We had Micah’s final (1yr corrected age) check-up at the hospital this morning.
The doctor was very pleased with his progress and pronounced him a normal 1 year old baby. He didn’t see any need for us to get referral letters for any specialist follow-up in London.
There was a medical student sitting in on the consultation and the doctor was telling her how 20ish years ago a baby like Micah, born 10 weeks early, would have had less than 20% chance of survival. To go from that to being indistinguishable from other babies at 1 year old is a pretty awesome advance in medical technology, and apparently much of the research and pioneering improvements in premature care happened in NZ!
I was looking back at our photos of Micah’s first minutes the other day, just to remind myself how far our little boy has come. The tiny fragile looking baby in a plastic bag and then an incubator is now a bouncy, energetic bundle of excitement and love, days or weeks away from taking his first independent steps.
We’re very proud of him, and very thankful to be living in a time and place where we have access to the (free!) medical knowledge, expertise and care that gave him such a strong start to his life.