the gynae this week to hear that Milea is now 2.8kgs. Gynae is still worried that she has fallen below her growth path and thus still not growing sufficiently. My amniotic fluid (pockets of water she's floating in) was measured at 7.5. Anything below 5 is a concern so I was advised to drink LOTS of water which may prevent the fluid from decreasing further. Gynae highly recommended that my working days should be over and my maternity leave should commence immediately. So Friday 13th May couldn't have been a better time to complete my last day at work. (not that I'm superstitious or anything!)

Now I can stay in bed for as long as I want, loaf in front of the TV, stay in my PJs all day and take advantage of afternoon naps with my electric blanket on. I'm not sure when I'm going to have time to cook all these dinners that Jaco is expecting when he gets home from work.......mmm, I might have to do a bit of expectation management here!

I wouldn't say that I'm going to be a paranoid mother but I thought it a good idea to get some basic knowledge about what to do if baby stops breathing or chokes on a piece of biltong. Jaco and I attended a baby CPR and first aid course on the weekend (http://www.supernannies.co.za/) which was super informative and gave us the confidence we need to deal with this sort of situation.

So to refresh your memories:

H = Hazards (make sure the room / surroundings of the victim is safe before you start administering help)

H = Hello (try and get a response from the victim. Put your ear to their mouths and look at their chest while listening for breathing for 10 seconds). If not then CPR is required

H = Help (Call for help & get someone to call the Western Cape Emergency number 021 480 7700 or 170 from a landline)

C = Compression (Take off clothes and find the nipples. For a child, take 2 fingers and start pressing midway between nipples 30 times. For a child older than 1 years, use the palm of your hand, for an adult use 2 hands)

A = Airway (lift the child's head by pushing the chin slightly backwards to open up the airway)

B = Breathe (Cover the nose and mouth with your mouth and blow twice making sure the chest rises)

Repeat.

We also received a lovely surprise when we received a message from one of Jaco's colleagues, Mark and Caryn, who were also pregnant, but 1 week behind me. She went into labour on Saturday night and delivered a 2.1kg baby girl naturally (yes NO drugs!!) early on Sunday morning. So it really is min dae now and we wait in anticipation. We keep telling Milea that she has lots of friends in the world now, so its her turn.

Remember to follow all the action on twitter: @Jacocron

Babyshower Boom!

Great news from the growth assessment scan we had last week - baba has grown! Atta girl!
She is now 2.6kgs which is the 20th percentile for 38 weeks. It was a long time ago since I did stats, but it basically means that if I had 100 children (!!!), the 100th child would be the biggest with the 1st child being the smallest. BC would thus be on the small end of average. She is definitely not my child then! Also, the placenta is healthy and there is enough amniotic fluid for her to stay in my lovely warm tummy until full term of 40 weeks. Yah - we were so pleased with the news! Jaco was very proud of himself for feeding us up and I was told that early bed rest was not necessary. Because her head is so far down in my cervix, they had to do an internal scan to check her head circumference. Despite your feelings regarding internals, all concerns disappeared when we could suddenly see her face on the screen, with these pair of beautiful big lips opening and closing as she was swallowing the amniotic fluid! Just amazing! Oh, we cannot wait to meet her!

So I'm sure you've all picked up that we've decided to officially name BC as MC - Milea Cronje (pronounced ma' lea for those having difficulty). The Wikipedia explanation of Milea: A generous and compassionate person. In Hawaii, Milea means angel child variant of Mary, quiet and peaceful. I'm not making this up - go look for yourselves! And there are no famous people with Milea as their first name so she has a chance...! I went to YWAM with an American girl called Malia and have always loved the name. We wanted something different and unique which was my compromise in the English / Afrikaan name debate. Plus, did you notice how it rhymes with Cronje! I just love it!

I could not have been more spoilt recently when in the space of 2 days I was given 2 babyshowers! The first one just happened to fall on Mother's Day last Sunday which I thought was quite apt since I am 'technically' considered a mother. I also managed to convince Jaco that I qualify for a Mother's Day gift which was a desperately needed pair of slippers which were promptly packed into the hospital bag so I'll only get to wear them when I really AM a mom!

We invited about 30 of our Cape Town friends and family for a lovely picnic in the park where we served a brekkie of cupcakes, muffins, hot cross buns, fruit salad, yoghurt, croissants and lots of yummy things. Best of all, Milea was so pleased with all the cute additions to her wardrobe and baby products, which she cannot wait to start using.

I loved the game which my sister came up with. Everyone was given a piece of paper with parts of the body or attributes of personality that they had to decide whether Milea was going to inherit from her mom or dad. It was quite funny to hear who thought she should get her 'intelligence' from or her 'legs' from etc. Thankfully she seemed to get an equal mix from mom and dad!

We were also so glad to have the weather play along as we enjoyed a beautiful morning in the sunshine. Big kisses and hugs go to my special hubby and sister for organising everything!


Then the following day at work, the office surprised me with a party in the boardroom with lots of pressies and games including guessing how big my bump is. Some of the guys cut their string to fit around both my belly and theirs! I definitely shouldn't be asking them the touchy question of whether I look fat??!!? They were so generous considering I've only be there about 6 months. Milea was very excited to receive a moses basket which will be her second bed when we are out in the evenings or travelling. Talking of which, we booked a trip up to JHB to visit my parents on the 19th June. She would be less than a month old! EEEEK! Very brave move I think but I've heard its the best time to travel, the younger they are. So the moses basket will be her temporary home for a week and a half. It was quite funny having to choose a birth date for her when booking the ticket - since we haven't quite got there yet.....

So Jaco is in Nigeria again this week and I was told to 'knyp' until he gets back! Well it seems that Milea is very comfortable with this idea since I've not had a peep from her and daddy gets back today! I survived the 3 nights alone with most people worrying about me. Hopefully no more work trips until the end of June otherwise I'll have to put my foot down and institute a travel ban!