Luka's 1-week Birthday

Susan on forced R&R away from the nursery

As part of our elaborate birthing plans, we had intended to bake a cake for our baby on his or her actual birthing day.  The idea had been suggested to us by a dear friend and mother of three adorable boys in Dili who had done this for all of them.  Our plans were somewhat disrupted since the maternity ward at the Royal Darwin Hospital, does not come equipped with its own kitchen.  As such, and given the stress of the last seven days, we decided to celebrate Luka's first week in true Chris & Susan style.

The family one-week into this adventure

After spending an average of 10+ hours a day in the Special Care Nursery, we were finally in a frame of mind to take a few hours to ourselves.  Where did we go?  To the food store of course - leaving with a trolley full of fresh goodies, good cheeses, and baking supplies. This afternoon was spent in the kitchen of our rental home, baking cupcakes for Luka's first "birth"-day party.

For anyone interested in baking, these might actually have been the best chocolate cupcakes ever.  For the recipe, please visit here.  Not being fans of frosting, we simply melted good quality dark chocolate to spread as a topping before decorating.  We passed the cupcakes around the Special Care Nursery and the Birthing Suite where we birthed Luka a week ago - they were enjoyed by nurses, midwives and new mommies alike.

To scale.

Happy 1-week 'birth'-day Luka.

Update on Luka:

Today was a good day for us.  His second cranial ultrasound came back negative for hemorrhaging, after the first test came back inconclusive.  The volume of his feeds continues to be increased, he is now actually at 'full feeds' for his weight, and we are hoping he will now be growing fast.  Despite his initial weight loss from 1.777kg to 1.585kg in the first week, our boy has already grown 1.5cm.  His SBR numbers (jaundice-talk) continue to be slightly below the level requiring photo treatment, which allows us many more hours of cuddling instead of watching poor Luka bake under the light like a little chicken.