19 weeks

19 weeks, wow how time flys when you are having fun!!

I can't believe Mackenzie is 19 weeks old already, sometimes it feels like time is passing too quick but I am very lucky that I get to be a stay at home mum until December.

Mackenzie is still a dream baby, she is still sleeping through the night, she has her last feed at 6.30pm and then we don''t hear a peep from her until about 7am. We have recently started giving her solids, what a fun stage this is, it is so funny to watch their facial expression when tasting something new for the first time!! So far she loves pears, apples and sweet potato that I have cooked and I have tried her on some organic shop bought food too and geez some of the flavours are just plain weird but so far she likes everything.

We saw the paediatrician for her 3 month check up 5 weeks ago and he was so shocked at how big she is and was pleasantly surprised at how advanced her development is, I am totally taking credit for it!!

Her stats at 14 weeks were
Weight: 7kg
Length: 64.5cm

We took her to have her 4 month shots but she had a slight temperature due to teething, no teeth yet but they must be coming, she has the rosiest cheeks and drooling like there is no tomorrow. So we decided to wait until I get back from Melbourne to do them.

So Mackenzie and I are in Melbourne as we speak or blog, we arrived yesterday arvo and we are here for the Surrogacy Australia Conference. They flight from Perth was great, I used my points to fly business class, we both totally are getting used to this level of comfort while travelling!!

We are staying just around the corner from the Rydges where the conference is being held which starts tomorrow, Dr Shivani is speaking, so hopefully I will get a chance to say Hi and show her how big our girl has gotten. There are a lot of other guest speakers from other countries that have surrogacy programs and also people talking about their journeys to create their families. Here is a link to the Surrogacy Australia website with details about the conference.

I want to say congratulations to all those in blogland whose babies have arrived, there has been a baby boom in blogland recently and to those who have had positive betas and heartbeat ultrasounds congrats also.

My heart aches for those who haven't had good news, my only advice is to never give up, it was this time last year on the 20th May that we had received the most amazing news that our surrogate Jyoti was pregnant and here we are today with a beautiful, healthy little girl, miracles do happen!

Now for some pics of our princess and I promise to be a better blogger and post regular updates!!

Our Easter Bunny

Easter Bunnies

Loving the attention

Cute hat that Aunty Janis made

Mackenzie and her cousin Bailee

Out to breakfast with the girls

Long overdue update

It's hard to believe that it has been nearly 5 weeks since I last posted an update. Bad blogger!!

We have now got Mackenzie into a good routine, she is 10 weeks tomorrow and has been sleeping through the night for nearly 2 weeks, not that she was a bad sleeper before but it is awesome not having to get up for the middle of the night feed especially since Mark is away at work for a week and then home for a week.

Mackenzie is growing like a weed, there is no stopping that girl!! We have been to see the paediatrician to have to repeat blood test to check her thyroid and it all came back fine. Our paediatrician was in awe of our journey, he has had surrogacy patients before but never any overseas. He asked lots of questions and made mention how highly trained the doctors are from India, of course we are already knew that. We chatted with him for nearly an hour, he is a really nice guy and we will continue to take Mackenzie to him for milestone checks.

Mackenzie has also had her 8 week vaccinations, we had an small delay in getting them done though, on the day I went in she had a slight temperature and the GP was concerned that maybe she had a UTI or virus, I was pretty sure that she was just hot as it was 35 degrees outside but better to be safe than sorry, so after getting a wee sample and sending it off to the lab, waiting for a day and half for the results we went back, everything was fine and the GP sprung it on me that we may as well do the vaccinations then and there!!! Now most of you have probably read posts about my phobia of needles, I know it wasn't me who was getting jabbed but I still needed to mentally prepare, not today!!

So went went to the treatment room and the nurse ran through the different things that she would be vaccinating for and reactions, then 1 oral and 2 injectable vaccinations later and we were done. Mackenzie cried for about 3 secs and went back to sleep, I felt like I needed to go home and have a drink! She had a slight fever later that night but apart from that she didn't skip a beat.

Here are Mackenzie's stats:
Birth Weight: 3.51kg
Birth Length: 50cm

9 weeks Weight: 6kg
9 weeks Length: 59cm

She had outgrown all of the clothes we bought in India and she is making short work of the clothes she received as gifts too. She is such a happy baby, she started smiling around 6 weeks and her face lights up when she sees us, it truly melts your heart. I can't believe she is 10 weeks tomorrow, time is going too quickly!! I said to Mark the other day that she will be in high school before we know it.

