I think Fin likes his anniversary present. Funnily enough, he gave me exactly the same thing.

Our baby girl arrived on Friday morning, just over six weeks early thanks to complications from the appendicitis. She's still being cared for in hospital but doing so well. I'm home and healing.

When Fin and I got married, my heart was light as air. Today it is full, heavy, bound completely to another tiny fluttering heart that is beating a couple of miles away from me. The last few weeks and days have been overwhelming in every way and I have no doubt I would have crumbled long ago if it weren't for Fin. After exactly four years of marriage, I have never felt as grateful to have him as my husband as I do at this moment. My daughter and I are two lucky girls.


MY DAUGHTER.


I think my heart just popped.

You know what's more fun than a kidney infection? A kidney infection that is not, in fact, a kidney infection but actually secret appendicitis! Wheee!

By the time I was rushed in for emergency surgery, after a month of feeling increasingly not so hot, my appendix was officially "obliterated". That's the word the consultant used in my notes. It was so far gone, he couldn't even find any bits of appendix left, just rampant infection as far as the eye could see. Of course, being a day shy of 31 weeks pregnant added a layer of spice to proceedings. The moment the doctor told us there was a significant risk the baby would need to be delivered while I was being operated on was memorable.

And yet, here we are, nearly two weeks later. One appendix out, one baby still in. It's a sturdy little thing, it seems. Its mother, not so much.

I'm beginning to feel like the punchline of some great cosmic joke. Losing a parent in pregnancy isn't enough, I have to lose a random internal organ as well? Can't I just get fat ankles and haemorrhoids like any normal pregnant person?

Hopefully this will be my last unsolicited medical update for you, and normal service consisting of meandering rants, impractical shoes and dogs in silly hats will resume shortly. At some point, there may even be a baby. There bloody better be, after all this.


Panni Malekzadeh, 'Feelings', 2012 via The Morning News