Hello Mama's,

This episode is one that has been requested for a long time and I know there are a lot of Mama's out there that will resonate with this journey.

At 30 weeks pregnant after a very smooth pregnancy, Jess experienced some bleeding in the evening and within 2 hours her baby boy Casey was born by a emergency c-section. Jess shares with us her families journey, we cover:

• what was going through her mind as she came to terms with the fact her baby was going to be born at 30 weeks
• what the cause of Casey being born so early was
• what happened in the moments after he was born
• how they shifted their mindset and stayed positive in the really hard times like having to leave Casey in the hospital and go home
• their feeding journey from tube feeding to mouth feeding to breast & bottle feeding
• what NICU was like; how much they visited, what milestones they had to hit, how long they spent there
• the highs and lows of her motherhood journey to date
• the transition from NICU to home
• advice to parents on a similar journey

Casey is now 9 months old and Jess shares with us what life is like for them now and how this experience while so tough, has made them all closer as a family and is a part of their story. I really loved this chat with Jess, she has such a positive outlook on what was an incredibly challenging time and it is so nice to hear that they are all thriving.

I also wanted to echo Jess's thanks to the amazing NICU nurses who really are angels who make such a challenging time for new parents bearable. And while we are at it, a big thank you to all Nurses and Midwifes who work long hours for in my opinion, not enough pay because of their love for caring for people.

I hope you love this episode, if you do if you could rate & review on Apple Podcasts here. It is also the last few days to nominate Bump to Mum for the Listeners Choice Award in the NZ Podcast Awards so if you have a couple of minutes to nominate, I would be very VERY grateful. You can nominate Bump to Mum here.

A big thank you for Jess for sharing her story and lots of love to the Mama's and Dad's out their on a similar journey.

Chat soon Mama's!