Now what you have all been waiting for, so pics of our girl, enjoy!

All dressed up for her first party

I think she was almost laughing

Cute as a button!

She started out being swaddled but wiggled her way down and this is how I found her in the morning!

Sleeping beauty

The latest pic taken a couple of days ago

Happy Birthday!!

To me!!!!! So today is my birthday, yes I am one of the lucky ones born on the day of love!!

So we have been home for nearly 2 weeks and I have once again been a bad blogger. Well we did finally receive Mackenzie's exit visa but had some delays in getting it. I can say it was certainly a different experience going to the MHA and FRRO but all worth when we got the green light to leave. Before we left we made a special trip to the SCI offices to see our wonderful surrogate Jyoti and also to say goodbye to the SCI staff and Dr Shivani. Jyoti was very happy to meet Mackenzie and she looked very proud to see the family she helped create, it was very emotional and a day that we will never forget. We also got to thank Dr Shivani, without her skill and expertise we wouldn't have Mackenzie and for that we will be forever grateful.

We flew business class all the way home with Malaysian Airlines and it was the best!! I told Mark that this is how I want to travel all the time, hmmm we will have to see how that pans out not sure he is on board with it yet. Mackenzie was a good girl the whole way home and she totally enjoyed business class too, she pretty much slept the whole time.

We arrived in Perth at 3pm and were greeted by our families and friends, it was such a welcome sight to see familiar faces that we had missed for the last 5 weeks. Of course everyone just wanted to see Mackenzie!! But I guess as most parents know people don't really come to see them.

We have had a busy couple of weeks, catching up with all our friends and showing off our little princess, everyone thinks she is gorgeous and all marvel in the wonder of medicine and technology used to create our miracle. Mackenzie continues to be a dream baby, she is sleeping 2 - 3 hours in between feeds during the day and only wakes once during the night so we are very lucky, hope I don't jinx myself!!

We took her to our local GP today for a weigh in and also to get a referral to see a paediatrician to have the repeat blood tests done.  The Dr said she is a picture of health and now weighs 4.85kg or around 10lbs 11oz!! She has gained, 1.34kg since she was born 5 weeks ago.  So we have been asked if we will be getting on this crazy ride to parenthood again, well we most definitely will be planning to give Mackenzie a sibling or 2 in a couple of years.

Now for some photo's before leaving, of our arrival and pics we have taken since we have been home, enjoy!

Our serious girl

Our first family pic

Dr Shivani and 3 of us

My Nan with her 2 great grand-daughters

Nan - Mark's Mum

Nanna - My Mum

My Nan and my very excited niece Bailee

First smile maybe??

My proud niece Bailee and Mackenzie

Our Princess

Our sleeping beauty

Our little Aussie

Happy Australia Day to all our fellow Aussies, Mackenzie officially became an Aussie yesterday!!

While we were there collecting her citizenship certificate we also lodged her passport application, since it is a public holiday in India and also one in Australia today we won't be able to collect her passport until Friday afternoon. The next step is an appointment with the MHA, then an appointment with the FRRO to complete the exit visa, both of these will be done on Monday and we will collect Mackenzie's passport with exit visa and then we are free to go!! We have booked our flight home for Tuesday night and will arrive in Perth at 3pm on Wednesday!!

Here is a pic of our little Vegemite!

Day 10 - 15

So we finally have some progress with the exit process, we received an email from our lab in Australia early this morning saying they had sent the DNA results to the Australian High Commission!!!! This is probably the biggest hurdle to overcome, from here things move pretty quickly except there is a public holiday in India on Thursday as well so that will delay us.

The exit process appears to have become more streamline now which is great, fingers crossed we can collect Mackenzie's citizenship certificate and submit her passport application this afternoon. We will call the AHC just before they close on the off chance the have started processing her passport and we will try and get her passport number, from there we can have Poonam arrange an appointment for Friday to see the MHA and FRRO. Both of these can now be done on the same day. If by chance all of those things fall into place we may be able to collect her passport and exit visa on Saturday and fly out Saturday night and be back home in Perth Sunday afternoon. If it doesn't work out that way then we will probably be home Tuesday.

We have enlisted Poonam to help with the citizenship process and the exit visa, she is worth her weight in gold, she knows her stuff and has 24 years experience in the embassies so it is definitely worth hiring her to help expedite the process. Who knows how long we would've taken to get out if we didn't use her.

