tough gig

It's a really really tough gig being born early. Willow Iris Houston bought tears of joy for Johanna and Luke and the rest of our family on Wednesday 10th June, about 6 weeks before we were expecting. It's impossible to imagine what it's like learning to breath and digest when your little body would prefer to still be snuggled up in the womb. So much beautifulness and vulnerability. So much tenderness and strength. So much love.

It's a really tough gig being a parent to a 'premmie.' For nine months you imagine and dream, you plan and anticipate, you design and create. And then the experience of birth and the environment in which you spend your first weeks as a parent is as different to what you'd anticipated as possible. How can you hold so much love and grief at the same time?

It's a tough gig being a grandparent to a premmie in the midst of a pandemic. We've run on adrenalin for a week now, having packed up and driven for two long days to get onto Bundjalung country (Lismore) to park our caravan in an unremarkable park near the hospital where Johanna, Luke and Willow are holed up. Our job is to support Luke and Johanna with practical stuff and nutritious food. But we won't get to meet our little Willow for a while yet.