Aaliyah's Birthday

With Aaliyahs birthday approaching, I find myself going back to the day of her birth, and the days that shortly followed.

Most people look back at the birth of their children and smile, that even through the pain they were handed this precious little bundle to love. I dont. I look back and remember the anxiety, the pain, the uncertainty. It was nothing short of horrific.

I will never forget the look on my mums face when she was born, a look of sheer horror. The room went from being calm to a frenzy of what seemed like a million people.
I remember asking if Aaliyah was ok, when no one else replied, my mum said "of course she is sweetheart". What i didnt know at the time was that mum really had no idea if she was fine or not, she just didnt have the courage to tell her daughter that the child she had just laboured 50 plus hours for was dead. ?they eventually got a whimper out of her and she was whisked away to NICU, leaving me to be pieced back together. It took them over 3 hours. They wheeled me to see her but I was too sick and passed out. It was another 24 hours before I would see my baby.

My recovery was horrible. Months of doctors visits, physios and even another hospital stay. But nothing can compare to my emotional recovery.

When Jose discovered her little ear, they quickly pointed out that there could be many other defects too. Kidney failure and Heart Problems were the first to be mentioned. We were devastated. I felt like a failure.

The first few months of Aaliyah's life were spent going in and out of hospital. We were told that she would have kidney problems, heart problems, eye sight issues, growth issues and could be retarded.

She would need therapy, hearing aids and on and on and on it went.

Our hearts ached. Jose was in denial, I just about had a melt down.

Its interesting looking back now, seeing how far she has come, indeed how far we all have come. She has defied the doctors. Through all the tests, everything came back perfect. No kidney issues, no heart issues and certaintly not mental retardation. She has excelled in so many ways. She is a fighter our little Aaliyah is. Her speech and language test at least a year above what she should be. She is a social butterfly. The cheekiest little muffin that their ever was.

I look back at her birthday with mixed emotions, heartbreak for what might have been and absolute pride. She has proved them all wrong, from the child that was born with out a heart beat, to a little girl full of life. She makes all those around her smile.

In some ways I am glad that this is the path we have to walk. My faith in humanity and the spirit of kindness has been restored. Its been downright hard, but it has made us who we are today. It has made Aaliyah who she is today. We are stronger, she is stronger. I couldnt imagine her any other way. A bright, bubbly bundle of energy with killer curls. My heart aches with love for her.


I would go through it all again in a heartbeat if I had to, because our little Aaliyah, well she makes it all worth while.

Happy birthday for Wednesday little princess, Mummy and Daddy love you to the moon and back. xxxxx

It has been nearly 2 years since that bittersweet day.

Market stall

New banner, with slogan!!! Thanks Jose

Clips at our little stall

Part of our stall

Aaliyah at the Hear and Say play group

We had a very successful market stall on sunday, raising nearly $900 with a few more payments still pending (which should bring our total to around the $1000 mark).

There are a few people that I would like to publicly thank for their help, in no particular order:

Jose - designing our banner and business cards

Janine - for your sewing skill and your dedication

Pip - for printing out our tags, and allowing us to take over your house in our market prep frenzy

Sandra - for watching miss Aaliyah for a few days so that I could focus on preparing

Bec- chief babysitter of miss H on the day

Jess- for making clips, spreading the word and helping man the stall on the day

Heidi and Petter - without your support, and spruking of our stall it would not have been a success (Petter was also the lucky winner of our raffle), and heidi for your clip making skills

Nicola - thanks for helping with the decorations, the stall and for clip making

Hilary - For helping assemble our tags, Hilary is currently raising money for canteen by doing the kokoda trail next april, support her by visiting her site www.everydayheroes.com/hiking4heroes

Diana Hurman and Diane - Thank you for your wonderful sewing skill and contributing SOOOOO much to our stand

Alicia - for selling chocolates for us at your lolly stand

Merlo Coffee for the wonderful hamper that you donated that we were then able to raffle!!!

Im sure that there are a billion more people that I need to thank but that list will have to do for now.

We have also gotten business cards printed, if you would like one (or 10) email me at amyjperdomo@hotmail.com, your address so that I can send you some!

We are so excited at how thing are going and looking forward to an even bigger and more successful 2012.

Now onto a completely different note. Aaliyah attended the Hear and Say playgroup break up. The media were there, so chances are her photo will pop up somewhere. RACQ care flight donated Christmas teddy bears for all of the children as well as a book. A lot of the supporters of the Hear and Say centre were there so it was a very big and busy day. If you are a fan of the hear and say facebook page, you will notice that Aaliyahs photo is featured. Aaliyah was a bit overwhelmed that day as it was very busy and there was a lot of noise, something that children with hearing impairment struggle with.

We are noticing more and more Aaliyah's struggle with directional hearing, further cementing that we have made the decision to correct her hearing loss by going to America to get the atresia repair.

Aaliyah has also had trouble keeping her sunglasses on, she gets very frustrated that they do not stay on straight. We cannot wait until she has her new ear and she can wear her sunnies with no issue.