We took Mackenzie back to see Dr Tandon on Saturday for her check up and she has put on the 200grams she lost after she was born plus another 100grams. Dr Tandon is amazing, wish we would take him back to Australia with us. Two days later we were back at Spring Meadows, poor Mackenzie has caught my cold, she is quite congested but thankfully it is just in her nose. Dr Tandon gave her a thorough check over and gave us a lesson on how to suction out her nose. She is not a fan of the suction I can tell you but it is working. He also prescribed 2 types of drops to help settle things down. Did I mention how much we LOVE Dr Tandon.

So Mark and I have gone a little crazy with buying stuff for Mackenzie, she now has more clothes here than we do and we might have to buy another suitcase to put it all in. Our little princess will be coming home in style, we have managed to get business class tickets with Malaysian Airlines really cheap, when I did a search for tickets on Zuji, they were the second cheapest of ALL tickets. I can't wait, I am so looking forward to lapping up the luxury of business class, I don't even care if we get a bassinet,just to have the extra room and luggage allowance will be awesome!! I have only flown business class once and that was an internal flight in China that was 1 hour and 25 minutes but I tell you I loved every minute of it.

Hope everyone back home is staying cool, Perth is experiencing a horrendous heat wave, I think Mum said it was the worst one since February 1978, but what a great year it was! Not sure Mum thought so since she was 9 months pregnant with me.

I hopefully will update again tonight with more good news!

Her some new pics of our girl!

Sleeping Beauty

Snugging up to the toy Daddy bought her

Milk Drunk!

Day 5 - 9

I know I know, I am a terrible blogger!! Apologies to those who have been concerned. Well not has happened in the last few days, we had a bit of a hold up with some documents so we had to wait to schedule our DNA test appointment until tomorrow (Friday). We have an appointment at 11am to see the panel doctor to take the DNA sample from Mark and Mackenzie and then we head to the Australian High Commission to submit the application for citizenship by descent, fingers crossed we may able to leave Delhi Friday 27th January.

Mackenzie continues to eat, sleep and poop. We still have to wake her for her feeds which are now 4 hourly and she is taking anywhere from 90 - 120mls each feed. She goes back to see Dr Tandon on Saturday so it will be interesting to see if she has gained any weight back yet. Her umbilical cord fell of last night so she had her first real bath this morning and I think she liked it, she didn't cry until we took her out and she started to get cold. We will see what she makes of the next one.

Mark, myself, Amanda and Neil (and the babies of course) went to the Moti Deluxe Mohal across from Svelte on Tuesday for dinner and it was delicious. We had Butter Chicken, Chicken Jalfrez and Rogan Josh with Rice and Garlic Naan. I highly recommend it! Last night Mark, Mackenzie and I went to the Urban Cafe which is also across the road from Svelte, I had the most amazing Fillet Steak that I have had in a long time, we got there pretty early to avoid any delays and also they allow Shisha's to be smoked inside, thankfully we had the whole restaurant to ourselves for the most part.

Here are some new pics of Mackenzie

Daddy's Princess

Sleeping baby, good baby

Getting ready to skype the family in Australia

First bath

After the bath, her hands and feet were a tad blue

Post bath - Snug as a bug in a rug!

Having a siesta with Mummy

Praying that Mummy and Daddy stop taking photos when I'm asleep!

Day 4

Mackenzie had her check up today with Dr Tandon. He was very happy with how she was doing, she has only lost 200 grams she was born and he ordered some blood tests to check her thyroid function, blood type and her bilirubin levels to check for jaundice. Thankfully this time it wasn't as bad for us and Mackenzie sailed through the needle again.


We only had to wait an hour to get the bilirubin levels back, Dr Tandon was confident just by looking at Mackenzie that she didn't have jaundice but he said he needed to check and he was right no sign of her bilirubin levels being elevated. We will get the results of the other tests when we go back to see him next Saturday.


Now for some pics.

Day 2

Bundled up like a burrito, ready to go home

Packed up safe and sound for the ride to the hotel

Finally home!


More pics to come soon!

Update Day 1 - 3

Sorry for the delay in posting an update, who knew a little person took up so much time!! So Mackenzie was released from hospital 24 hours after she was born but not without giving Mum & Dad some worry!!


