Kamaleah's story
29 weeks, 769 grams
Kamaleah was born at 29 weeks gestation, via caesarean. This was due to her restricted growth. My partner and I found this out when we went in for what we thought would be a normal scan. However, it showed that she hadn’t gained any weight since our last scan.
From then on, everything seemed to happen very quickly. Within three hours, my partner and I were put on a plane to Wellington, as the Dunedin NICU was full. Our midwife came along with us and upon our arrival into Wellington I was taken to the hospital. I was admitted and monitored overnight, while my partner stayed at Ronald McDonald House.
The next day I was given a caesarean and our baby girl Kamaleah was born. She weighed only 769 grams, I couldn’t believe she could be so tiny!
The first few days were a blur as I was on pain relief. Kamaleah and I had our first cuddle when she was three days old. It felt wonderful to be able to hold my little girl for the first time.
I was discharged from the hospital five days after giving birth and I joined my partner at Ronald McDonald House, what a beautiful place! 
Kamaleah was a fighter and once she began her feeds, she started gaining weight really well. I, however, had a very rough recovery process. It was 14 weeks of pain. I had three hematomas and on the first night out of the hospital, I woke up in a pool of blood. I was so sore.
We went home to Dunedin two and a half weeks after Kamaleah’s birth. My partner had a separate flight, while the nurse and I flew home with Kamaleah. It was a bumpy flight to say the least!
Kamaleah had a slight liver problem to begin with, but has since had the all clear. She stayed in the NICU for three months in total.
She is now a happy one year old, weighing 8 kgs and is nearly walking!
Thanks so much for sharing your personal story!
We get a lot of positive feedback from families in a neonatal unit who read these stories and feel strength, hope and positivity knowing that they are not alone going through these experiences and feeling certain emotions.
If you would like to discuss sharing the story of your neonatal journey, we’d love to hear from you.
Support Us
If you want to help our support of families going through the stress and anxiety of a neonatal journey, you can donate via the link below.
- The Little Miracles Trust provides support to families of premature or sick full-term babies as they make their journey through Neonatal Intensive Care, the transition home, and onwards. We do not receive any Government funding and are entirely reliant on the generosity of individuals, companies and organisations in the form of donations, value-in-kind donations, grants, sponsorship and fundraising events to supplement operating costs and fund our services and initiatives.
- As we are a registered charity (CC56619) with Charities Services New Zealand we will send you an IRD compliant tax receipt – this will happen automatically by return email.