"BABY WAS COMING TOO EARLY AND WE WERE SO CONCERNED..."
Community donations ensured little baby CJ could get home to Wellington after being born nine weeks early.
The hospital couldn't halt the labour. Baby was going to be born, there was no stopping it. I was 31 weeks pregnant and had been visiting family in Christchurch.
With no time for drugs or gas for Mum, Cameron-Jayne Jeffrey was born at 7.16pm weighing just 2055g (4 lb 8 oz). This wasn't what Malcolm and I had planned - we hadn't even started antenatal classes!
CJ came out crying which we took as a good sign, but she needed specialist treatment in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) as she wasn't able to breathe on her own.
When CJ was four days old, her and I needed to be transferred to Wellington's NICU. Fortunately a Life Flight air ambulance team was able to get us there safely. That day I saw CJ outside of her incubator for the first time; she looked so small and fragile. The nurse placed CJ into her transport incubator and made sure she was safe and secure.
I was extremely emotional and cried during the whole flight, but I felt in good hands and knew the team were doing everything they could to look after CJ.
We were finally able to take CJ home from hospital when she was 32 days old. We felt so lucky to have had wonderful people look after our precious little girl. She is now three years old and continues to flourish. She is a happy, healthy, little girl.
We had always donated to The Life Flight Trust; never thinking we would need them to help us with our baby. Malcolm is a mountain biker and we assumed it would be him that may need rescuing one day! I ran the Auckland Half Marathon last year and raised $1800 for this awesome cause.
Thank you,
Kaye, Malcolm and CJ
Please click here to find out how you can help more babies like CJ have a chance at a healthy start in life.