So back to Tuesday, after Mackenzie was born we stayed with her for 3 or 4 hours and then went to SCI to start the birth certificate process with Rachna we told the nursery sisters we would be back from more cuddles before we went back to our hotel, so we got back to the hospital around 5.30pm, Mackenzie's bassinet was at the front window and we noticed that she was undressed and back on the monitors, the Senior Paediatrician saw us and came out to have a chat, he asked us to take a seat (never a good feeling) they had noticed an unusual "noise" and had decided that they needed to put her back on the monitors and see if they could work out what it was but told us not too worry and to come back tomorrow morning between 10.30 and 11am as they expected to discharge then, so we get to the hospital on Wednesday morning and Mackenzie is still hooked up to the monitors, there was a moment of panic wondering what was going then both the Senior and Junior Paediatricians came out, my heart sank.


They had been observing Mackenzie during the night and had noticed that she wasn't as active as she should be, she also has a slight blue tinge on her legs and blue soles of her feet (I'm was feeling sick to the stomach at this stage) and they also noted that the rest of her body was quite red and mottled, I think they could see that Mark and I had a look of panic on our faces and quickly reassured us that it could be just one of things that newborns do. But on a good note she was feeding really well and they said was a really good sign.


So the plan of attack was to take blood samples to check for infection and also blood gases to make sure she had enough oxygen in her blood and also send of a sample for blood cultures. We waited a couple of hours as they had other mums in there delivering babies, so when the coast was clear they set up to take the blood, now I don't like needles myself and I didn't think I could watch them take blood from our baby, thankfully the nursed shut the curtain so we couldn't see her but we could hear her and boy did she make it clear to everyone that she did not like it one bit. Thank goodness babies recover quicker than their parents!! Within a couple of minutes they opened the curtain and she was sound asleep, I was still feeling sick from hearing her screaming!


They told us some tests would be back within a couple of hours but cultures take 72 hours. They suspected that the blueness on her legs and feet was probably from her heart adjusting to beating on the outside, sometimes it can take 24 - 48 hours to pump good oxygenated blood to the extremities but they were a little more concerned with her not being active and her red mottled skin. After a couple of hours of being there she started to perk up and her feet we nice and pink so they took her off the monitors, dressed her and brought her out to us for cuddles, it was an instant relief seeing her taken off everything.


The bloods tests all came back normal, with no sign of infection and good blood gases!! So then the decision was do they discharge her Wednesday night or Thursday morning, lucky for us they decide to discharge her that afternoon, so we had to sit in the Labour & Delivery lounge for 4 or so hours with the nurses giving us baby care lesson and instructions on things to watch out for, finally around 5.30pm we were free to leave as a new family.

The drive home was uneventful but noisy as it always is in Delhi with everyone using their horns but Mackenzie slept the whole way home and Mr Singh was very cautious and constantly turning around to check on her, it was very sweet.

Our first night was ok, she slept and ate every 3 hours and apart from the usual fears that first time parents have ie. are they still breathing, am I doing this right, even I got some sleep. We have only ventured out with her a couple of times, she had her first play date today with Amanda, Neil and Cadeon from Perth also, we had lunch at Hard Rock Cafe, YUM BEEF!!!!

Tomorrow we have to go back and see Dr Tandon who is the senior Paediatrician for some blood tests and a weigh in then we are off to SCI office to pick up Mackenzie's birth certificate. At 2pm we have got the photographer coming to take her passport photos and then we can get the ball rolling on Project Exit India!

Mark and I want to thank everyone for their comments on our blog and Facebook (We finally told FB what we have been up to for the last year)

Unfortunately we are having some technical issues uploading photo's but I will try again tomorrow.

It's a.........................

GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mark and I are very proud to introduce Mackenzie Jean Leddin, born 10th January 2012 at 14.05 Delhi time, weighing in at 3.51kg!! None of this would've been possible without Dr Shivani and the Staff at SCI and of course our amazing surrogate Jyoti, who we are eternally grateful to and wish her a speedy recovery.

I will post more pics tomorrow when we have her back with us at the hotel, here's a sneak peek at our little miracle.



37 weeks and 3 days and tomorrow is the day

So we went to see the scan today and it was amazing!! Everything was so clear, Dr Jolly spent 20 minutes or so explaining the different things he was looking at, we got to hear the heartbeat which was awesome. He then moved on to taking measurements, Head circumference 32.7cm, Abdominal circumference 35.8cm and then the big one, estimated fetal weight 3.94kgs!!!!!! OMG, poor Jyoti! She looks very big and uncomfortable.

37 weeks and 3 days

So the decision has been made that tomorrow (10th) will be our baby's birthday, c section is scheduled for 1pm Delhi time and we will be sure to post a blog update asap with all the details.

Here is a 3D shot from today, the baby had his/her hands up around the face the whole time so it was hard for Dr Jolly to get a good pic, Enjoy!