God is Gracious Baby Ceannas Story
by Guest Author
My name is Ceanna Jayden Loots and I was born on April 20, 2009 in Pindara Private Hospital on the Gold Coast. I weighed 3.14kg and was 46 cm long. My mummy and daddy had to go all the way from South Africa to New Zealand to meet each other. My mummy, Annelize Loots, was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. She lived in Robertsham until she immigrated to New Zealand with her parents, Hugo and Karin van Zyl in 1997. My daddy, Johnny Loots, was born in Kempton Park, South Africa. He lived in Ballito and Port Owen before he moved to New Zealand with his parents, Johann and Ursula Loots in 1999.
My mummy and daddy finally met in 2000 and got married on April 27, 2002. They had a beautiful traditional boere wedding on the north shore of Auckland and shared this special day with 250 guests.
In April 2003 they visited Australia and fell in love with the sunny Gold Coast. On their return to New Zealand they immediately started to make plans and in March 2004 their container was on its way to Brisbane. They also started to make plans to start a family, but they soon discovered that they needed the help of IVF technology. In 2008 my mummy and daddy saw a special doctor at Monash IVF and their IVF journey started.
It wasnt an easy journey, especially not for my mummy. She had to take a lot of pills, nasal spray and daily hormone injections, which she had to administer at home. It was too scary for mummy to do her own injections, so daddy had to help her.
After all the hormone treatment, they collected seven of my mummys eggs, five of which were fertilised using the ICSI method.
Only four embryos grew strong enough to transfer. On the big day of transferring the embryos back to mummys womb, mummy and daddy decided that they wanted to maximise their chance of success, possibly resulting in twins, by transferring two embryos back. I was the
only one that grew!
Mummy had to wait a whole two weeks before she coulddo a pregnancy test. She says the two week wait felt more like two years as she could not think about anything else.
Finally mummy did a pregnancy test and those long awaited two lines appeared in the window! Mummy could not believe her eyes and did another 10 tests over the next few days! The doctor confirmed mummys pregnancy with a blood test and later with an ultrasound, during which mummy and daddy heard my heart beat, which sounded like a galloping horse.
Mummy says that it was the best feeling in the world knowing that I was growing inside her! Mummys pregnancy progressed extremely well; she did not have morning sickness or any other ailments.
At 8.32am on April 20, 2009, after 37 weeks in my mummys tummy, I was born via Caesarean section. Mummy and daddy could hardly wait to meet me. Tears of joy streamed down their faces as the doctor lifted me up. I started crying because it was freezing cold after being warm and cosy. Daddy had the special task of cutting my umbilical cord. Mummy says its amazing that daddy did not faint!
Since my birth day, we have settled well at home. Mummy still cant believe that I am finally here and says that she will go through IVF again any day. It was not as difficult as she thought it was going to be. I still have a little brother or sister waiting for me in the doctors freezer and when I am a little bigger, mummy will go and see the special doctor again to get another baby.
My mummy and daddy chose very special names for me: Ceanna meaning God is Gracious and Jayden meaning God has heard.
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